Among Malay Pirates : a Tale of Adventure and Peril

“He is a messenger from Hassan; he mentioned our names and yours.”

“Ah, I am glad of that,” the doctor said, rubbing his hands together; “they have been chaffing me in the wardroom about it, and prophesying that I should never hear of him again. Well, what does he say?”

“He has not said anything except our names, Doctor, and that he comes from Hassan. I don’t suppose he knows any more English, and I thought we had better consult you, whether it would be best to send for Soh Hay; he may have brought some message of importance.”

“Right, lad. I think the most prudent thing will be to tell the captain first. It may only be a message to say why he has not come, or it may be a matter of some importance. I will go to him at once.”

Two or three minutes later he returned. “You are to bring him to the captain’s cabin. Here, Davis, pass the word forward that the captain wants to see Soh Hay in his cabin.”

Harry touched the native, who had been standing quietly by his side, and signed him to accompany them, and with Dr. Horsley and Dick went direct to the cabin.

“So your friend has sent a message at last, lad?” Captain Forest said. “I am glad of that, for I own that I had doubts whether we should hear any more of him.”

“You come from the chief Hassan?” the captain, who had been working at the Malay language, with the interpreter, since he had arrived at the mouth of the river, asked in that tongue. The man’s face brightened.

“Yes, my lord,” he said.

“Is he well?”

“The chief is quite well.”

“I wish I knew enough to question him without Soh Hay’s interference, but I shall only make a mess of it, and, perhaps, get a wrong idea altogether of his message. Now, Soh Hay,” he broke off as the interpreter entered, “you will ask this man the questions exactly as I put them, and tell me his answer word for word. It may be of importance. Now ask him first what message he brings from his chief to the officers.”

The question was put, and the native, speaking slowly and quietly, and evidently repeating a lesson that he had learned by heart, said, “The chief sends his greeting to his three friends, Harry, Dick, and Doctor, also to Captain. He is well in body; he is cured, and can throw a spear and lead his men to battle. He has sent four messengers one after another, but none have returned with an answer; they have no doubt been krised. Now he sends me.”

“Tell him that no messenger has arrived until now,” the captain said, when this was interpreted to him.

The man nodded. “All krised. I travel at night, hide in trees all day, float down at night in shadow of bushes, and have got through safe. Chief Hassan says not been able to come down. Other chiefs very angry because English warship come. Send message to Hassan to join them. When he say no, they threaten to kill him and destroy tribe when warship go away. Two of Rajah Sehi’s prahus go up and down river; stop all boats. Sehi send message to all chiefs; say that English war boat here. English come take his country, and after they done that take the countries of the others; make themselves kings of the river. He ask them to join him in killing English, every man, then he would have no more quarrel with them, no trouble trade any more; be good friends with all neighbors. Some chiefs say one thing, some another. Some more afraid of rajah than of English; some think better have English here than rajah.

“Hassan says must take great care. Sehi very treacherous; attack when they do not expect it. He thinks his prahus can easily take English ship; but Hassan says Sehi wants the other chiefs to aid, so that if the English send up more ships, then, can all join him in fighting them. Hassan says he will do what he can. He has eight war canoes, but no good against prahus—they run at canoes, and cut them in half; but will come to help if English attack. He does not know where prahus are. Begs Captain to attack these first; it is they that make Sehi master of the river. If they destroyed, other chiefs not afraid of Sehi, and he might get some of them to join against him. Hassan said tell Harry, and Dick, and Doctor he does not forget their kindness, and will do what he can to watch over them. Such is Hassan’s message.”

“Ask him when he is going back to his chief,” the captain said.

“He go now,” the interpreter said, after asking the question. “He get as far as he can before morning. He sure many eyes watch ship night and day to see that no message comes, or any word of what rajah is doing. He float down stream in sampan some distance, then paddle to opposite bank, then keep in shadow of bushes up the river, and hide away till night comes again.”

