Yet he could do nothing.  He dared not order the men in the gallivat to cease rowing; he dared not leave the helm of the grab; he could but wait and hold his post.  It would not be long before he knew whether the vessel had been seriously hit:  if it was so, then would be the time to cast off the tow rope.

The gallivat, at any rate, appeared not to have suffered.  Desmond was beginning to think he was out of the wood when he heard a crash in front, followed by a still more ominous sound.  The motion of the gallivat at once ceased, and, the grab slowly creeping up to her, Desmond had to put his helm hard up to avoid a collision.  He could hear the Gujarati raging and storming on deck, and cries as of men in pain; then, as the grab came abreast of the smaller vessel, he became aware of what had happened.  The mainmast of the gallivat had been struck by a shot and had gone by the board.

Desmond hailed the Gujarati and told him to get three or four men to cut away the wreckage.

“Keep an eye on the prisoners,” he added, feeling that this was perhaps the most serious element in a serious situation; for with round shot flying about the vessel it might well have seemed to the unhappy men on the rowing benches that mutiny was the lesser of two risks.  But the rowers were cowed by the presence of the two Biluchis armed with their terrible knives, and they crowded in dumb helplessness while the tangled rigging was cut away.

“Is any one hurt?” asked Desmond.

“One of the rowers has a broken arm, sahib,” replied Shaik Abdullah.

“And I have a contusion of the nose,” said the Babu lugubriously.

It was impossible to do anything for the sufferers at the moment.  It was still touch-and-go with the whole party.  The shots from the fort were now beginning to fall short, but, for all Desmond knew, boats might have been launched in pursuit, and if he was overtaken it meant lingering torture and a fearful death.  He was in a fever of impatience until at length, the tangled shrouds having been cut away, the rowing was resumed and the two vessels began again to creep slowly seaward.

Gradually they drew out of range of the guns.  Steering straight out to sea, Desmond had a clear view of the whole of the harbor and a long stretch of the river.  The scene was brightly lit up, and he saw that two of the gallivats had been towed away from the burning vessels, from which the flames were now shooting high into the air.  But even on the two that had been cut loose there were spurts of flame; and Desmond hoped that they had sustained enough damage to make them unseaworthy.

Suddenly there were two loud explosions, in quick succession.  A column of fire rose toward the sky from the gallivats that were blazing most brightly.  The fire had at length reached the ammunition.  The red sparks sprang upwards like a fountain, casting a ruddy glow for many yards around; then they fell back into the sea, and all was darkness, except for the lesser lights from the burning vessels whose magazines had as yet escaped.  The explosions could hardly have occurred at a more opportune moment, for the darkness was now all the more intense, and favored the fugitives.