"That’s all right. It doesn’t matter one way or the other. You saw the battle; you got there just in time to stop it; the money was just in time to make peace; and you saw the Prodigal Son, as you call him, out hawking. That is all the Sultan wants to know, and he’ll be just as grateful to us as though you had actually rescued him." And he was, too, and sent me a Mauser pistol, just like Jaffa’s, as a present. *CHAPTER XIV* *We Deal with Jassim* The packing in the high-pressure piston-rod gland blew out again as we anchored at Muscat. As a matter of fact, the whole of our engines required a thorough overhaul after practically four months of almost continuous steaming; and though the lascar engine-drivers had done their best—a very poor best—it was now entirely beyond their capabilities to put things to "rights", and make all the necessary readjustments and the _Bunder Abbas_ again fit for sea. In these circumstances, and as neither the political agent nor Commander Duckworth had anything very pressing for us to do, artificers were sent across from the _Intrepid_ to carry out the necessary repairs. Whilst they were opening out the engines, working and sweating down below, there was, of course, but little to do on deck, and I had at first a very pleasant, lazy time indeed—pleasant, at any rate, after five o’clock in the evening. Before five o’clock the heat was much too great except to pant and perspire under the awnings; after that hour one’s muscles began to call out for exercise. Then, with Popple Opstein and the rest of the _Intrepid’s_ officers, we would often pull across to a sandy beach—where no sharks ventured—about a mile from the rock on which the southern of those two old Portuguese forts stood, and have grand bathing picnics—in and out of the water for a couple of hours at a time. Occasionally fifty or sixty of the men would come with us and drag the seine-net, for the sea was simply alive with fish. If we did not do this, we would go up to the political agent’s house and play tennis in the compound there—on a concrete court—in the most terrible glare; or perhaps we would wander out through the main gates of the town and scramble about the ravines and defiles leading inland.