t grateful to you for thinking of
me. The life I have often had to lead under inferiors, often
tyrannical, rude, and uneducated, has been very irksome, and has at
times nearly driven me to desperation; but with you I shall have all the
pleasures of a roving life, without any of the drawbacks I so much
hate."

"Well, then, it is settled, Fairburn," I said, equally pleased with him.
"We will not lose an instant, when we get into port, in looking after a
vessel, and picking up a good crew." So we went on, hour after hour,
talking on the subject till the watch was worn out, and daylight began
to appear.

"We must get into port first, however, on the old principle of catching
a hare before cooking it," he remarked, laughing.

A hail from the long-boat interrupted us. We were some little way
astern, and we saw her lower her sail, the jolly-boat doing the same.
We stood on till we got up to her.

"Down with your canvas--down!" exclaimed the captain vehemently--"Don't
you see that ahead?"

We had been quietly following the long-boat, and had not looked beyond
her. We now did so, and by the uncertain light of the coming dawn, we
could see the dark sails of several large prahus standing directly
across our course from the eastward. Had we been a little farther
advanced, we should have been directly under their stems. If they were
pirates, our position was perilous in the extreme. The captain proposed
that we should instantly put about, and pull away from them to the
northward and east; but then it was argued that the moment the sun got
up the flashing of our oar-blades in the water would inevitably betray
us, and that our best mode of proceeding was to be perfectly quiet, so
that they might pass without perceiving us. The last proposal was
carried, Fairburn, whose opinion was always of weight, voting for it.
The oars were accordingly laid in, and we all crouched down at the
bottom of the boats, no one's head being allowed to appear above the
gunwales. We hoped thus, if the Malays should see the boats, that they
would fancy they were without occupants, and would not think it worth
their while to go out of their way to examine them. The canvas of the
bulwark, at the bow, was lifted a little to enable one person to look
through, in order to watch the proceedings of the prahus. Our
preparations were made before it was quite light; and now came the most
trying time, when the sun, as he rose from the water, should firs