"Will you do me one more favour?" he asked before he went ashore. "The Sultan will be anxious to hear how things are—you have seen for yourself. He is an old man, and he worries. Both of us will be the more grateful if you let him know as soon as you can." We were so carried away by his delightful personality that within an hour the "_B.A._" was steaming back to Muscat, going so fast—to save daylight—through that tricky channel that the lascar drivers were scared to death by the noise of steam escaping through the piston-rod gland. We saved daylight right enough, and were soon tumbling about in the swell outside; but the gland gave so much trouble that we could only manage to go dead slow, with barely enough way to prevent the _Bunder Abbas_ being driven on the rocks, where the roar of the breaking swell boomed in our ears all night. We had a most horrid time of it—old Popple Opstein and I—not knowing from one minute to another when the engines would stop entirely. It was not the slightest use to try to reach Muscat, and I only waited for the first streak of daylight to crawl back through the channel into safety. My lascar first-driver said he could repair the gland in two days at anchor, and I intended anchoring close to the fort again; but before we were clear of the channel the packing blew out altogether, the engine-room was filled with steam—the whole launch seemed to be in a cloud of it—and the engines stopped entirely so there was nothing to do but anchor where we were. It was a beastly nuisance, because I was so anxious to take the news to Muscat as quickly as possible; otherwise I did not care a rap. Popple Opstein suggested that we should sail the dinghy up to the fort and spend the day with the Prodigal Son. No sooner said than done. Out went the dinghy; Griffiths stepped the mast and put up the sail; my chum and I jumped in with a loaf of bread, a tin of tongue, and some sardines, and off we went, only to pull back again for water and for Jaffa—we had forgotten both, and both were necessities. We drifted and sailed, pulled round corners, and sailed again until we came out into the open "khor", met a fairly-steady breeze—a soldier’s breeze—which filled our little sail, and made us bubble through the water. In a couple of hours from leaving the "_B.A._" we were hauling the dinghy on to the sand, close by the well, and were tramping up to the fort as happy as schoolboys, leaving Jaffa to guard the boat from a crowd of loafing Arabs who surrounded it. We noticed one thing immediately—the horses, camels, sheep, and goats were now outside the fort, so we knew at once that all was peace.