Baboe Dalima; or, The Opium Fiend

by M. T. H. Perelaer

The Javanese chief scratched the back of his head in sore perplexity.

“And I,” cried Murowski, “I give another fifty!”

The loerah began to waver. He exchanged a few anxious words with a couple of men who stood by his side. These seemed not so scrupulous. With a gesture of assent they at once sprang into the boat into which the Europeans took their seats also.

“Look here,” cried Grenits almost cheerfully, “each of you fellows shall have five-and-twenty guilders if we succeed!”

“I will give the same to each of you,” said Murowski, “and now give way with all your might.”

The loerah had taken his place in the afterpart of the crazy boat and he held the steering paddle. Even Dalima and our two friends Grenits and Murowski had armed themselves with a paddle and prepared to help the rowers to the best of their ability. Under the impulse of these six blades the boat shot rapidly ahead.

At first, as long as the boat was in the bay all went well. The loerah steered straight for the middle of the entrance of the Moeara; for he was anxious to avoid the tossing and the dangerous back-draught of the water along the coast, and thus, helped on by the stream of the river, the little boat sped on like an arrow released from the bowstring. But, as they gradually got into the estuary, the force of the ocean began to make itself felt. The current began to decrease more and more until at length it was no longer perceptible. Now small waves began to beat up against the keel, and these presently increased in size and power as they coursed along the sides and gave a kind of pounding or stamping motion to the little boat. Still the canoe travelled on—it got into the midst of the foam caused by the breakers and into the eddies formed by the retreating waves. The little cockle-shell seemed dancing on foam. The loerah, who knew that the critical moment was approaching, was sitting in the stern his lips tightly compressed. He wore an anxious and determined look as he clutched his steering-paddle which, at one time, the wave strove, as it were, to pluck from his grasp, and at another the violent swaying of the boat threatened to wrench from him.

He was keeping a most anxious look-out, it was a question of life or death. Could he venture to go on? When the billow broke, the hollow tree-stem was at a considerable distance from it. But now the question was: could they hope to get over the distance between that mountain of water and the next one before it also would break? No, he thought they could not. The risk was too great to run. Still he kept looking out and, in the far distance, the next mass of water came steadily rolling up. It was coming on like a towering hill. To the men sitting in that frail canoe it looked like a mountain. The little boat was still hurrying on and, though very unsteadily, yet the five paddles kept way on her. The great wave every instant came nearer and nearer—at length it seemed to rear—it rose as it were perpendicularly over that nutshell, which seemed mad enough to brave its fury. Already it began to form its silvery white crest and appeared like a solid wall of polished blue glittering under the sun’s beams.

“Easy all,” shouted the loerah, who had the while been carefully watching the approaching wave.

At the word the paddles ceased to move, and the boat lost all the way she had on her. But just then it seemed as if, without any impulse at all, the little boat was hurrying to meet the huge billow. It looked as if she must inevitably be swallowed up in that mighty curl of water which was about to form.