together with the best of his domestic utensils and
a dozen fowls. This caused more confusion.
Meantime the palaver inside Jim’s house went
on in the presence of the girl. Doramin sat fierce-faced,
heavy, looking at the speakers in turn, and breathing
slow like a bull. He didn’t speak till
the last, after Kassim had declared that the Rajah’s
boats would be called in because the men were required
to defend his master’s stockade. Dain Waris
in his father’s presence would offer no opinion,
though the girl entreated him in Jim’s name
to speak out. She offered him Jim’s own
men in her anxiety to have these intruders driven out
at once. He only shook his head, after a glance
or two at Doramin. Finally, when the council
broke up it had been decided that the houses nearest
the creek should be strongly occupied to obtain the
command of the enemy’s boat. The boat itself
was not to be interfered with openly, so that the
robbers on the hill should be tempted to embark, when
a well-directed fire would kill most of them, no doubt.
To cut off the escape of those who might survive,
and to prevent more of them coming up, Dain Waris was
ordered by Doramin to take an armed party of Bugis
down the river to a certain spot ten miles below Patusan,
and there form a camp on the shore and blockade the
stream with the canoes. I don’t believe
for a moment that Doramin feared the arrival of fresh
forces. My opinion is that his conduct was guided
solely by his wish to keep his son out of harm’s
way. To prevent a rush being made into the town
the construction of a stockade was to be commenced
at daylight at the end of the street on the left bank.
The old nakhoda declared his intention to command there
himself. A distribution of powder, bullets, and
percussion-caps was made immediately under the girl’s
supervision. Several messengers were to be dispatched
in different directions after Jim, whose exact whereabouts
were unknown. These men started at dawn, but before
that time Kassim had managed to open communications
with the besieged Brown.
’That accomplished diplomatist and confidant
of the Rajah, on leaving the fort to go back to his
master, took into his boat Cornelius, whom he found
slinking mutely amongst the people in the courtyard.
Kassim had a little plan of his own and wanted him
for an interpreter. Thus it came about that towards
morning Brown, reflecting upon the desperate nature
of his position, heard from the marshy overgrown hollow
an amicable, quavering, strained voice crying—in
English—for permission to come up, under
a promise of personal safety and on a very important
errand. He was overjoyed. If he was spoken
to he was no longer a hunted wild beast. These
friendly sounds took off at once the awful stress of
vigilant watchfulness as of so many blind men not
knowing whence the deathblow might come. He pretended
a great reluctance. The voice declared itself
“a white man—a poor, ruined, old man
who had been living here for years.” A