most likely food for us to find is a troop of
monkeys among the trees overhanging the river. As a rule, I should not
like to shoot the beasts. They are too much like human beings. But if we
can get a supply of meat it will be welcome, no matter what it may be. Of
course we should not shoot many, for a couple of days would be the outside
that meat would keep good here."

"But might not firing a gun bring the natives down on you, sir?" Stephen
said.

"Oh, we have seen no signs of natives!" the mate said impatiently, "and
there mayn't be any within miles and miles of us, probably not nearer than
those hills; for I believe it is there that they principally do what
cultivation there is--in the first place, because it is cooler, and in the
next place because there are, we know, tremendous swamps in the low land
of Sumatra, though whether this is Sumatra or not I cannot say."

The next morning the boat started as soon as a supply of cocoa-nuts,
sufficient for the day, had been thrown down, two or three of the sailors
adopting the means the mate had taught Joyce, and going up the trees very
much more quickly than he had done.

"What do you think of this 'ere business, Master Stephen?" Wilcox said as
they watched the boat making its way slowly against the current.

"I don't know, Wilcox, what to think of it."

"I calls it a risky affair," the sailor said after a pause. "Mr. Towel is
a good officer, I don't say as he isn't, but I would rather see an older
head on his shoulders just at present. It is all very well for him to say
as there may be no natives within twenty miles; but how is he to know
that? There may be a village just round the turn of the river. All these
chaps are pirates when they get a chance, every mother's son of them, and
there may be half a dozen war-canoes lying a mile up this river. It would
be natural that they should be somewhere near its mouth, ready to start
out if a sail is sighted, or news is brought to them that there is a ship
anchored off a coast village within a few hours' row. As to firing a gun,
in my opinion it is just madness. As he says himself, meat won't keep two
days, and it is just flying in the face of Providence to risk attracting
the attention of the natives, for the sake of a day's rations of fresh
meat.

"It was all very well to bring the boat up here so as to lie out of sight
of any canoes that happened to be passing along the shore; but I would
much rather have left her where