"But if Phil--the eager Phil--happened to be close at hand, ready to brain the other fellow. Ah!" exclaimed Geoff, and for the life of him he couldn't help laughing at the excitement and the eager pleading of his chum. It made him laugh when he remembered how adroitly and how expertly Philip had worked round the question, had pointed out so very clearly the chances of failure, and then had come in at the end with the greatest arguments for his own inclusion in the adventure. Arguments which Geoff himself could not deny; for a friend at hand, a stanch friend, might very well turn the scales in his favour, and, after all, what a prize the Captain of that steamer would be, if they could only lay their hands on him. "Better far than the chief I bagged at the very beginning of the campaign," he told himself, though he spoke aloud. "Agreed!" said Philip. "I don't, of course, want to say that that wasn't quite a nice little business, but then, this is really 'It', or will be if we bring it off. So I come, don't I?" "You do. Your revolver's loaded, eh?" "And ready," Phil said, "and the dinghy is alongside." "Then come on." Leaving the oldest sailor in charge of the launch, with instructions to lie in that position till morning came, and then to look about for them, and to return down the Euphrates in the event of not discovering their officers, Geoff and Philip crept gingerly into the dinghy, which had been brought close alongside, having been launched from the deck of the little steamer where it was usually carried. "Push off," said Geoff, "and keep your ear open for a hail, for it'll be no easy job to find you in the darkness." "Aye, aye, sir," replied the man, "good luck to you." Geoff dipped his paddle in the water, and thrust hard with it, while Philip, seated in the stern, used a paddle as a rudder. Stealing along the narrow channel in which the steam launch lay, they soon rounded the end of one of the islands which formed it, and halted there for a while to allow their eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness. Then they turned sharp left, facing the direction in which the River Euphrates lay, and stole onward across the waste of waters, threading their way between muddy banks where the slime and ooze clung, and often diving under perfect archways of reeds, where the islands were close together. Once or twice they had to return on their tracks, finding their way obstructed, and on one occasion they bumped gently into an island, and stuck fast for a while, till Geoff came aft--thus tipping the bows of the dinghy upward and so loosening her. It was perhaps half an hour later that they felt, rather than saw, that they had gained the main stream, the wide expanse of smooth, almost motionless water, where eddies from the river sometimes stirred the surface, and where the flow, moderately rapid in the centre, was so retarded as to be almost imperceptible.