la from
the Dutch, they agreed to surrender all claims to the islands south
of the pirate-infested Straits of Malacca.

The Dutch, contented with the fabulously rich island of Java and its
twenty-six millions of mild-mannered natives, left the great islands
of Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua to the savage rulers and savage nations
that held them.

The son of an English clergyman, on a little schooner, with a friend or
two and a dozen sailors, sailed into these little known and dangerous
waters one day nineteen years later. His mind was filled with dreams of
an East-Indian empire; he was burning to emulate Cortez and Pizarro,
without practising their abuses. He had entered the English army and
had been so dangerously wounded while leading a charge in India after
his superiors had fallen that he had been retired on a pension before
his twenty-first year. While regaining his health, he had travelled
through India, Malaya, and China, and had written a journal of his
wanderings. During this period his ambitions were crowding him on to
an enterprise that was as foolhardy as the first voyage of Columbus.

He had spied those great tropical islands that touched the equator,
and he coveted them.

After his father's death he invested his little fortune in a schooner,
and in spite of all the protests and prayers of his family and friends,
he sailed for Singapore, and thence across to the northwest coast of
Borneo, landing at Kuching, on the Sarawak River, in 1838.

He had no clearly outlined plan of operations,--he was simply waiting
his chance. The province of Sarawak, a dependency of the Sultan of
Borneo, was governed by an old native rajah, whose authority was
menaced by the fierce, head-hunting Dyaks of the interior. Brooke's
chance had come. He boldly offered to put down the rebellion if the
Rajah would make him his general and second to the throne. The Rajah
cunningly accepted the offer, eager to let the hair-brained young
infidel annoy his foes, but with no intention of keeping his promise.

After days of marching with his little crew and a small army of
natives, through the almost impenetrable rubber jungles, after a
dozen hard-fought battles and deeds of personal heroism, any one
of which would make a story, the head-hunters were crushed and some
kind of order restored. He refused to allow the Rajah to torture the
prisoners,--thereby winning their gratitude,--and he refused to be
dismissed from his office. He had won h