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Before leaving Singapore, however, Jensen bought some nautical instruments he could not get at Batavia including compasses, quadrant, chronometer, &c. Strange to say, he did not tell me that his ship was named the Veielland until we had arrived at Batavia. Here the contract was duly drawn up, and the vessel fitted out for the voyage.
However, I did not see what advantage was to be gained by remaining where I was, so I fixed from the stern a couple of long sweeps, or steering oars, twenty-six feet long, and made them answer the purpose of a rudder. These arrangements occupied me two or three days, and then, when everything was completed to my satisfaction, and the ship was in sailing trim, I gave the Veielland her freedom.
The three black pearls The fatal morning Jensen and his flotilla drift away Alone on the ship "Oil on the troubled waters" A substitute for a rudder Smoke signals The whirlpool The savages attack I escape from the blacks A strange monster The Veielland strikes a reef Stone deaf through the big wave I leap into the sea How Bruno helped me ashore The dreary island My raft A horrible discovery.
The blacks kept up a terrific hubbub on shore, yelling like madmen, and hurling at me showers of barbed spears. The fact that they had boomerangs convinced me that I must be nearing the Australian mainland. All this time the current was carrying the Veielland rapidly along, and I had soon left the natives jabbering furiously far behind me.
I was more often with them than in Jensen's company, and it did not take me long to pick up bits of their language. The Veielland only drew between seven feet and eight feet of water, so that we were able to venture very close in-shore whenever it was necessary.
I ought to mention, though, that I was unable accurately to determine the sound made by the advancing rats owing to my partial deafness, which you will remember was caused by the great wave which dashed me on to the deck of the Veielland, just before landing on the sand-spit in the Sea of Timor. I often found this deafness a very serious drawback, especially when hunting.
Had I for a moment imagined that my mother was still cherishing hopes of seeing me again some day, and that she was undergoing agonies of mental suspense and worry on my behalf, I think I would have risked everything to reach her. But I knew quite well that she must have heard of the loss of the Veielland, and long ago resigned herself to the certainty of my death.
I may here explain that shortly after leaving Batavia the captain had the ship repainted a greyish-white colour all over. I never troubled to look for her name, but one day I saw Jensen painting the word Veielland on her. There was a totally different name on the lifeboat, but I cannot remember it.
Sometimes their search would take them long distances away, and on one occasion they were working fully ten miles from the Veielland. When the water suddenly became rough, rendering the divers unable to paddle their own little skiffs back to the ship, they made their way to the whale-boat, clambered aboard, and returned in her, trailing their own craft at the stern.
It then occurred to me that I ought to put the ship into some sort of condition to enable her to weather the storm, which was increasing instead of abating. This was not the first storm I had experienced on board the Veielland, so I knew pretty well what to do. First of all, then, I battened down the hatches; this done, I made every movable thing on deck as secure as I possibly could.
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