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In such cases my post was usually on the bridge, while the ship's interpreter and Arab-speaking Seedee-boys went away in the boats. The dhows were reached and their papers examined, then allowed to proceed if all was in order. Otherwise the officer examining signalled the facts and awaited instructions.
The ship was then kept further off the land, the commander suspecting that the Arabs and slave traders had notice of his whereabouts. The following day three dhows were seen; chase was made; they were overtaken and boarded; one, however, was a fair trader, but about the two others there was considerable doubt.
For along that bank the dhows were moored and they were numerous; the river traffic, such as there was of it, had its harbour there, and the wide foreshore made a convenient market-place.
The corvette stood down the coast, a bright look-out being kept both for native dhows and square-rigged vessels, of which not a few Brazilians, Spaniards, and Americans were known to be engaged in the nefarious traffic.
The steamer was now in hot chase after the other two dhows, still considerably ahead of her, and making, apparently, for the shore, from which she was endeavouring to turn them by a rapid discharge of shot and shell. The boat's crew she had left behind were quickly in possession of the dhow, the Arabs, as far as could be seen, having made no resistance.
"I heard the master say only yesterday that there were one or two sandy beaches of no great extent some miles on, and I suppose the dhows are making for them, though I shouldn't have thought they had got so far," answered Desmond; "I only hope the ship won't be knocking her nose on the rocks in her eagerness to get hold of the fellows."
Ned, on inquiring for the dhows, found that all those captured had been destroyed, with the exception of one, on board which the Arab crews had been placed, and allowed to go about their business, as it would have been inconvenient to keep them on board until they could be earned to Aden or Zanzibar.
The lieutenant, however, had made up his mind to have all three, and, disregarding their shots, he pulled away after the first, at the same time firing his bow-gun at her rigging. She was a fast vessel, and was leading the boat out of harbour. The other two dhows, seeing this, began to hoist their sails for the purpose of slipping out astern of her.
On the 21st, as everything was ready on the island, I sent Sheikh Said and all the men, along with the Hottentots, mules, and baggage, off in dhows to Bagamoyo, on the opposite mainland.
We must leave the midshipmen in their perilous predicament, and follow the Gauntlet, which, having captured one of the dhows, of which she was in chase as has been described, stood after the other two.
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