"On deck, both of you, at once!" I shouted, sending my voice down through the open companion. "Never mind about the hatch; leave everything as it is, for the moment, and clap on to these main halliards; there is an alarm of some sort ashore, and if it happens to be that they have discovered me to be missing, they will come off to this felucca the first thing. Yes, and by Jove, if I am not mistaken there is a boat shoving off already. Look, lads,"--as the two men came tumbling up on deck--"is that not the sparkle of oars in the water, there, right in the heart of that deep shadow?" "Ay, sir, it do look uncommon like it, and no mistake--yes; that's the sea fire shinin' to the stroke of oars, right enough," exclaimed Cutler. "And they're comin' along as though they meant business, too! Mr Delamere, it'd be a good plan, sir, if you was to jump for'ard and cast that cable off the bitts while Tom and me here sees about mastheadin' this here yard; there won't be so very much room to spare atween us by the time that this here hooker's paid off and gathered way." "You are right, Joe, there will not," answered I; and, dashing forward to the windlass bitts, I proceeded to throw off turn after turn of the stiff hempen cable that held the felucca to her anchor, until the last turn was gone and the flakes went writhing and twisting out through the hawse-hole; then, as the end disappeared with a splash I dashed aft and rammed the tiller hard over to port--noticing, as I did so, that a large boat, pulling eight oars, was less than a hundred fathoms distant from us, and coming up to us hand over hand. Then, catching a turn of the main-sheet round a cleat, I jumped forward again to where the two seamen were dragging desperately at the halliard which hoisted the heavy sail. "Put your backs into it, men," I cried, as I tailed on to the fall of the tackle; "there is a large boat close aboard of us! It will be `touch and go' with us, even if we are able to scrape clear at all." Fiercely we dragged at the fall of the fourfold tackle that formed the working end of the halliard, and at each pull the great, heavy, swaying yard slid a few inches up the short, thick mast, as though reluctantly, while away on our weather quarter we heard the fierce shouts of the men in the approaching boat as they encouraged each other, punctuated by the quick jerk of the oars in the rowlocks, and the swish of the water as the oar-blades clipped into it. With the passage of every second those menacing sounds drew appreciably nearer, dominating even the thunderous rustle and slatting of the sail that slowly climbed into the air over our heads, while the felucca, now fast gathering stern-way, and at the same time paying off, was driving steadily down toward the boat at a rate that seemed to render our capture inevitable.