The Rais gave the captain of the port a private hint, to take care what they did, for they might lose their lives; and that private caution, understood in a different way perhaps than was meant, had effect upon the soldiers, to make them withdraw immediately. When they went away, I begged the Emir Bahar to make my compliments to his masters, Hassan and Hussein, Agas, to know what time I should wait upon them to-morrow; and desired him, in the mean time, to keep his soldiers ashore, as I was not disposed to be troubled with their insolence.
Soon after they went, we heard a great firing, and saw lights all over the town; and the Rais proposed to me to slip immediately, and set sail, from which measure I was not at all averse. But, as he said, we had a better anchoring place under the mosque of the Shekh, and, besides, that there we would be in a place of safety, by reason of the holiness of the saint, and that at our own choice might even put to sea in a moment, or stay till to-morrow, as we were in no sort of doubt of being able to repel, force by force, if attacked, we got under weigh for a few hundred yards, and dropt our anchor under the shrine of one of the greatest saints in the world.
At night the firing had abated, the lights diminished, and the captain of the port again came on board. He was surprised at missing us at our former anchoring place, and still more so, when, on our hearing the noise of his oars, we hailed, and forbade him to advance any nearer, till he should tell us how many he had on board, or whether he had soldiers or not, otherwise we should fire upon them: to this he answered, that there were only himself, his boy, and three officers, servants to the Aga. I replied, that three strangers were too many at that time of the night, but, since they were come from the Aga, they might advance.
All our people were sitting together armed on the forepart of the vessel; I soon divined they intended us no harm, for they gave us the salute _Salam Alicum!_ before they were within ten yards of us. I answered with great complacency; we handed them on board, and set them down upon deck. The three officers were genteel young men, of a sickly appearance, dressed in the fashion of the country, in long burnooses loosely hanging about them, striped with red and white; they wore a turban of red, green, and white, with ten thousand tassels and fringes hanging down to the small of their backs. They had in their hand, each, a short javelin, the shaft not above four feet and a half long, with an iron head about nine inches, and two or three iron hooks below the shaft, which was bound round with brass-wire, in several places, and shod with iron at the farther end.