Ferrara called into the phone: "It's a British destroyer, sir! She's just rounded the point, three miles south.

Signals up for us to surrender!" "Machine-guns against naval ordnance!" gritted the Master savagely.
"Surrender ?" He laughed with hot defiance.
The first shell flung a perfect tornado of brine into air, glistening; it ricochetted twice, and plunged into the dunes.

A "dud," it failed to burst.
_Nissr_ rose again as the second shell hit fair in the hard clay of the wady, cascading earth and sand a hundred feet in air.

Both reports boomed in, rolling like thunder over the sea.
"Shoot and be damned to you!" cried the Master.

_Nissr_ was rising now, clearing herself from the water like a wounded sea-bird.