The beardless boy who stood there now in command, a trifle pale, but firm as a stripling oak, was for one moment at his wit's end. He could not give the order to fire into the crowd, killing Turk and Christian alike. That certainly would not be obeying the last command of the man whom he had loved, who had been his model soldier and gentleman. At any rate, he could die bravely; he was not in doubt about that part of it for a single moment. But his hesitation did not last long. A gun boomed out in the bay louder than all the pandemonium on shore, and a shell dropped on the roof of a house from which several Turks had been firing at the British. He would get his men to the wharf, as close under shelter of the guns as possible. They arrived at the wharf just as the steam launch from the "Hazard" drew up to take them off, and two sailors held her fast with grappling poles. Other boats were creeping across the narrow strip of sea, their oars moving rapidly, like the legs of frightened centipedes. The little sub-lieutenant drew up his company facing the rioters. He then detached a squad to put the wounded into the launch. The fall of the first two or three shells had caused a momentary panic in the town, during which the British succeeded in getting into the boats, save one wounded man, who had been overlooked somehow in the excitement. "Shove off!" cried the little sub-lieutenant, standing in the stern of one of the boats, whither he had leapt last of all that gallant company.