The Rajah of Dah

“Ahoy, there! All on board?”
“Yes; all right.”
“Got all your tackle?”
“I think so.”
“Haven’t forgotten your cartridges!”
“No; here they are.”
“I’ll be bound to say you’ve forgotten something. Yes: fishing-tackle?”
“That we haven’t, Mr Wilson,” said a fresh voice, that of a bright-looking lad of sixteen, as he rose up in the long boat lying by the bamboo-made wharf at Dindong, the little trading port at the mouth of the Salan River, on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula.
“Trust you for the fish-hooks, squire,” said the first speaker. “But, I say, take a good look round, Murray. It’s an awful fix to be in to find yourself right up in the wilderness with the very thing you want most left behind.”
“It’s very good of you, Wilson,” said the gentleman addressed, a broad-shouldered man of forty, tanned and freckled by the eastern sun, and stooping low to avoid striking his head against the attap thatch rigged up over the stern of the boat, and giving it the aspect of a floating hut. “It’s very good of you, but I think we have everything; eh, Ned?”
“Yes, uncle; I can’t think of anything else.”