Into that pandemonium went Coutlass, armed with nothing but Hellenic fury, thoughtful of nothing but his lady-love—­surely reckless of his own skin.  He beat, kicked, bit, scragged, banged their foolish heads together, cursed, spat, gouged, and strangled as surely no catamount ever did.  Brown leaped in to lend a hand, and into the midst of that inferno three more bullets penetrated, each wounding a man.  Lady Waldon, mad with some idiotic strategy of her own sudden devising, seized the tiller and tried to wrench it from my hand.  The Syrian Rebecca, imagining new treachery and fearful for her Greek lover, tried to prevent her with teeth and nails.  The Germans raised a war-whoop of wild enjoyment.  And just at the height of all that, Fred’s three-and-twentieth shot went home.

There was a loud report, followed by instant nothing except stampede on the part of the Germans to get out of reach of something.  Then the something grew denser; invisible hot vapor became a pall of steam that bid the launch from view, three more shots from Fred’s rifle finding the proper mark by sheer accident, for there was another explosion; the cloud increased and the launch stopped dead.

“That gray sheet of metal wasn’t her boiler at all!” Fred shouted back to me.  “The first shot pierced the boiler when I found out where to aim!  I think three of them are scalded badly—­hope so!—­high pressure steam—­superheated—­did you see?  Now leave ’em to find their own way home!”

“See if you can’t get Schillingschen!” said I.

But Schillingschen was invisible in the white cloud, and Fred refused to waste one of the half-dozen cartridges remaining.  The light wind that bore us away from the launch also spread the screen of steam between us and them.  A shot or two from Schillingschens rifle proved him to be still alive, and still determined, but missed us by so much that we began to dare to sit upright.  Then Fred went below to sort out wounded men, plug holes in the dhow, and stop the panic, and we all prayed for wind with a fervor they never exceeded in Nelson’s fleet.

When Will had gone below to help Fred, the panic had ceased, two dead men had been thrown overboard, and six of the crew had been set to work bailing in deadly earnest to keep ahead of the new leaks, there was time to consider the position and to realize how hugely better off we were than if the launch had caught us somewhere close inshore.  Now we could sail safely northward, every puff of wind carrying us nearer to British water and safety, whereas unless they could mend that high-pressure boiler, they would have to lie there for a week, or a month—­die unless some one came in search of them.  Had we holed their boiler near the shore they would have been able to take to the land until they found canoes.  Good canoes, well manned, could have overhauled us hand over fist like terriers after a rat.

It was fifteen minutes yet before we were out of rifle range, and Schillingschen tried to make the most of them when the steam thinned, exposing his beefy carcass recklessly.  But by the time it had thinned down sufficiently to let him really see us we were too far away to make sure shooting.  He slit the sail, giving us half a night’s work to mend it, and made three more holes in our planking, but hurt nobody.