The merry men looked at the wet decks and at their dripping clothes.
"Water," they said almost wonderingly.

The Arabs followed a little way through the forest but when they saw
that they had to face a broadside instead of one stern gun and
perceived that a ship afloat is less vulnerable to cavalry even than
when on shore, they abandoned ideas of revenge, and comforted
themselves with a text out of their sacred book which tells how in
other days and other places our enemies shall suffer even as we
desire.

For a thousand miles with the flow of the Niger and the help of
occasional winds, the Desperate Lark moved seawards. At first he
sweeps East a little and then Southwards, till you come to Akassa and
the open sea.

I will not tell you how they caught fish and ducks, raided a village
here and there and at last came to Akassa, for I have said much
already of Captain Shard. Imagine them drawing nearer and nearer the
sea, bad men all, and yet with a feeling for something where we feel
for our king, our country or our home, a feeling for something that
burned in them not less ardently than our feelings in us, and that
something the sea. Imagine them nearing it till sea birds appeared and
they fancied they felt sea breezes and all sang songs again that they
had not sung for weeks. Imagine them heaving at last on the salt
Atlantic again.

I have said much already of Captain Shard and I fear lest I shall
weary you, O my reader, if I tell you any more of so bad a man. I too
at the top of a tower all alone am weary.