'The horror!' exclaimed Bella, with a pretty shudder.
'No, no; don't call her that, because, after all, I owe my life to her.'
'Well, the angel!' exclaimed Bella now, with sudden change.
'Though I don't altogether know that the captain meant to save me----'
Gilbert laughed at these variations in Bella's mental temperature. Then he continued.
'They are artful--incredibly artful--in these dhows. They will let our pinnaces or whalers or any other of the ship's boats come alongside, then, all of a sudden, they cut their lee halliards, and down comes their great sail over us, enveloping the boat and all in it, just as if it was in a net or a bag.'
'And that's not all. When you are caught like that, they have another pleasing little way of firing at you from above through the canvas, so that you are being shot down while, all the time, you have no chance of escape.'
'Oh!' exclaimed Bella. 'To think of it! Ah, the wretches.'
'They do, Bella. Fortunately, however, this one couldn't do it, being disabled, and she had, therefore, come up to the wind with hardly any way on her. This was all right for us, as I meant to board, so as we came alongside each other we hooked on to her anchor cable, which was hanging pretty low down, and we should have got on board, too, only at that moment the dhow gave a lurch which sent the whaler half-seas under, and I got a blow on the head which knocked me insensible----'
'I suppose so. At any rate, I knew no more about it; and I don't know anything further, now, since I was insensible till I woke up here this morning and found you bending over me. However, I'm all right now, or soon shall be.'
'But how did you come into the dhow you were found in?' Bella asked, while pouring out, directly afterwards, one question after another. 'And when did it happen--yesterday, or a week ago? And where was the whaler, and the sailors, and the _Briseus_? And why did they all desert you? What a nice kind of a captain yours must be, to be sure!'
'My opinion is now,' said Gilbert, 'that the dhow you found me in, rescued me--picked me up. And I expect our captain--he is a rattling good skipper, Bella, all the same--heard I was drowned and thinks I've missed my muster. My cousin Jack will imagine for a month or so--till we get in to Bombay--that he is the future Lord D'Abernon,' and he laughed as he thought of how soon Cousin Jack would be undeceived.