With the assistance of the seamen, the carcass of the old orang was dragged down to the river, and put in the sampan of the Malays. The young one was as ugly as sin itself, and tried to get at the men to bite them. Finally Clingman stuffed a piece of rope into his mouth, and tied it around his head so tight that he could not shut his mouth. He was mad, but he could not bite. He was put into the sampan, and made fast there.
The yacht got under way again, and with the Malay sampan in tow, headed down the river. The tide was running out at a mill-stream pace, for the water in the stream had risen far beyond its usual level. Achang shook his head as he looked at the rapid outward flow of the water; but the steamer went at railroad speed, and the boys enjoyed it hugely.
"What is the matter, Achang?" asked the captain, as he observed the uneasy movements of the Bornean as the yacht approached the junction with the Sadong.
"Have bore soon; better go no farther," replied the native. "Upset all boats and sampans."
Captain Scott ordered the helmsman to go to the shore, and there the painter of the Malay sampan was cast off, and her men got to the land.
"There it goes up the Sadong!" cried Achang, as he pointed to the broad stream.
A wave, estimated to be about ten feet high, fringing, curling, and lashed into foam, and roaring in its wrath, rolled up the river. It struck two small sampans, upset them, and spilled the men in them into the angry, boiling waters. With less fury it rolled up the Simujan, and Scott rushed to the wheel himself. He "faced the music," and headed the yacht into the wave. She rose some feet in the air at the bow, and passed over it. She was too far from the banks to be thrown ashore, and no harm was done.
These bores are not uncommon on the Sadong; and they were not a new thing to those on board of the Blanchita, for they had seen one in the Hoogly at Calcutta; but even Scott, who was a bold navigator, would not have cared to be in the river when a wave ten feet high swept on his craft.