The boom of the cannon is heard for the third time: there are three more reports.
I start to my feet. It must be a vessel, then! a vessel which is arriving at the island! a vessel which is about to disembark someone! A vessel! a vessel! Hurrah!
The reports continue to resound.
The besiegers, confounded and uneasy at the noise of these detonations, repeated several times over by the echoes of the island, brought their operations to a decided standstill.
With stones in their hands, with their muzzles turned in the direction of the wind, with outstretched necks, hair standing on end, and ears pricked up, they sought to explain to themselves what I should have liked exceedingly to have been able to have explained myself.
What had happened? Had this vessel come to deliver me? Still all those reports could not be for me alone? Ah, no. Was it some ship in danger signalling for assistance? Or rather, was it the Malay pirates about to make another descent on the island? But what could they come to steal here? They had already taken everything. Was it a battle between them and some European ship of war?
Ah! my anxieties were infinite.
Half-an-hour after the first of these reports I heard drums, brass instruments, and martial music. It was a disembarkation! a conquest! the tune seemed to tell of victory.
My loving and hostile subjects appeared to me more and more astounded. With many this astonishment took the nature of fear, and some were already seeking with furtive glances favourable openings for an immediate flight.