With this purpose in view Peter crept cautiously across the sleeping Mahmed, drew aside the flap of the tent, and gained the open air. It was now a fairly bright starlit night. The cool breeze thrummed tunefully through the scanty rigging, gently filling the huge, triangular, lateen sails. The foot of the mainsail was cut so low that from where Mostyn stood, just abaft of the foremast, the shelving poop was hidden from view. Bareheaded and lightly-clad he grasped one of the weather-shrouds and drunk in great draughts of the ozone-laden air. He realized the relief of being no longer responsible for the safety of his charges, so far as seamanship and navigation were concerned. Day after day, night after night in an open boat had considerably dimmed his ardour for exercising command. After a while he wanted a cigarette, but remembered that he had left his share in the breast-pocket of his drill tunic. "Better be turning in again," he soliloquized, with visions of malaria in his mind. "It's rather a risky game hanging about here." Even as he turned to regain the shelter a shriek rent the air. Less than ten feet from where he stood were a couple of Arabs kneeling beside the collapsed tent. One was holding the canvas down with hands and feet, while the other, knife in hand, was raining furious blows upon the defenceless and sleeping men pinned beneath. CHAPTER XXXIII A Fight to a Finish A mad fury seized upon the Wireless Officer. Without giving a thought to the automatic pistol in his hip-pocket he hurled himself upon the treacherous Arabs. Strong, agile, and carrying weight, his sudden and unexpected onslaught took the pair as completely by surprise as their murderous attack had taken their victims. With a crashing blow from his left Peter felled the fellow with the knife, stretching him insensible upon the deck and hurling the glittering steel into the lee scuppers. So headlong had been Mostyn's rush that its impetus proved his undoing. His foot caught in the folds of the canvas. He tripped across the limp and inert body of one of the occupants of the overturned tent, and with a dull thud he measured his length upon the deck. He regained his feet quickly, but not before the second Arab had recovered from the shock of the unexpected diversion. The next moment Peter and the Arab were wrestling furiously. With a mighty heave the Wireless Officer swung his lithe and muscular antagonist from the deck, but the Arab's fingers were gripping Peter's throat in a sinuous and tenacious hold. Swaying, turning in short circles, the two combatants struggled. It was a question of who should be able to hold out longest--the Englishman with his windpipe almost closed or the Arab with his ribs strained almost to bursting-point and his lungs as empty as a deflated tyre.