ightning, and around it was a red haze. "A nasty animal," I heard the
bo's'n tell the captain, and yet I was foolishly delighted when they
decided to risk a blow and put out to sea. The sky on all sides grew
darker from hour to hour. A smell of sulphur came to our nostrils. It
was oppressively hot; not a breath of wind was stirring. The sail
flapped uselessly against the mast, and the men labored at the oars,
while streams of sweat ran from their bodies.

The captain had just taken down the mast, when, without a moment's
warning, the gale struck us and the boat half filled with water. We
managed to head it with the wind, and were soon driving with the
rapidity of a cannon-ball over the boiling and surging waters. It was
a fearful gale; we blew for hours before it, ofttimes in danger of a
volcanic reef, again almost sunk by a giant wave. I baled until I was
completely exhausted. But the long-boat was a stanch little craft, and
there were plenty of men to manage it, so as long as we could keep her
before the wind, the captain felt no great anxiety as to our safety.

III

At about six bells in the afternoon, the wind fell away, and the
rain came down in torrents, leaving us to pitch about on the rapidly
decreasing waves, wet to the skin and unequal to another effort. We
were within a mile of a rocky island that rose like a half-ruined
castle from the ocean. The Dyak soldiers called it Satang Island,
and I have sailed past it many a time since. Without waiting for
the word, we rowed to it and around it, before we found a suitable
beach on which to land. One end of the island rose precipitous and
sheer above the beach a hundred feet, and ended in a barren plateau
of some two dozen acres. The remainder comprised some hundred acres
of sand and rocks, on which were half a dozen cocoanut trees and a
few yams. Along the beach we found a large number of turtles' eggs.

The captain, remembering the Rajah's caution in regard to pirates,
decided not to make a light, but we were wet and hungry and overcame
his scruples, and soon had a huge fire and a savory repast of coffee,
turtles' eggs, and yams. At midnight it was extinguished, and a
watch stationed on top of the plateau. Toward morning I clambered
grumblingly up the narrow, almost perpendicular sides of the rift
that cut into the rocky watch-tower. I did not believe in pirates
and was willing to take my chances in sleep. I paced back and forth,
inhaling deep breaths of