The whale-boat, I may explain, was one specially built for us at Dundee, in Scotland.  We had brought it with us, as we knew that this coast was a network of creeks, and that we might require something to navigate them with.  She was a beautiful boat, thirty-feet in length, with a centre-board for sailing, copper-bottomed to keep the worm out of her, and full of water-tight compartments.  The Captain of the dhow had told us that when we reached the rock, which he knew, and which appeared to be identical with the one described upon the sherd and by Leo’s father, he would probably not be able to run up to it on account of the shallows and breakers.  Therefore we had employed three hours that very morning, whilst we were totally becalmed, the wind having dropped at sunrise, in transferring most of our goods and chattels to the whale-boat, and placing the guns, ammunition, and preserved provisions in the water-tight lockers specially prepared for them, so that when we did sight the fabled rock we should have nothing to do but step into the boat, and run her ashore.  Another reason that induced us to take this precautionary step was that Arab captains are apt to run past the point that they are making, either from carelessness or owing to a mistake in its identity.  Now, as sailors know, it is quite impossible for a dhow which is only rigged to run before the monsoon to beat back against it.  Therefore we got our boat ready to row for the rock at any moment.

“Well, Job,” I said, “perhaps it would be as well.  There are lots of blankets there, only be careful to keep out of the moon, or it may turn your head or blind you.”

“Lord, sir!  I don’t think it would much matter if it did; it is that turned already with the sight of these blackamoors and their filthy, thieving ways.  They are only fit for muck, they are; and they smell bad enough for it already.”

Job, it will be perceived, was no admirer of the manners and customs of our dark-skinned brothers.

Accordingly we hauled up the boat by the tow-rope till it was right under the stern of the dhow, and Job bundled into her with all the grace of a falling sack of potatoes.  Then we returned and sat down on the deck again, and smoked and talked in little gusts and jerks.  The night was so lovely, and our brains were so full of suppressed excitement of one sort and another, that we did not feel inclined to turn in.  For nearly an hour we sat thus, and then, I think, we both dozed off.  At least I have a faint recollection of Leo sleepily explaining that the head was not a bad place to hit a buffalo, if you could catch him exactly between the horns, or send your bullet down his throat, or some nonsense of the sort.