“What is that light?” she asked me.

Following the direction of her hand I saw a red glow on the water to our left, not more than a mile behind.

“Reflection from the burning town,” I answered, but I had no sooner said it than I knew the answer was foolish.  It was the glow that rides above hot steamer funnels in the night.

“Fred!” I shouted, for fear took hold of the very roots of my heart, “for the love of God make every one keep silence!  Show no lights!  Don’t speak above a whisper!  Keep all heads below the gunwale!  That cursed German launch is after us!”

We were in double danger.  I could hear surf pounding on rocks to starboard.  I did not dare to come up into the wind because nobody but I knew how the spar would have to be passed around the mast, and in any case the noise and the fluttering sail might attract attention.

“Look out for breakers ahead!” I ordered.  “I’m going to hold this course and hope they pass us in the dark!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“David prevailed”
                (I.  Sam. 17:50)

Be glad if ye know the accursed thing
        And know it accurst, for the Gift is yours
Of Sight where the prophets of blindness sing
        By the brink of death.  And the Gift endures;
Ye shall see the last of the sharpened lies
        That rivet privilege’s gripe. 
Be still, then, ye with the opened eyes,
        Come away from the thing till the time is ripe.

Be glad that ye loathe the accursed thing,
        It is given to you to foreknow the end. 
But they who the unwise challenge fling
        Shall startle foe at the risk of friend
As yet unready to endure —
        And can ye fend Goliath’s swipe? 
The slowly grinding mills are sure,
        Let terror alone till the time is ripe.

Be glad when the shout for the spoils, and the glee,
        The hoofs and the wheels of the prophets of wrong,
Out thunder the warning of what shall be;
        Be still, for the tumult is not for long. 
The Finger that wrote, from a polished wall
        As surely the closed account shall wipe;
The accursed thing ye feared shall fall
        To a boy with a sling when the time is ripe.

If the dhow had been seaworthy; if the crew had understood the rigging and the long unwieldy spar; if we had had any chart, or had known anything whatever of the coast; if nobody had been afraid; and, above all, if that incessant din of surf pounding on rocks not far away to starboard had not threatened disaster even greater than the Germans in the steam launch, our problem might have been simple enough.

But every one was afraid, including me who held the tiller (and the lives of all the party) in my right hand.  Lady Saffren Waldon disguised fear under an acid temper and some villainously bad advice.