“Very well, then, tell him that he is to thank his master for sending us warning; that we had already found out that what he told us before he went away was true, and that Sehi is a very bad man. Say that we are not afraid of prahus, and will make short work of them when we get a chance. Tell him we will take great care, and not let ourselves be surprised, and that when we have finished with this fellow here, the ship will come as far up the river as she can go, and show the chiefs that the English have no evil intentions against them, and will send his three friends with a strong boat party to pay him a visit. By the way, ask the man if he knows this part of the country.”

“Yes, Captain; he says that he has been since his boyhood a boatman, and has worked for some years with a trader, who used to go up the creeks, and trade with the villagers.”

“Ask him if he knows a creek that turns off from the river four or five miles above this; it is a very small one, but it leads into a pool on which is a large village.”

The man nodded at once, when the question was put, then spoke for a minute or two.

“He says, Captain, that he knows the pool and village; but he has never been up the small creek that you speak of. Did not know that a boat could get through. He has been there by a large creek that runs into the other branch of the river, the one that turns off twelve miles below this; from that river it is an hour’s paddle in a sampan to the pool.”

“How should we know the entrance?” the captain asked.

“Entrance difficult to find,” the native replied; “strip of land runs out from both sides, covered with trees. One goes a little beyond the other, so that anyone who did not know it would pass the entrance without noticing it. It is just wide enough for a large craft to go in and out. There is a village stands a hundred yards below the entrance; it would be known by a big tree that grows before a large house close to the bank. The water is deep on that side. You have only, after passing the village, to keep close in shore, and you will then see the entrance to the creek. It is called Alligator Creek, because, more than any place, it swarms with these creatures.”

“Thank you,” the captain said. “Will you tell the chief that I say you have rendered me a valuable service?”

He opened a case in which he kept presents intended for the chiefs, and took out a brace of handsome pistols, a powder flask, and a bullet mold.

“Take these,” he said, “in token of the service you have rendered. When I see your chief, you shall be well recompensed for the risk that you have run in bearing me his message.”

The Malay looked longingly at the pistols, and then said, “I came by order of my chief, and not for reward.”

“Quite so. I understand that, and am not offering you a reward for that service, but for the information that you have given me, which may be of value if I have trouble with the rajah here.”

The man bowed and took the pistols offered. “I will use them against your enemies,” he said warmly; “but all of us know the creek, for it is that which renders it so difficult for us to fight against Sehi. He is master of the water, and we cannot attack him without first crossing that creek. We should have to carry canoes with us, to do it, for the creek is too full of alligators for anyone to swim across, and our small canoes would have no chance of passing the creek when his war boats were there.”

The captain nodded when this was translated to him.

“Sehi’s place, in fact, stands upon an island formed by the two branches of the river and this creek. As soon as he became master of the river, he could hardly be assailed, while at any time he could sally out and fall upon his enemies. Ask the man if he will take any refreshment before he goes.”

The man declined. He had, he said, sufficient fruit and dried fish for his journey back. A few minutes later he took his place in the little canoe and drifted away into the darkness, and was soon lost to sight.

CHAPTER VI

“Things are coming to a crisis, Harry,” Dick Balderson said, in a tone of delight, as they left the captain’s cabin. “We now know what we all along suspected—the rajah is a rascal, and we have not only found out where his prahus are hidden, but have them corked up in a bottle.”

“Nothing could be better, Dick, and I expect we shall have some pretty hot work. Of course the Serpent cannot get up that creek, though she can place herself at the entrance and prevent their getting away; but there still remains the work of capturing or driving them down the creek, and that is likely to be a very tough job.”

The next morning the second lieutenant, the mate, and Harry Parkhurst were sent for to the captain’s cabin. The first lieutenant was there. They were each asked their opinion as to whether the prahus could force their way through the creek by which they had ascended.

“It is a most important point,” the captain said: “and indeed, everything might depend upon it.”

