Lost ships and lonely seas

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

For twenty days they were closely held as prisoners in this forest settlement, during which time two old men arrived from another town and displayed a lively interest in the situation. They toddled off into the jungle, but came again with a Mahomedan priest called Tuan Hadjee, who was a bit of a linguist in that he spoke a few words of English, some Portuguese, and a smattering of the Moorish tongue. He was a man of the world, having journeyed to Bombay and Bengal on his way to Mecca, and displayed a letter from the British governor of Balambangan, on the island of Borneo, to show that he was a good and trustworthy person and was empowered to assist all distressed Englishmen.

This Tuan Hadjee lived up to his credentials, for he offered the rajah a hundred dollars in golddust as ransom for the five seamen, which price was haughtily refused, and the kindly priest went away to see what else could be done about it. Nothing more was seen of this amiable pilgrim, and the Americans were set to work in the forest to clear the fields or to gather sago. After two months they were left unguarded by day, but shut up in a house at night. Week after week dragged by in this wearisome drudgery, but they kept alive, and their spirit was unbroken, although the food was poor and scanty and the tropical heat scorched the very souls out of them.

At the end of half a year of this enslavement another rajah who seems to have been a kind of overlord of the region summoned them into his presence at a town on the sea-coast. There Woodard almost died of fever, but a woman befriended him and greatly helped to save his life. The episode suggests a romance, and this viking of a sailor who drifted in so strangely from an unknown world was a man to win the love of women. In this respect, however, he was discreetly silent when it came to relating the story of his wanderings in Celebes, and the interest which he inspired is sedately described as follows:

At her first visit she looked at him some time in silence, then went to the bazaar and bought some tobacco and bananas which she presented to him, as also a piece of money. Seeing him scantily clothed, she asked whether he had no more clothing and whether he would have some tea. Then carrying one of the other sick men home with her, she gave him tea and a pot to boil it in. She likewise sent rice and some garments, with a pillow and two mats. This good woman was of royal blood and married to a Malay merchant. These were not her only gifts, for she proved a kind friend to the seamen while they were at that place.

Another house being provided for the five men, Woodard, unable to walk, was carried thither accompanied by a great concourse of young females who immediately on his arrival kindled a fire and began to boil rice. His fever still continued very severe and on the morning of the fourth day of his residence an old woman appeared with a handful of boughs, announcing that she was come to cure him and that directly. In the course of a few minutes four or five more old women were seen along with her, according to the custom of the country in curing the sick. They spent the day in brushing him with the boughs of the trees and used curious incantations. The ceremony was repeated in the evening and he was directed to go and bathe in the river. Although he put little faith in the proceedings, the fever abated and he speedily began to recover.

From a Dutch fort seventy miles away the commandant came to see Woodard and invited him to return with him, offering to buy him out of slavery. The chief mate refused, because he was afraid of being compelled to join the Dutch military service. He was shrewd enough to perceive that this was what the commandant had in mind, and he therefore begged to be sent to Macassar, whence he could make his way to Batavia. At this the commandant lost interest in the castaways and made no more attempt to help them.

Soon after this they were carried back to the village of their first imprisonment, but Woodard had seen blue water again and he was resolved to risk his life for liberty. Eluding his guards, he took a spear for a weapon and followed the forest paths all night until he emerged on a beach, where he discovered a canoe and paddled out to sea. Rough water swamped the ticklish craft, and he had to swim half a mile to get to land again. Back he trudged to his hut on the mountain-side and crawled into it before dawn.

Undiscouraged, he broke away again, and made for a town called Dungalla, where he had a notion that his friend Tuan Hadjee, the priest, might be found. He somehow steered a course through the forests and ravines and fetched up at the stockade which surrounded Dungalla. As a disquieting apparition he alarmed a nervous old gentleman, who scampered off to shriek to the village that a gigantic white devil was sitting on a log at the edge of the clearing. The old codger turned out to be a servant of Tuan Hadjee, who warmly welcomed the chief mate and took him into his house as a guest.

The rajah to whom Woodard belonged got wind of his whereabouts and wrathfully demanded that he be sent back. The prideful rajah of Dungalla refused in language no less provocative. Woodard smuggled a message through to his men, urging them to escape and join him. This they succeeded in doing, and the people of Dungalla were delighted to receive them. This episode strained the relations of the two rajahs to the breaking-point, and war was promptly declared.

Inasmuch as they were the bone of contention, Woodard and his seamen promptly offered to fight on the side of the rajah of Dungalla; so they proceeded to imperil their skins in one of those tribal feuds which eternally flicker and smolder in the Malaysian forests. Woodard was placed in command of a tower upon the stockade wall, where he served a brass swivel and hammered obedience into a native detachment. His sun-blistered, leech-bitten sailors, clad only in sarongs, held the other barricade with creeses and muskets, and were regarded as supernatural heroes by the simple soldiery of the rajah.