men to sing and even within reason to light fires. Those were jolly
nights while the rum held out; sometimes they saw gazelles watching
them curiously, sometimes a lion went by over the sand, the sound of
his roar added to their sense of the security of their ship; all round
them level, immense lay the Sahara: "This is better than an English
prison," said Captain Shard.

And still the dead calm lasted, not even the sand whispered at night
to little winds; and when the rum gave out and it looked like trouble,
Shard reminded them what little use it had been to them when it was
all they had and the oxen wouldn't look at it.

And the days wore on with singing, and even dancing at times, and at
nights round a cautious fire in a hollow of sand with only one man on
watch they told tales of the sea. It was all a relief after arduous
watches and sleeping by the guns, a rest to strained nerves and eyes;
and all agreed, for all that they missed their rum, that the best
place for a ship like theirs was the land.

This was in Latitude 23 North, Longitude 4 East, where, as I have
said, a ship's broadside was heard for the first time and the last. It
happened this way.

They had been there several weeks and had eaten perhaps ten or a dozen
oxen and all that while there had been no breath of wind and they had
seen no one: when one morning about two bells when the crew were at
breakfast the lookout man reported cavalry on the port side. Shard who
had already surrounded his ship with sharpened stakes ordered all his
men on board, the young trumpeter who prided himself on having picked
up the ways of the land, sounded "Prepare to receive cavalry". Shard