except by chance, and as often as he manoeuvred his ship the Arabs
changed their ground. This went on all day while the mounted Arabs
hovered out of range watching what Shard would do; and all the while
the oxen were growing fewer, so good a mark were they, until only ten
were left, and the ship could manoeuvre no longer. But then they all
rode off.

The merry men were delighted, they calculated that one way and another
they had unhorsed a hundred Arabs and on board there had been no more
than one man wounded: Bad Jack had been hit in the wrist; probably by
a bullet meant for the men at the guns, for the Arabs were firing
high. They had captured a horse and had found quaint weapons on the
bodies of the dead Arabs and an interesting kind of tobacco. It was
evening now and they talked over the fight, made jokes about their
luckier shots, smoked their new tobacco and sang; altogether it was
the jolliest evening they'd had. But Shard alone on the quarter-deck
paced to and fro pondering, brooding and wondering. He had chopped off
Bad Jack's wounded hand and given him a hook out of store, for captain
does doctor upon these occasions and Shard, who was ready for most
things, kept half a dozen or so of neat new limbs, and of course a
chopper. Bad Jack had gone below swearing a little and said he'd lie
down for a bit, the men were smoking and singing on the sand, and
Shard was there alone. The thought that troubled Shard was: what would
the Arabs do? They did not look like men to go away for nothing. And
at back of all his thoughts was one that reiterated guns, guns, guns.
He argued with himself that they could not drag them all that way on
the sand, that the Desperate Lark was not worth it, that they had
given it up. Yet he knew in his heart that that was what they would
do. He knew there were fortified towns in Africa, and as for its being
worth it, he knew that there was no pleasant thing left now to those