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 the rich tropical air; below me the waves beat in ripples against
the rugged beach, casting off from time to time little flashes of phosphorescent
light, and mirroring in their depths the hardly distinguishable outline of the
Southern Cross. The salt smell of the sea was tinged with the spice-laden air of
the near coast. Drowsiness came over me. I picked up a musket and paced
around the little plateau. The moon had but just reached its zenith, making all
objects easily discernible. The smooth storm-swept space before me reflected
back its rays like a well-scrubbed quarter-deck; below were the dark outlines of
my sleeping mates. I could hear the light wind rustling through the branches of
the casuarina trees that fringed the shore. I paused and looked over the sea. Like
a charge of electricity a curious sensation of fear shot through me. Then an
intimation that some object had flashed between me and the moon. I rubbed my
eyes and gazed in the air above, expecting to see a night bird or a bat. Then the
same peculiar sensation came over me again, and I looked down in the water
below just in time to see the long, keen, knife-like outline of a pirate prau glide
as noiselessly as a shadow from a passing cloud into the gloom of the island. 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