f the Maud is wrecked by the guns and sent to the bottom, we still
have the whole island of Cyprus open to us," added the captain.

"To come down to the hard pan of business, allow me to ask a foolish
question or two, and you may laugh at them if you please. What is the
Fatime waiting for? Why doesn't Mazagan proceed to carry out his threat
to capture me?" asked Louis.

"For the simple reason that he cannot; and the question calls for a
review of the situation," replied the captain, as he took from his
pocket a paper on which he had drawn a diagram of the position of both
vessels, with the shape of the bay, the ledge, and the soundings so far
as they were known. "Here is the Maud," he continued, making a small
cross on the paper at the point in the inside channel where she had come
to the shoal water. "There is no way to get out of this place except
that by which we came in."

"I understand all that; for we have the shore on one side of us and the
ledge on the other, and the channel is not deep enough to permit us to
go ahead," added Louis.

"That is our position. The Fatime lies in deep water at least a mile
from us. She is a steamer of four hundred tons, and she must draw at
least fifteen feet of water; for both of these steamers were built where
they put them down deeper in the water than they do in our country. The
pirate would take the ground anywhere near the ledge, and she could not
come into the channel by which we reached this point. Therefore, she can
do nothing; and her guns would not hit us a mile distant, if they would
carry a ball as far as that. You can see why she can do nothing yet a
while."

"But the tide is rising, and we now have an hour of the flood,"
suggested Louis.

"But the tide is rising for the Fatime as well as for the Maud."

"There was nine feet of water on the ledge at low tide, and there will
be twelve feet at high tide."

"That will not be till nine o'clock this evening. But even if it were
now I should not dare to undertake the task of piloting the Maud over
the ledge; for I know nothing about the soundings on it except on the
south edge. That would not do. We must get to deep water by the way we
came in here," said the captain very decidedly.

"A shot from the pirate!" shouted Felix at this moment, as he noted the
flash.

A moment later the report came to the ears of all on board, and the
gun-made noise enough to startle a timid person. All watched for the
ball, and saw it