“I am sure, sir,” Mr. Hopkins said, “that they could not go straight down it. They might cut their way through, but it would be a work of considerable time, for with their masts they would have to clear away the branches to a considerable height. Down near the water the branches by which we pushed ourselves along were those of the undergrowth, with many rattans and other creepers varying from the thickness of one’s thumb to that of one’s wrist, and these would take a great deal of chopping before one of their war boats could be pushed through, but higher up they would probably have much thicker branches to contend with. It may be that they can lower their masts; but even if they could do so, I should think that it would take them over an hour’s work, even with the number of hands they carry, to get a passage through that bit of thick undergrowth, fifty or sixty yards up the mouth of the creek. There are two or three other places where some chopping would have to be done, but that would be comparatively easy work.”

The mate and Harry both agreed with the lieutenant.

“Practically, then,” the captain said, “the Malays have but one mode of escape, while we have two of attack. At any rate, if we send up a boat beforehand, and fasten two or three iron chains from side to side among the branches, that passage would be securely sealed.

“Thank you, gentlemen; that is all I have to ask at present. It is a very difficult nut we have to crack, Mr. Ferguson,” he went on, when he and the first lieutenant were alone. “To attack six strongly armed prahus with the boats of this ship would be a serious enterprise indeed, and its success would be very doubtful, while the loss would certainly be very heavy, especially as, if any of the boats were sunk, the crews would have but little chance in a place swarming with alligators. I don’t think I should be justified in risking such an enterprise.”

“There is no doubt, sir, the loss would be very heavy indeed; by all accounts, these Malays fight like demons on the decks of their own boats, and, for aught we know, they may, after nightfall, trice up rattans to prevent boarders getting on board. I have heard that it is their custom when they expect an attack, and that these are far more formidable obstacles than our boarding nets. Of course I should be quite ready to lead an attack should you decide upon making one, but I cannot conceal from myself that it would be a well nigh desperate undertaking.”

“I am glad that you are of that opinion,” the captain said. “There seems to me but one course, and that a difficult one—namely, to carry a couple of heavy guns through the forest to the edge of the pool. It would be a serious undertaking, and we should have to send a strong force to defend them, but if we could succeed in planting them in position, we should soon drive the Malays out of the pool.”

“That would be a capital plan, Captain, if it could be managed. I suppose before we attempt it, you will take possession of this place, and capture the rajah?”

“That of course. I don’t suppose we shall capture him. I have no doubt that we are closely watched night and day, and that the instant the boats are lowered, and the men get on board, the rajah would prepare for flight, though he might possibly make some resistance. However, that would be but trifling; our guns would cover the landing, and knock the place about his ears; but to penetrate the jungle would be vastly more difficult an affair. If, as is probable, he has succeeded in inducing some of his neighbors to join him, they may have already sent strong contingents, and the forest may be full of them. In that case it would be quite beyond our power to rout them out, and I certainly should not be justified in attempting it. The destruction of his town and the burning of his palace would be a serious blow to him, but the destruction of his piratical fleet would be a very much heavier one. If we can achieve that, we shall have done good service.

“The first thing to do is to find out whether there is a path either from this river, or the other branch, to the pool. If so, at dark, after destroying the town, we will recall all the men on shore, buoy the anchor and drop it noiselessly, and drift down the river till we are far enough away to use the engines, then steam down to the junction of the two streams, and up again to the entrance to the creek on that side. Then we will at once land a very strong party, land also two twenty-four pounders, and drag them to the pool. We might hope to do so without any opposition, for the Malays would no doubt be gathered at the edge of the forest near the town to repel any attack we might make from there, and before morning we might have the guns in position. I should take a hundred empty sacks. These you would fill with earth when you get near the pool, and form a battery with them behind the screen of bushes; then, when you are ready, you will cut down the bushes and open fire.”

“I don’t see why that should not succeed, sir. Of course the most difficult part of the operation is dragging the guns. These native paths are only broad enough for men in single file.”

“Yes, that is the difficulty. We could not employ axes to cut down the trees, and to saw them down would be an interminable work. I think, Mr. Ferguson, we should have to carry them.”