“But could you not wait a day or two? For instance, until we receive further information?”
“My gratitude towards you, sir, begins to oppress me. I owe you the life of my child, but the lives of many human beings are now involved.”
“I beseech you, have a little more patience.”
“Be it so! But be sure that this is the last time that I will do anything for these fugitives. I feel that I am acting wrongly and that if I had not listened to you from the beginning we should have been saved all this trouble.”
A few hours afterwards three canoes, well manned and fully armed, sailed up the Kapoeas. They were under the command of Damboeng Papoendeh, a young Dayak chief eager to gain his first spurs under the Dutch flag. When the Colonel informed him that the canoe which had given battle to the people of soengei Mantangei had sailed toward the Doesson, he smiled and said that he fully understood how to act.
A few minutes later the doctor tried to speak to him alone, but the Dayak repelled all advances and proudly stated that “he had pledged himself to bring back the fugitives, dead or alive.”
The post arrived at Kwala Kapoeas next day and brought a recommendation to the Colonel not to leave any means untried to recapture the deserters.
“But what are you to do?” asked the doctor, who as usual was spending the evening with the Colonel and had witnessed the opening of the official letters. [[95]]
“What am I to do? For my part, the deserters may get clean off. I will have nothing more to do with the matter. I have already exceeded my duty as military commander. It is not my fault that these cruising boats are so slow and can’t get along.”
While giving vent to his feelings the Colonel had almost mechanically opened the other letters and skimmed over their contents. Most of them were of an administrative nature and of little material importance. But the one which he now held in his hand seemed to rivet his whole attention. It was a communication from the Resident, that a schooner carrying reversed Dutch colors and laden with salt, opium, gunpowder and leaden and iron bullets had been captured by His Majesty’s steamer Montrado, in the neighborhood of Poeloe Mangkop, south of cape Batoe Titi. Most of the men had been killed during the fight. One European only, seemingly an Englishman, appeared to have been on board. The commanders of all stations along the coast were therefore advised to be on the lookout, as similar attempts at landing contraband stores might be expected.