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There were rumours of a missing trading prau belonging to Menado, but they were vague and remained mysterious. Babalatchi told a story which it must be said in justice to Patalolo's knowledge of the world was not believed.
I can hardly tell now how it was done, my lad, but one moment I was giving orders for the water to be passed over the side, the next I was lying on the deck struck down, and when I came to, the men were secured below and the deck was in possession of the Malays, a second prau having come up and helped the men of the first." "But we heard firing, father?"
Dec. 23d.-Fine red sunrise; the island we left last evening barely visible behind us. The Goram prau about a mile south of us. They have no compass, yet they have kept a very true course during the night. Our owner tells me they do it by the swell of the sea, the direction of which they notice at sunset, and sail by it during the night.
"No, not at the distance I shall fire from. Ah, that was better aimed," he said, as the brass lelah on board the prau was fired, to strike the sand in front of the natural stockade, and then fly right over the sailors' heads. "I'll lay a wager, Gregory, that our friends don't make such another shot as that to-day." Then followed a few minutes of painful inaction, which seemed drawn out to hours.
We went in the frigate, fifteen men and one Indian, who knew the language, the pilot of a junk captured by the master-of-camp and Captain Martin de Goete." This detachment coasted among various islands, among them Licoyon and Binglas. They were blown out of their course by a storm. A prau was sighted, but its occupants took flight, ran their vessel ashore, and hid on the island.
Those were perilous moments; for as the prau drew near it seemed impossible for its occupants to pass without seeing the gig lying little more than a few yards away. And as the English party sat there hardly daring to breathe, and knowing that a growl from the dog would result in a shower of spears, it seemed as if the vessel would never pass.
All day long native boats were coming with fish, cocoa-nuts, parrots and lories, earthen pans, sirip leaf, wooden bowls, and trays, &c. &e., which every one of the fifty inhabitants of our prau seemed to be buying on his own account, till all available and most unavailable space of our vessel was occupied with these miscellaneous articles: for every man on board a prau considers himself at liberty to trade, and to carry with him whatever he can afford to buy.
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.
These, seated in double rows along each side of the vessel, take no part in the fighting, which is done by the chiefs and warriors stationed above on a sort of platform or upper deck that extends nearly the whole length of the prau.
Looking at my whole voyage in this vessel from the time when I left Goram in May, it will appear that rely experiences of travel in a native prau have not been encouraging. We were always close braced up, always struggling against wind, tide, and leeway, and in a vessel that would scarcely sail nearer than eight points from the wind.
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