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Chapter Three: A
Punitive Raid!
 Now Headquarters at
Alexandria was not amused with the French action, and so tacitly
approved of a 'punitive expedition' against them. A raid on their fort
was planned; but even then I thought it imprudent. And I was proved
right in this matter.
As it came to be I was
ill with the fever (such were the conditions of the tropics
in those days), and could
not accompany Captain Chard that day. The account which follows came
to me by Captain Chard many days later. (Here follows an account
of tropical fever and its treatment...)
As the Queen and the Manatee
approached the fort on the day of the raid, they found the French
arrayed on a ridge before it, awaiting them. Foolishly (as one may
easily say from hindsight), Captain Chard pressed on with the attack,
thinking to overwhelm the French. 
But the French, forewarned in the
last fight, had prepared rockets and light guns to assail the White
Manatee, and which is more, had contrived to make flying engines of
their own, which resembled a giant bird, but flew by the power of its
rider, who propelled it in the air with pedals in the fashion of a
velocipede! I had the chance to survey one such machine later in our
adventures in the Soudan, and found it a most ingenious contraption.
 The day went ill for us, as the Manatee was chased off the field by
the flyers, and the Queen took several hits from the French gun and was lost.
Captain Chard was greviously wounded, and had but half a breath left
in him when he was brought back to Alexandria... (Here follows an
account of his injuries and Captain Arjun's diagnosis and treatment.
To
Chapter Four...
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