Half-a-dozen armed Bedouins kept guard on the prisoners, who sat in a dejected group. Things were looking very black indeed for these poor seamen when suddenly--almost by magic it seemed--deliverance came in the form of a patrol steamer flying the British flag.
Steaming quite close inshore, she glided into view from behind an adjacent point. So close was the vessel when she rounded the headland that those on board could hear the shout of delight raised by the surviving castaways.
The lieutenant in charge of the patrol boat--a keen and alert young officer--was not long in grasping the situation. He saw the boat drawn up on the beach, and heard the prisoners shouting for aid. Therefore, when the startled Bedouins hastily mounted and made off, this capable young naval officer knew just what to do--and he did it.
A band of badly-scared Arab horsemen started off inland, using whip and spur in desperate efforts to escape, but at that moment the patrol steamer's machine-gun took a glad hand in the game. The gun rattled briskly, streams of lead whistled shoreward, and the tall Arab chief who rode the white horse pitched headlong from his mount to the earth; then he lay quite still. He was as dead as salted herring; to use colloquial English, he had got "all that was coming to him."
The remaining miscreants rode hard for safety, but the machine-gun did good work, and during the following few minutes at least a dozen desert marauders finished altogether with the joys and sorrows of this world. Those who managed to escape disappeared, together with a number of riderless horses, behind a distant sand-hill.
Captain Groome and his men were promptly taken on board the patrol vessel. The bo'sun, poor fellow, was buried where he lay. The skipper's wounds were dressed by the ship's surgeon, and under kind and skillful treatment he soon began to mend.
The writer saw Groome about six weeks later. He moved stiffly, like a man whose wounds have but recently healed; nevertheless, he looked well, and was certainly very cheerful.
"How do I feel?" said he, in answer to my query. "Oh, my shoulder is still a bit sore, but otherwise I'm feeling first class. Another week or so, and I'll be fit and ready to join another ship."