“Quick!  Fire on him!” shouted some one.  “Let him not escape!  Kill him before he is out of range!”

I never knew which trooper it was who raised that cry, although I went to some trouble to discover afterward.  But I heard Gooja Singh laugh like a hyena; and I heard the click of cartridges being thrust into magazines.  I was half minded to let them shoot, hoping they might hit Tugendheim.  But the Turk freed his arms at last, and began struggling.

“Look!” he said to me in English.  “Voila!” said he in French.  “REGARDEZ!  Look—­see!”

I did look, and I saw enough to make me make swift decision.  The light was nearer to the water—­quite a lot nearer.  I flung myself on the nearest trooper, whose rifle was already raised, and taken by surprise he loosed his weapon.  With it I beat the next ten men’s rifles down, and they clattered on the beach.  That made the others pause and look at me.

“The man who fires the first shot dies!” said I, striving to make the breath come evenly between my teeth for sake of dignity, yet with none too great success.  But in the principal matter I was successful, for they left their alignment and clustered round to argue with me.  At that I refused to have speech with them until they should have fallen in again, as befitted soldiers.  Falling in took time, especially as they did it sulkily; and when the noise of shifting feet was finished I heard oars thumping in the oar-locks.

A boat grounded amid the surf, and Ranjoor Singh jumped out of it, followed by Tugendheim and his four guards.  The boat’s crew leaped into the water and hauled the boat high and dry, and as they did that I saw the ship’s lantern disappear altogether.

Ranjoor Singh went straight to the Turkish captain.  “Your money,” said he, speaking in English slowly—­I wonder, sahib, oh, I have wondered a thousand times in what medley of tongues strange to all of them they had done their bargaining!—­“Your money,” said he, “is in the boat in which I came.  Take it, and take your men, and go!”

The captain and his crew said nothing, but got into the boats and pushed away.  One of the boats was overturned in the surf, and there they left it, the sailors scrambling into the other boats.  They were out of sight and sound in two minutes.  Then Ranjoor Singh turned to me.

“Send and gather fire-wood!” he ordered.

“Where shall dry wood be in all this rain?” said I.

“Search!” said he.

“Sahib,” said I, “a fire would only betray our whereabouts.”

“Are you deaf?” said he.

“Nay!” I said.

“Then obey!” said he.  So I took twenty men, and we went stumbling through rain and darkness, hunting for what none of us believed was anywhere.  Yet within fifteen minutes we found a hut whose roof was intact, and therefore whose floor and inner parts were dry enough.  It was a little hut, of the length of perhaps the height of four men, and the breadth of the height of three—­a man and a half high from floor to roof-beam.  It was unoccupied, but there was straw at one end—­dry straw, on which doubtless guards had slept.  I left the men standing there and went and told Ranjoor Singh.