"They’re there now," he said hopelessly. "We can’t touch them; they’re firing up through the loopholes. They tried to climb the wall, but I got some of my men and your man Ellis to fire from the roof of an outbuilding close there, and they’ve cleared them off. What shall we do? Could the _Bunder Abbas_ steam round and drive them away?" As this seemed reasonable I wrote out a signal telling Mr. Scarlett to raise steam at once and come round to the east bay. But the "_B.A._" could not move for at least two hours, and meanwhile Ellis and his few natives remained on top of that outbuilding, lying down behind the parapet ready to pick off any Afghan who attempted to climb the wall. More ammunition and some sand-bags were sent across to him to make his position more secure. However, the Afghans were quite content to wait where they were—under the foot of the wall—and made no offensive movement. If they had done so the time might have gone by more quickly. As it was, it seemed an eternity before Hartley reported that the _Bunder Abbas_ was under way. Perhaps half an hour afterwards I heard her Maxim firing—at a great distance seemingly—firing only a few of her precious rounds and then ceasing. It turned out that she had driven the Afghans away from the rocks near the cable house, but owing to the contour of the ground she could not reach the fellows under the wall itself. She stayed there to prevent any reinforcements joining them, and then had to come back hastily again because more parties of enemy were taking advantage of her absence from the west bay to creep along the beach there—the beach where we always landed in the dinghy—to try to find a lodgment under the opposite wall of the telegraph-station. However, the Maxim on the roof kept those in check, and directly the "_B.A._" appeared round the end of the peninsula they all fled back to the New Fort. One thing gave me much relief: we had not expended many rounds of ammunition. The situation was now alarming, to say the least of it. If those fellows stayed where they were there was nothing to prevent them climbing the wall during the night, and Mr. Fisher explained (and I was perfectly convinced) that if they did this most of our natives would simply bolt. The Eurasians might put up some sort of a fight, but there were only eight of them now unwounded and they were almost exhausted. We both realized that there were only two courses open: the first, to abandon the telegraph-station and take refuge aboard the _Bunder Abbas_; the second, practically to abandon the _Bunder Abbas_ and bring her white crew on shore with their rifles and the few remaining rounds of ammunition.