terated guns, guns, guns.
He argued with himself that they could not drag them all that way on
the sand, that the Desperate Lark was not worth it, that they had
given it up. Yet he knew in his heart that that was what they would
do. He knew there were fortified towns in Africa, and as for its being
worth it, he knew that there was no pleasant thing left now to those
defeated men except revenge, and if the Desperate Lark had come over
the sand why not guns? He knew that the ship could never hold out
against guns and cavalry, a week perhaps, two weeks, even three: what
difference did it make how long it was, and the men sang:

Away we go, Oho, Oho, Oho,
A drop of rum for you and me
And the world's as round as the letter O
And round it runs the sea.

A melancholy settled down on Shard.

About sunset Lieutenant Smerdrak came up for orders. Shard ordered a
trench to be dug along the port side of the ship. The men wanted to
sing and grumbled at having to dig, especially as Shard never
mentioned his fear of guns, but he fingered his pistols and in the end
Shard had his way. No one on board could shoot like Captain Shard.
That is often the way with captains of pirate ships, it is a difficult
position to hold. Discipline is essential to those that have the right
to fly the skull-and-cross-bones, and Shard was the man to enforce it.
It was starlight by the time the trench was dug to the captain's
satisfaction and the men that it was to protect when the worst came to
the worst swore all the time as they dug. And when it was finished
they clamoured to make a feast on some of the killed oxen, and this
Shard let them do. And they lit a huge fire for the first time,
burning abundant scrub, they thinking that Arabs daren't return, Shard
knowing that concealment was now useless. All that night they feasted
and sang, and Shard sat up in his chart-room making his plans.

When morning came they rigged up the cutter as they called the
captured horse and told off her crew. As there were only two men that
could ride at all these became the crew of the cutter. Spanish Dick
and Bill the Boatswain were the two.

Shard's orders were that turn and turn about they should take command
of the cutter and cruise about five miles off to the North East all
the day but at night they were to come in. And they fitted the horse
up with a flagstaff in front of the saddle so that they could signal
from her, and carried an anchor behind f