Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/23

Rh over the racing waves. Out of the darkness to port the form of a Spanish scouting torpedo-boat without lights slid abreast of us and, after a short exchange of electric signals, disappeared again into the night. The engines were started, and the Balear continued her journey.

Sitting in a deck-chair near my wife, I remained awake throughout the night and watched all that was happening now within our range. At intervals before the dawn I followed long moving shafts of light which, with a sort of timorous curiosity, seemed to be searching for something in the sky and on the sea. They were the rays from huge searchlights located on the mountains above Melilla, the Spanish port in Morocco where we were to lower anchor in the early morning.