"You were quite right. You never wished me good-bye when you left the steamer, so I should not have waved back." The political agent accompanied me part of the way. "That looks as if you expected to be attacked," I remarked, pointing to the earthworks, breastworks, and lines of wire entanglement. "That’s all over for the present. Some wandering brigand tribe did make it unpleasant for us once, but that’s ancient history now. Good-bye! Look! my wife and Miss Borsen are waving good-bye." I waved my helmet, and strode down the path feeling quite a hero, my head full of my new job. As my boat ran alongside the _Bunder Abbas_ Mr. Scarlett, with a grim smile, received me, whilst Moore (the petty officer), looking as sulky as a bear, "piped" me over the side, and the crew, lascars as well, stood to attention. "I’ve had a few words with ’em. Told ’em the _Bunder Abbas_ wasn’t a Plymouth ash-boat but a man-of-war, and they’d behave as such," Mr. Scarlett chuckled. "We have to get up steam and start hunting dhows as soon as ever we can," I burst out enthusiastically, telling him what were my orders. I expected him to be as pleased as I was; but his face fell and he would not look me in the eyes. I did not understand him yet—not in the least. However, there were many difficulties in the way of sailing immediately—chiefly due to the shortage of fresh water for the tanks and boilers. Moore did not know where to get any on shore. He said sullenly that it wasn’t any use trying during the hot hours of the day, that everyone on shore slept then, and that the crew, too, generally slept. "It was a-working in the ’eat of the day what killed Mr. Collingwood, ’im what died of sunstroke," he muttered, reminding me of the latter’s fate for about the tenth time since coming on board. I told him to "Get out of it and go to Jericho!" Fortunately there was a splendid fellow on board, Webster, the corporal of marines, who knew how to get water on shore. He, the Persian interpreter (a stolid, aristocratic individual in spotless white clothes and a black fez), and myself went ashore in the dinghy and made ourselves extremely unpopular, disturbing an Arab contractor and waking half the village (if you could call it a village). But we got our water alongside in a couple of hours and on board half an hour later. Oh, my head was hot! On shore the sun seemed to strike right through my helmet, glaring at me from the dusty, sandy ground and hitting me from every white mud wall. I had never been so hot in my life.