"Not a blessed one either, sir! I did have two, but fired ’em when we sighted the _Intrepid_—that ’ere Pershun told me to!" Commander Duckworth of the _Intrepid_ now came on board the dhow, and I had to tell him the yarn all over again. In spite of feeling absolutely "played out", I talked as if I should never stop, telling him detail after detail, imploring him to go right away and hunt for the _Bunder Abbas_. I rather fancy I suggested that he should leave us in the dhow to sail into Jask. However, I found myself, Dobson, Wiggins, and Jaffa climbing down into his boat and being pulled across to the _Intrepid_. I know that I talked to them all the time, and to Nicholson, the staff surgeon of the _Intrepid_, whilst he was probing and stitching those wounds of mine. When he had finished these he stuck the needle of a syringe into my arm. "That’ll send you to sleep all right," he said, looking at me curiously. When I went aft he was commencing work on three wounded Arabs who had been brought over. The rest of them were in the battery surrounded by inquisitive bluejackets. The old nakhoda squatted on deck by himself, covered up in his burnous, with only his eyes showing. He did not even deign to look at me. The _Intrepid_ was already steaming ahead, her boats hoisted, and the dhow ("My dhow, old chap," I said, slapping old Popple Opstein on the back) was safely towing astern; I could see her mast. "Rifles, my dear chap! She’s simply chock-full of them!" I laughed. I was famished—starvingly hungry—and they got food for me down in the ward-room, although Nicholson tried to make me lie down. The ward-room chaps, in their pyjamas, sat round me as I talked to them. I could not leave off talking, and I found that I didn’t like anything they had on the table, so could not eat. Nicholson took hold of my wrist and shoved another beastly syringe needle into my arm. He made the fellows go away too, although I had not told them nearly all that had happened, and in a little while I did let Nicholson take me to a cabin—just to humour him. That is the last I remember—I certainly don’t remember undressing—but I woke in broad daylight to find myself in pyjamas belonging to somebody else, feeling rather shaky, my head covered in bandages, and Nicholson standing over me with a satisfied smile on his fat face. My aunt! how hungry I was! "Food, Nicholson, that’s what I want," I said. "I haven’t had anything worth speaking about for twenty-four hours." He felt my pulse, smiled, and went away. I called him back. "How about the _Bunder Abbas_? Have you found her yet?" "She’s been alongside us for the last forty hours or more," he said. "We are anchored off Sheikh Hill. She’s all right." I looked puzzled. I had not noticed that the engines were not working. "My dear chap, you’ve slept solidly for nearly three days. I’ve seen to that."