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Updated: June 13, 2025
Combined with the qualities of a fearless fighter, he had the faculty of winning the good will and admiration of his foes. The fierce Suloos and Illanums became his fast friends. He left their chiefs in power, but punished every outbreak with a merciless hand. One of the many incidents of his checkered career shows that his spirit was all-powerful among them.
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.
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.
Yet with my thoughts in Maine, I saw and felt that the Illanums were gradually gaining on us. Our men were weary and feeble from two days' fasting, while the pirates were strong, and thirsting for our blood. The captain kept glancing first at the enemy and then at a musket that lay near him. He longed to use it, but not a man could be spared from the oars. Hand over hand they gained on us.
The prau had sighted us and was bearing down in full pursuit; we soon could distinguish its wide-spreading, rakish sails almost touching the water as it sped on. Then we made out the naked forms of the Illanums hanging to the ropes, far out over the water, and then we could hear their blood-curdling yell. It was too late; their yell was one of baffled rage.
I as a boy could not realize what capture meant at the hands of our cruel pursuers. My heart beat high, and I felt equal to a dozen Illanums. My thoughts travelled back to New England in the midst of the excitement.
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