“They will not fire!  They dare not!” he was shrieking, as he dashed back and forth along the dock.  “It is chance!  They do not come for Chase!  Believe in me!  The tug!  The tug!  They must not land!” But others were raging even more wildly than he, and they were calling upon Allah for help, for mercy; they were shrieking maledictions upon themselves and screaming praises to the sinister thing of death that glowered upon them from its spaceless lair.

The crash of the long-unused six-pounder at the chateau, followed almost immediately by a great roar from one of the cruiser’s guns, brought the panic to a crisis.

The islanders scattered like chaff before the wind, looking wild-eyed over their shoulders in dread of the pursuing cannon-ball, dodging in and out among the houses and off into the foothills.

Rasula, undaunted but crazed with disappointment, stuck to his colours on the deserted dock.  He cursed and raved and begged.  In time, two or three of the more canny, realising that safety lay in an early peace offering, ventured out beside him.  Others followed their example and still others slunk trembling to the fore, their voices ready to protest innocence and friendship and loyalty.

They had heard of the merciless American gunner and they knew, in their souls, that he could shoot the island into atoms before nightfall.

The native lawyer harangued them and cursed them and at last brought them to understand, in a feeble way, that no harm could come to them if they faced the situation boldly.  The Americans would not land on British soil; it would precipitate war with England.  They would not dare to attempt a bombardment:  Chase was a liar, a mountebank, a dog!  After shouting himself hoarse in his frenzy of despair, he finally succeeded in forcing the men to get up steam in the company’s tug.  All this time, the officers of the American warship were dividing their attention between land and sea.  Another vessel was coming up out of the misty horizon.  The men on board knew it to be a British man-of-war!  At last steam was up in the tug.  A hundred or more of the islanders had ventured from their hiding places and were again huddled upon the dock.

Suddenly the throng separated as if by magic, opening a narrow path down which three white men approached the startled Rasula.  A hundred eager hands were extended, a hundred voices cried out for mercy, a hundred Mohammedans beat their heads in abject submission.

Hollingsworth Chase, Lord Deppingham and a familiar figure in an ill-fitting red jacket and forage cap strode firmly, defiantly between the rows of humble Japatites.  Close behind them came a tall, resolute grenadier of the Rapp-Thorberg army.

“Make way there, make way!” Mr. Bowles was crying, brandishing the antique broadsword that had come down to Wyckholme from the dark ages.  “Stand aside for the British Government!  Make way for the American!”