new what it meant, of
course,--it was an enchanted boat, that the priests in some
village--perhaps clear over in New Guinea--had charmed the cholera or
the plague on board of. Same idea as the Hebrew scapegoat.

"_Brenti_!" I shouted. The Malays stopped rowing, but let her run.
Nothing would have tempted them within oar's-length of that prau.

"See here, Sidin," I protested, "I go ashore to meet the _kapala's_
men."

"We do not go," the fellow said. "If you go, Tuan, you die: the priest
has laid the cholera on board that prau. It has come to this shore. Do
not go, Tuan."

"She hasn't touched the land yet," I said.

This seemed to have effect.

"Row me round to that point and land me," I ordered. "_Hantu_ does not
come to white men. You go out to the ship; when I have met the
soldier-messengers, row back, and take me on board with the gifts."

The mate persuaded them, and they landed me on the point, half a mile
away, with a box of cheroots, and a roll of matting to take my nap on.
I walked round to the clearing, and spread my mat under the canary tree,
close to the shore. All that blessed afternoon I waited, and smoked, and
killed a snake, and made notes in a pocket Virgil, and slept, and smoked
again; but no sign of the bearers from the _campong_. I made signals to
the schooner,--she was too far out to hail,--but the crew took no
notice. It was plain they meant to wait and see whether the _hantu_ prau
went out with the ebb or not; and as it was then flood, and dusk, they
couldn't see before morning. So I picked some bananas and chicos, and
made a dinner of them; then I lighted a fire under the tree, to smoke
and read Virgil by,--in fact, spent the evening over my notes. That
editor was a _pukkah_ ass! It must have been pretty late before I
stretched out on my matting.

I was a long time going to sleep,--if I went to sleep at all. I lay and
watched the firelight and shadows in the _lianas_, the bats fluttering
in and out across my patch of stars, and an ape that stole down from
time to time and peered at me, sticking his blue face out from among the
creepers. At one time a shower fell in the clearing, but only pattered
on my ceiling of broad leaves.

After a period of drowsiness, something moved and glittered on the
water, close to the bank; and there bobbed the ghost prau, the gilt and
vermilion flags shining in the firelight. She had come clear in on the
flood,--a piece of luck. I got up, cut a withe of bam