oint we
passed, cutting notches in the trees with their _parang_, or knives,
after we had waded through a brook or taken a sudden turn in our course,
but my mind was too much occupied with the duties of my self-assumed
pilotage for me to attach any importance to the fact.

The weather was fine all day so that we were able to go a long way
before night fell. Not having come across any sort of refuge we were
obliged to improvise one for ourselves and in about an hour we were
resting from our fatigues whilst the little Sam-Sam served us with
boiled rice, dried fish and certain capsicums which would have made
cayenne pepper seem sugar in comparison! There being nothing better to
eat I too had to take my share of the frugal repast.

Sleep soon stole over us all, but I was somehow uneasy, for certain
strange demands my companions made me had reminded me of the marks I had
seen them making on the trees a while before, and my suspicions were
aroused without my knowing exactly how to define them; therefore, with
the excuse of writing, I determined to keep watch. Until about four
o'clock in the morning I was able to resist the somnolence which
weighed down my eyelids but at last, exhausted with so many hours'
march, with the high tension to which my nerves had been pitched and
weakened by the abundant blood-letting in the swamp, my body triumphed
over my will and I also slept.

At dawn the little wild bird, the _cep plot_, broke the silent air with
its characteristic and shrill _ci ti ria_. To him the smaller and tamer
_cep rio_ replied with a sweetly modulated solfeggio of extraordinary
precision, and I awoke. At the same time I felt myself being roughly
shaken and the voice of my little Sam-Sam cried into my ear:

"Tuan lakas bangun samoa Orang suda lari" (Wake up quickly, sir; the men
have all run away)!

Ah, then, my misgivings had not been unfounded and it was Slumber that
had betrayed me. I jumped up and looked around. There was nobody to be
seen and nothing to be heard. I turned anxiously towards our heap of
provisions and discovered instantly that the four rascals had made off
with a large booty of my rice, tobacco, and matches, things that were
very precious to me at that moment.

What was to be done? Follow them? And if we did not find them? It would
be loss of time as well as goods. The only thing to do was to treat the
incident with philosophy, comforting myself with the remote hope of some
day meeting with the