nd and had crept to the very edge of light thrown by the
fires by which the Illanuns were cooking. Daman was sitting apart by a
larger blaze. Two praus rode in shallow water near the sandbank; on the
ridge, a sentry walked watching the lights of the brig; the camp was
full of quiet whispers. Hassim returned to his canoe, then he and his
sister, paddling cautiously round the anchored praus, in which women's
voices could be heard, approached the other end of the camp. The light
of the big blaze there fell on the water and the canoe skirted it
without a splash, keeping in the night. Hassim, landing for the second
time, crept again close to the fires. Each prau had, according to the
customs of the Illanun rovers when on a raiding expedition, a smaller
war-boat and these being light and manageable were hauled up on the sand
not far from the big blaze; they sat high on the shelving shore throwing
heavy shadows. Hassim crept up toward the largest of them and then
standing on tiptoe could look at the camp across the gunwales. The
confused talking of the men was like the buzz of insects in a forest.
A child wailed on board one of the praus and a woman hailed the shore
shrilly. Hassim unsheathed his kris and held it in his hand.

Very soon--he said--he saw the two white men walking amongst the fires.
They waved their arms and talked together, stopping from time to time;
they approached Daman; and the short man with the hair on his face
addressed him earnestly and at great length. Daman sat cross-legged upon
a little carpet with an open Koran on his knees and chanted the versets
swaying to and fro with his eyes shut.

The Illanun chiefs reclining wrapped in cloaks on the ground raised
themselves on their elbows to look at the whites. When the short white
man finished speaking he gazed down at them for a while, then stamped
his foot. He looked angry because no one understood him. Then suddenly
he looked very sad; he covered his face with his hands; the tall man put
his hand on the short man's shoulder and whispered into his ear. The dry
wood of the fires crackled, the Illanuns slept, cooked, talked, but
with their weapons at hand. An armed man or two came up to stare at the
prisoners and then returned to their fire. The two whites sank down in
the sand in front of Daman. Their clothes were soiled, there was sand in
their hair. The tall man had lost his hat; the glass in the eye of the
short man glittered very much; his back was mud