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As that cry arose the prau turned right over and disappeared completely from view, while at that moment there was another of the tremendous explosions from the mountain, succeeded by instantaneous darkness.
My gimlets were, however, too small; and having no augers we were obliged to bore all the holes with hot irons, a most tedious and unsatisfactory operation. Five men had engaged to work at the prau till finished, and then go with me to Mysol, Waigiou, and Ternate.
Then the sight of a prau even with the certainty of its being a piratical craft would have been welcome; since death by the Malay kris, or slavery to the most cruel taskmaster, would have been a relief from the sufferings they were enduring, from hunger as from thirst.
They had come from the other side of the island on some question of trespass or boundary, and were prepared for war if peaceable negotiations should fail. As soon as we began getting my prau ready I was obliged to give up collecting, as I found that unless I was constantly on the spot myself very little work would be clone.
The spirit of enterprise is also in abeyance, scotched if not killed by the struggles of the memorable pilgrimage through the Minahasa. The quiet haven in the shadow of the guardian hills looks an ideal haunt of peace. A Dutch battleship lies at anchor, and the red sails of a wide-winged prau make broken reflections in the rippling clearness of the green water.
Towards the end of my time here we began to hear talk of a maimed Frenchman who had been seen here and there. But no one knew then that he had foregathered with Niclaus and lived in his prau. I daresay he put Niclaus up to a thing or two. Anyhow, it was a partnership. Niclaus was somewhat afraid of the Frenchman on account of his tempers, which were awful.
The prau hauled up on the mud-bank, at the junction of the two branches of the Pantai, rotted in the rain, warped in the sun, fell to pieces and gradually vanished into the smoke of household fires of the settlement. Only a forgotten plank and a rib or two, sticking neglected in the shiny ooze for a long time, served to remind Babalatchi during many months that he was a stranger in the land.
I've heard of the Rajah of Dongala giving him fifty dollars' worth of trade goods and paying his passage in a prau only to get rid of him. Fact. And observe that nothing prevented the old fellow having Bamtz's throat cut and the carcase thrown into deep water outside the reefs; for who on earth would have inquired after Bamtz?
I HAD left the old pilot at Waigiou to take care of my house and to get the prau into sailing order to caulk her bottom, and to look after the upper works, thatch, and ringing. When I returned I found it nearly ready, and immediately began packing up and preparing for the voyage.
On December 13th I went on board a prau bound for the Aru Islands, a journey which will be described in the latter part of this work. I REACHED Macassar again on the 11th of July, and established myself in my old quarters at Mamajam, to sort, arrange, clean, and pack up my Aru collections.
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