There was something very like a panic down by the waterside, three hundred yards away from the house.  It needed all Anazeh’s authority to straighten matters out.  There were divided counsels; and the raiders were working at a disadvantage in total darkness; the shadow of the hills fell just beyond the stern of the boats as they lay with their bows ashore.

They had already forced Ahmed into his own motor-boat, where he was struggling vainly to crank a cold engine.  Some of the others were trying to push off a boat full of bleating sheep.  One man was carrying a fat sheep in his arms toward the motor-boat, splashing knee-deep in the water and shouting advice to everybody else, and in the end that was the only piece of plunder they got away with.  Suddenly one man, who had been left behind to keep a look-out, came leaping like a ghost among the shadows, shouting the one word “askeri!” (Soldiers!) He jumped straight into the motor-boat.  Anazeh bullied all the rest in after him.  I climbed in over the bow.  By that time you could not have crowded in one more passenger with the aid of a battering ram.

“Yalla!” barked Anazeh.  But the engine would not start.  Blood-curdling threats were hurled at the unhappy Ahmed.  Some e of the men got into the water and began to shove off, as if the engine could be encouraged by collaboration.

I was just as keen to escape as any one.  I could not imagine a Sikh or subaltern stupid enough to believe me innocent.  It was a military government.  Soldiers have a drum-head method of leaving nothing to discuss except where the corpse is to be buried.

I forced my way aft—­got some gasoline out of the tank into a tin cup—­thrust aside Ahmed and two other men—­and primed the engine liberally.  The engine coughed next time they moved the wheel, and in thirty seconds more we had it going.  Ahmed came in for a volley of mockery for having to be shown the way to start his engine; but from the sour way he looked at me I was nearly sure he had stalled deliberately.

We backed away from shore, and Anazeh steered the boat’s nose eastward.  Then somebody at the reversing lever threw it forward too suddenly, and the still chilled engine stopped.  It took about another minute to restart it.  We were just beginning to gain speed when some one shouted.  All eyes turned toward the shore, the overloaded boat rocking dangerously as the crowd bent their bodies all in one direction together.

Down near the shore-line an electric torch flashed on the uniforms of half-a-dozen Sikhs, and we could hear an unmistakably British voice shouting an order.

We were out in the moonlight now, a perfect target.  Bullets chanced at us could hardly fail to hit somebody.  Two or three well-placed shots might sink us.  But Anazeh had presence of mind.  He changed helm, so as to present us end-on to the shore.  Low in the water though the boat was, we were beginning to make good headway.