It was easy running down the river with the current. One man in each end of the boat kept it off roots, sunken logs, and crocodiles, and the rest of us spent the time as best our cramped space allowed. Twice we detected the black, ugly face of a Dyak peering from out the jungle. The men were for hunting them down for the price on their heads, but the captain said he never killed a human being except in self-defence, and that if the Rajah wanted to get rid of the savages he had better give the contract to a Mississippi slave-trader. Secretly, I was longing for some kind of excitement, and was hoping that the men’s clamorous talk would have some effect. I never doubted our ability to raid a Dyak village and kill the head-hunters and carry off the beautiful maidens. I could not see why a parcel of blacks should be such a terror to the good Rajah, when Big Tom said he could easily handle a dozen, and flattered me by saying that such a brawny lad as I ought to take care of two at least.
In the course of three days we reached the mouth of the river, and prepared the sail for the trip across the bay to the Bangor. Just as everything was in readiness, one of those peculiar and rapid changes in the weather, that are so common here in the tropics near the equator, took place. A great blue-black cloud, looking like an immense cartridge, came up from the west. Through it played vivid flashes of lightning, and around it was a red haze. “A nasty animal,” I heard the bo’s’n tell the captain, and yet I was foolishly delighted when they decided to risk a blow and put out to sea. The sky on all sides grew darker from hour to hour. A smell of sulphur came to our nostrils. It was oppressively hot; not a breath of wind was stirring. The sail flapped uselessly against the mast, and the men labored at the oars, while streams of sweat ran from their bodies.
The captain had just taken down the mast, when, without a moment’s warning, the gale struck us and the boat half filled with water. We managed to head it with the wind, and were soon driving with the rapidity of a cannon-ball over the boiling and surging waters. It was a fearful gale; we blew for hours before it, ofttimes in danger of a volcanic reef, again almost sunk by a giant wave. I baled until I was completely exhausted. But the long-boat was a stanch little craft, and there were plenty of men to manage it, so as long as we could keep her before the wind, the captain felt no great anxiety as to our safety.
III
At about six bells in the afternoon, the wind fell away, and the rain came down in torrents, leaving us to pitch about on the rapidly decreasing waves, wet to the skin and unequal to another effort. We were within a mile of a rocky island that rose like a half-ruined castle from the ocean. The Dyak soldiers called it Satang Island, and I have sailed past it many a time since. Without waiting for the word, we rowed to it and around it, before we found a suitable beach on which to land. One end of the island rose precipitous and sheer above the beach a hundred feet, and ended in a barren plateau of some two dozen acres. The remainder comprised some hundred acres of sand and rocks, on which were half a dozen cocoanut trees and a few yams. Along the beach we found a large number of turtles’ eggs.
The captain, remembering the Rajah’s caution in regard to pirates, decided not to make a light, but we were wet and hungry and overcame his scruples, and soon had a huge fire and a savory repast of coffee, turtles’ eggs, and yams. At midnight it was extinguished, and a watch stationed on top of the plateau. Toward morning I clambered grumblingly up the narrow, almost perpendicular sides of the rift that cut into the rocky watch-tower. I did not believe in pirates and was willing to take my chances in sleep. I paced back and forth, inhaling deep breaths of the rich tropical air; below me the waves beat in ripples against the rugged beach, casting off from time to time little flashes of phosphorescent light, and mirroring in their depths the hardly distinguishable outline of the Southern Cross. The salt smell of the sea was tinged with the spice-laden air of the near coast. Drowsiness came over me. I picked up a musket and paced around the little plateau. The moon had but just reached its zenith, making all objects easily discernible. The smooth storm-swept space before me reflected back its rays like a well-scrubbed quarter-deck; below were the dark outlines of my sleeping mates. I could hear the light wind rustling through the branches of the casuarina trees that fringed the shore. I paused and looked over the sea. Like a charge of electricity a curious sensation of fear shot through me. Then an intimation that some object had flashed between me and the moon. I rubbed my eyes and gazed in the air above, expecting to see a night bird or a bat. Then the same peculiar sensation came over me again, and I looked down in the water below just in time to see the long, keen, knife-like outline of a pirate prau glide as noiselessly as a shadow from a passing cloud into the gloom of the island. Its great, wide-spreading, dark red sails were set full to the wind, and hanging over its sides by ropes were a dozen naked Illanums, guiding the sensitive craft almost like a thing of life. Within the prau were two dozen fighting men, armed with their alligator hide buckler, long, steel-tipped spear, and ugly, snake-like kris. A third prau followed in the wake of the other two, and all three were lost in the blackness of the overhanging cliffs.
With as little noise as possible, I ran across the plain and warned my companion, then picked my way silently down the defile to the camp. The captain responded to my touch and was up in an instant. The men were awakened and the news whispered from one to another. Gathering up what food and utensils we possessed, we hurried to get on top of the plateau before our exact whereabouts became known. The captain hoped that when they discovered we were well fortified and there was no wreck to pillage, they would withdraw without giving battle. They had landed on the opposite side of the island from our boat and might leave it undisturbed. We felt reasonably safe in our fortress from attacks. There were but two breaks in its precipitous sides, each a narrow defile filled with loose boulders that could easily be detached and sent thundering down on an assailant’s head. On the other hand, our shortness of food and water made us singularly weak in case of siege. But we hoped for the best. Two men were posted at each defile, and as nothing was heard for an hour, most of us fell asleep.
IV
It was just dawn, when we were awakened by the report of two muskets and the terrific crashing of a great boulder, followed by groans and yells. With one accord we rushed to the head of the cañon. The Illanums, naked, with the exception of party-colored sarongs around their waists, with their bucklers on their left arms and their gleaming knives strapped to their right wrists, were mounting on each other’s shoulders, forcing a way up the precipitous defile, unmindful of the madly descending rocks that had crushed and maimed more than one of their number. They were fine, powerful fellows, with a reddish brown skin that shone like polished ebony. Their hair was shorn close to their heads; they had high cheek bones, flat noses, syrah-stained lips, and bloodshot eyes. In their movements they were as lithe and supple as a tiger, and commanded our admiration while they made us shudder. We knew that they neither give nor take quarter, and for years had terrorized the entire Bornean coast.