from the North ruffled the
boatswain's forelock as he stood with his cap in his hand.

"Don't talk about the wind to _me_," said Captain Shard: and Bill was
a little frightened for Shard's mother had been a gipsy.

But it was only a breeze astray, a trick of the Sahara. And another
week went by and they ate two more oxen.

They obeyed Captain Shard ostentatiously now but they wore ominous
looks. Bill came again and Shard answered him in Romany.

Things were like this one hot Sahara morning when the cutter
signalled. The lookout man told Shard and Shard read the message,
"Cavalry astern" it read, and then a little later she signalled, "With
guns."

"Ah," said Captain Shard.

One ray of hope Shard had; the flags on the cutter fluttered. For the
first time for five weeks a light breeze blew from the North, very
light, you hardly felt it. Spanish Dick rode in and anchored his horse
to starboard and the cavalry came on slowly from the port.

Not till the afternoon did they come in sight, and all the while that
little breeze was blowing.

"One knot," said Shard at noon. "Two knots," he said at six bells and
still it grew and the Arabs trotted nearer. By five o'clock the merry
men of the bad ship Desperate Lark could make out twelve long
old-fashioned guns on low wheeled carts dragged by horses and what
looked like lighter guns carried on camels. The wind was blowing a
little stronger now. "Shall we hoist sail, sir?" said Bill.

"Not yet," said Shard.

By six o'clock the Arabs were just outside the range of cannon and
there they halted. Then followed an anxious hour or so, but the Arabs
came no nearer. They evidently meant to wait till dark to bring their
guns up. Probably they intended to dig a gun epaulment from which they
could safely pound away at the ship.

"We could do three knots," said Shard half to himself as he was
walking up and down his quarter-deck with very fast short paces. And
then the sun set and they heard the Arabs praying and Shard's merry
men cursed at the top of their voices to show that they were as good
men as they.

The Arabs had come no nearer, waiting for night. They did not know how
Shard was longing for it too, he was gritting his teeth and sighing
for it, he even would have prayed, but that he feared that it might
remind Heaven of him and his merry men.

Night came and the stars. "Hoist sail," said Shard. The men sprang to
their places, they had had enough of that silent lonely sp