I prepared to land. Where I went my chum went too. We both buckled on our revolver belts, and I saw to it that he put his lanyard round his neck this time. Jaffa, clean as a new pin, standing at the side waiting for Griffiths to bring the dinghy alongside, was making certain that the magazine of his Mauser pistol was full. Mr. Scarlett remained in charge; Moore had to "stand by" with the six-pounder, and Webster and his marines manned one Maxim, Ellis and his bluejackets the other. With the knowledge that they would shoot straight and quickly there was no danger in landing, and I knew that no Arab would play the fool with us. It was my chum who suggested that we should lay out a kedge-anchor astern, in order to bring the "_B.A._"’s broadside to bear. This delayed us for a quarter of an hour, but at last we were ready, and with a white ensign flying in the stern of the dinghy—almost as big as herself—we landed on the beach: Popple Opstein, Jaffa, and myself. My aunt, but it was hot! The sand seemed to burn through our rope-soled shoes as we tramped up towards the well and its two weeping "nabac" trees. Footmarks in thousands were all round it; one deep trail leading to the door of the fort, two more leading away along the sand to the towns on either side. As we left the shade of the trees the door at the angle of the fort opened, and out came four Arabs, armed to the teeth with rifles, belts of cartridges, swords, and huge curved daggers. They advanced to meet us, salaaming a hundred times. The leader fixed his dark eyes on me whilst he jabbered away to Jaffa. Jaffa translated, to the effect—more or less—that, thanks to the all-seeing benevolent kindness of the Prophet, whose name be praised, who always shielded the true believer and scattered his enemies just as they were cock-sure of having won in an innings with runs to spare—or words to that effect—we, rulers of the sea and sons of the Great White Queen, had unexpectedly turned up and scored the winning goal just as time was called. He implored us to demean our noble selves sufficiently to take some abominable refreshment (he was pretty well right in that) under the wretched roof of his cowardly and entirely despicable master, the mighty fighter, the heaven-born leader of men, born with a double-edged sword in his hand, and destined to bring joy to the heart of his noble father, the Sultan of Muscat, "to whom all we pigs and nobodies own eternal allegiance—Mohammed be praised!" There was another long rigmarole to explain why the Prodigal Son could not come to receive us, but I gathered that he had been wounded in this recent attack, and was having his wounds dressed even now. "Right oh! We’ll go along with them," I told Jaffa, cutting him short. "Tell him that we didn’t come here by chance, but at the request of the Sultan." The sheikh, or whoever he was, received this news with astonishment.