The Master was last to come aboard. Still dripping seawater, he clambered up the ladder from the lower gallery to the main corridor, and made his way into the pilot-house. Bohannan was with him, also Leclair and Captain Alden. The engines had already been started, and the helicopters had begun to turn, flickering swiftly in their turbine-tubes. The Master settled himself in the pilot's seat. All at once a buzzer sounded close at hand. "Well, what now?" demanded the Master into the phone communicating with the upper port gallery. "Smoke to southward, sir. Coming up along the Coast." "Smoke? A steamer?" "Can't see, sir." It was the voice of Ferrara that answered. "The smoke is behind the long point to southward. But it is coming faster than a merchant vessel. I should say, sir, it was a torpedo-boat or a destroyer, under forced draft. And it's coming--it's coming at a devil of a clip, sir!" CHAPTER XXVIII ONWARD TOWARD THE FORBIDDEN CITY The Master rang for full engine-power, and threw in all six helicopters with one swift gesture. "Major," commanded he, as _Nissr's_ burned and wounded body began to quiver through all its mutilated fabric; "Major, man the machine-guns again. All stations! _Quick_!" Bohannan departed. The droning of the helicopters rose to a shrill hum. The Master switched in the air-pressure system; and far underneath, white fountains of spumy water leaped up about the floats, mingled with sand and mud all churned to frenzy under the bursting energy of the compressed air released through thousands of tubules. _Nissr_ trembled, hesitated, lifted a few inches, settled back once more. Again the buzzer sounded. The noise of rapid feet became audible above, in the upper galleries. Ferrara called into the phone: "It's a British destroyer, sir! She's just rounded the point, three miles south. Signals up for us to surrender!" "Machine-guns against naval ordnance!" gritted the Master savagely. "Surrender?" He laughed with hot defiance. The first shell flung a perfect tornado of brine into air, glistening; it ricochetted twice, and plunged into the dunes. A "dud," it failed to burst. _Nissr_ rose again as the second shell hit fair in the hard clay of the wady, cascading earth and sand a hundred feet in air. Both reports boomed in, rolling like thunder over the sea. "Shoot and be damned to you!" cried the Master. _Nissr_ was rising now, clearing herself from the water like a wounded sea-bird. A tremendous cascade of water sluiced from her hissing floats, swirling in millions of sun-glinted jewels more brilliant even than Kaukab el Durri. Higher she mounted, higher still. The destroyer was now driving in at full speed, with black smoke streaming from four funnels, perfectly indifferent to possible shoals, rocks or sand-bars along this uncharted coast. Another shell screamed under the lower gallery and burst in a deluge of sand near one of the mooring-piles.