It turned out that the warning had reached him only just in time. When he joined the Arabs at the outwork he saw, in the grey light of dawn, several dim shapes on the water on both sides of the causeway, slowly approaching the island. In a minute or two he made them out to be small kelaks crowded with men. Some of them were converging on the gap, the others were keeping a straight course for the island. Before he had time even to conjecture what the enemy's aims might be, a hot fusillade, no doubt intended to cover the approach of the kelaks, broke out from behind the breastwork on the further side of the gap. One or two of the Arabs were hit before they had obeyed his order to lie low and hold their fire until he gave the word. At the same moment he sent a man back to the shore with instructions to their comrades there not to fire until they could be sure of hitting. As soon as the individual forms of the men on the kelaks could be distinguished Burnet gave the order to open fire. The range where he stood was almost point blank, and the first volley all but cleared two or three of the kelaks of their crews, the vessels drifting idly for a few moments and getting in the way of the rest. But the others crowded on, and in spite of their losses under the continuous fire of the Arabs they pushed into the gap, where they were partly protected by the broken edge of the causeway. Now Burnet seized their intention. The kelaks jostling each other in the gap formed a sort of pontoon, not so much below the surface of the causeway but that the enemy could easily reach it. The enemy's fire suddenly ceased; then a stream of men passed from the outwork at their side of the gap, leapt from kelak to kelak, and tried to spring over the parapet on the nearer side. Many of them fell before they reached it, but their places were instantly filled, and the fight became a hand-to-hand grapple. Dawn had increased to almost full daylight with the rapidity characteristic of this latitude. Meanwhile the Arabs on shore had already been directing a hot fire upon the crews of the kelaks approaching them. And now, from behind the enemy's outwork, through embrasures suddenly opened in the mud walls, two machine-guns, one on each side, began to play upon the shore. The Arabs' position there being considerably higher than the level of the water, the Turks were able to shoot without danger of hitting their own men. The fire from the machine-guns and a hurricane fusillade from the opposite shore of the channel kept down the Arabs' fire, and the kelaks drew slowly nearer to their goal.