My hopes and fears alternately rose and fell as I watched the chase. Sometimes the boats seemed to be gaining on her. At other times she appeared to be obtaining the advantage. She continued to increase her canvas till every stitch she could carry was set on her, studding sails on either side, royals, and even still lighter sails above them, which we used to call skyscrapers. I now observed that although there were several large boats engaged in the chase, they were but slow sailers, and that the small ones were drawing ahead of them. These of course would be more easily dealt with by the Barbara’s crew than the larger craft.
The latter were vessels of about forty tons, carrying fifty or sixty persons. The hulls of those I had seen on landing were neatly built, with round heads and sterns; and over the hulls were light small houses, composed of bamboos, and divided into three or four cabins. The sides were formed of split bamboos about four feet high, with windows in them to open and shut at pleasure; the roofs were almost flat, and thatched with palm leaves. The oars are worked by the crew standing at the fore and after-part of the vessel. I thought that probably the boats now in chase of the Barbara were modifications of this sort of craft, and more adapted to warlike purposes than they were. The natives became at length even more excited than I was as the breeze occasionally fell and gave their boats an advantage. They knew also that the land breeze would soon set in, which I did not. They probably fancied that when it did the vessel would be caught in a trap, not knowing that she could haul her wind and still keep ahead of them.
I stood watching the various circumstances of the chase, till at length, greatly to my relief, I saw the boats, as if by signal, begin to return together towards the shore, while the Barbara continued standing off shore till she met the sea-breeze, when she hauled her wind and stood away to the northward. My Dutch friend congratulated me on her escape.
“And as it appears that you are not to be detained as a prisoner, the sooner you get out of this place the better,” he observed. “I will gladly welcome you to my abode, where you can remain till we gain further information as to the result of the British expedition against Batavia. If it is ultimately successful, your ship will put in at that place, and you can rejoin her.”
I gladly accepted his offer. As we passed through the large entrance court he pointed out two large Indian-fig-trees, and told me that under them was the place where criminals were executed. On each side of the court was a row of the same description of tree. We descended the hill towards the harbour. On approaching it I heard the shrill voice of a boy crying out loudly amid the shouts and chattering of a number of natives. I soon recognised the voice of Jack Nobs, who had, I had hoped, made his escape in the boats. The people, seeing me accompanied by guards, made way for Jack, who ran towards me, crying out—
“Oh, save me, Mr Braithwaite! save me, sir! These savinges are a-going to cut off my head, or to hang me up and cook and eat me. They eat people in these parts, and they look as if they would make nothing of devouring me.”
In vain I tried to pacify him. He seemed to fear that the natives were going to treat me in the same way he thought that they were about to treat him.
“But what made you come back, Jack?” I asked. “I thought that you had gone off to the ship.”
“What, leave you all alone among the savinges!” he answered, looking up reproachfully at me. “No, no, sir. After you have been so kind to me, and always took me with you wherever you’ve been, and we was nearly all drowned together! No, no, if harm is to come of it, I says to myself, I’ll go shares with Mr Braithwaite, whatever happens; so, when the boats shoved off, I scud away, and when the men called me to come along with them, and not to mind you, for that I could do you no good, I wouldn’t go back, but kept beckoning them to be off; so away they went, and I ran up in shore and hid myself. The savinges, howsomdever, found me out at last, and as long as they thought that they should get hold of the ship they treated me civil enough, as they might a pet monkey; but when they found that they could not catch her, they turned their rage on me, and what they’re going to do with us I’m sure I don’t know. Oh dear! oh dear!”
Jack’s fears were very natural, for the dark-skinned, half-naked Javanese, with their glittering kreeses or daggers in their hands, which they flourished about while they vociferated loudly, were very ferocious-looking fellows.