With the Dyaks of Borneo: A Tale of the Head Hunters

by F. S. Brereton

There was a long pause ere the silence was broken between them, and all the while John Marshall stared across at the blazing fires and at the figures of the pirates lying about them. He heard as if in a dream the sounds made by those who had lately put in an appearance, and watched listlessly for their appearance in the stockade. But he was thinking of someone else. In his mind's eye he pictured the child of seven, and the woman, the only survivors of those who had been aboard the English ship, and he remembered that they were of his own country, strangers, and helpless strangers at that, in a foreign country, without friends to help them, unless he and his bold young leader went to the rescue, and took them from the clutches of Hanns and his men.

What if he, John Marshall, of the mercantile marine, who prided himself upon the fact of being a British sailor and a man, together with his friend, Tyler Richardson, had failed to catch sight of the prisoners? What if, knowing them to be so close at hand, they deserted them and left them to their fate?

The boatswain almost started to his feet as this new side of the question occurred to him; but a moment later he was lying down again, with his face close to Tyler's.

"We'd be thunderin' curs!" he blurted out with a curious catch in his breath. "You and me stands alone between them two and a life of misery. And I was for making off with me tail between me legs! Bah. John Marshall, you ain't half the chap you think!"

His disgust was so great that the better to express it he would have brought his fist violently against the ground had not discretion suddenly arrested his arm in the midst of the movement.

"Might wake 'em up over there," he said, as if to himself. "We can't afford to be doin' that, for we've got to rescue the kid and the woman. What's the idea, sir?"

"There is no idea as yet, John. All depends upon the pirates and their friends who have lately arrived. If they settle down for the night we shall be able to go on with the original programme. If not, then we must see what can be done. But I will take all away or remain myself. Supposing it is possible to embark the tribe, but we cannot get at the captives, then I propose to remain behind in the forest, and try on another occasion, or while they are absent in pursuit But, steady! Something is occurring over there, and we had better listen."

Becoming silent at once they leaned as far towards the bank of the river as the undergrowth would permit, and watched the spot where the prahu had moored beside the boom. Thanks to the fires which blazed in the central portion of the stockade, they were soon able to make out her sails and her exact position, and even imagined that they could observe the crew who still remained on board. Some minutes later there was a movement amongst the latter, who disappeared from sight, only to reappear within a short space of time at the entrance to the stockade. And here they found nothing to prevent their moving forward, for no enemies were expected, and, safe in the thought that they were too powerful to fear a sudden attack, the pirates had neglected, as was their wont, to close the gap which led through the timbers of the stockade. With a shout some eighty men ran forward to the fires, and at once mingled with their comrades.

"The gate is open. You observe that?" whispered Tyler in accents of delight "If they do not trouble to close it I shall have little difficulty in entering where those men went, and in bringing the captives out by the same way. What is going to happen now?"