My attempt to introduce the use of tables and chairs amongst the Quadrucos was not very successful. Zolca and my wife tried hard to accustom themselves to this new mode of eating and drinking, &c., but I am afraid the others only lay on the floor and looked at the furniture. They took to writing, however, and having concocted a simple code of signs, Zolca and I could communicate easily.
One morning the blowing of the war-shell announced danger from the northern side of the valley. Zolca, Paul, and I, with a body of men whose duty it was to hold themselves in readiness—for we had taught the Quadrucos not to rush on like a rabble, but to do everything according to method—proceeded to the spot. We found that several footprints of the Papoos had been found, crossing and recrossing the beaten path which the sentinels patrolled. As these were not very formidable foes, Zolca and his men proceeded in pursuit of them, and Paul and I returned. Before leaving the place, however, Paul asked me if I had seen the paintings in the caves near where we were. I had heard of them from Zolca, who professed not to know by whom they had been done, but I had never visited the place. Paul led me to it. They were gigantic figures, without mouths, dressed in long robes, with halos around their heads. There were also characters resembling written words on the walls of the cave. I imagined they had been done by the Quadrucos who first landed.
As we went slowly home I noticed that Paul seemed most friendly, he talked about the hardships and dangers we had gone through together, and what a happy life we had suddenly dropped on. In fact I never saw him more subdued and affectionate. Zolca did not return that day, evidently his pursuit had led him further than he expected.
I slept soundly, to be awakened at sunrise by my name being loudly called from outside the house. Hurrying out I found Namoa, one of the principal men of the valley, in a state of great excitement. As day broke, the sentinels on watch for the pirates saw a boat with a white sail leaving the bay. They then missed one of the largest of the boats we had captured from the Mongols.
Paul had started for Java!
I concealed all signs of emotion, and with Namoa made inquiries. We found that Paul had taken with him his wife and her two brothers. How he had wrought upon them to join him I cannot say, but they must have been secretly at work for some time, preparing the sail and mast, &c. This, then, accounted for his plausible manner the night before, to lull my suspicions to rest. Zolca’s absence was another chance in his favour, and he seized the opportunity.
I treated the matter lightly, explained that Paul had only gone to try how the boat would sail, as we intended rigging masts on all of them. I surmised that he meant it as a surprise for us, that was the reason he had said nothing about his intended trip.
When Zolca returned, which he did in a few hours, having followed the Papoos for a long distance but failed to overtake them, it was quite a different thing, and his eyes showed me that the untamable savage was still latent in him.
However, I had thought the matter over, and had come to the conclusion that Paul never would reach Java. In the first place, even if he escaped shipwreck, he had a most hazy idea as to its whereabouts; in all probability he would land on some strange island, peopled with savages, and he and his party would be murdered. I considered it would be a miracle if he reached Java, unless he was picked up by one of the Company’s discovery-ships. Then again, he could not carry a sufficiency of provisions and water to last him through calm weather, when he could not sail. He had spoken of Captain Pelsart’s voyage in the boat, but Pelsart was a navigator with a well-built boat, not a clumsy Mongol affair; also he had a boat’s crew of trained sailors. Altogether I looked upon it as a rash and desperate enterprise that only an ignorant man would undertake, and one sure to bring destruction on the heads of the parties engaged in it.
All this I confided to Zolca, who, I think, understood most of my reasoning and felt reassured. Suddenly our conversation was interrupted by the blowing of the sentinel’s shell from seaward. We hastened there and, to our intense surprise, found that the boat with the white sail was returning. Now, although I was glad that this, to a certain extent, confirmed what I had already told Namoa and the rest, still I knew that Paul was not coming back willingly, and this idea was soon made a certainty, for, almost immediately, a Mongol junk came into sight. Paul was evidently running back to escape a worse fate.