your favor; but do not travel fast. Take it quietly,
and be as long as you can on the voyage--lying in a canoe is as good a
rest as you can take."

"Thank you, Doctor, I will obey your instructions. You have all been
very kind to me, and a Malay chief never forgets benefits. I have been
hostile to the white men, but now I see I have been mistaken, and that
you are good and kind. Is it true that your boat is going up the river?
Soh Hay tells me that it is so."

"Yes; one of the chiefs, Sehi Pandash, wishes to place himself under our
protection, and he has sent to ask that the ship might go up and fire
her big guns, that the tribes round may see that he has strong friends
who can help him."

"It is two days' rowing up the river to my place from his, and when you
are there I shall come down to see you. Sehi is not a good chief; he
quarrels with his neighbors, and shelters their slaves who run away to
him; he is not a good man."

"Well, we shall all be glad to see you, chief, and I hope that you will
bring your daughter with you. She has won all our hearts, and we shall
miss her sadly."

"I will bring her if I can do so safely," the chief said gravely; "but
I am no friends with Sehi; he stops my trade as it comes down the river,
and takes payment for all goods that pass down. It is because he knows
that many of us are angered that he wishes to put himself under your
protection. I think that you do not do well to aid so bad a fellow."

"We did not know that he was a bad fellow, chief. The best plan will be
for you and the other chiefs who are aggrieved to send down complaints
against him, or to come down yourselves when we are up there and talk
it over with our Captain, who will doubtless impress upon Sehi the
necessity for abstaining from such practices, and that he cannot expect
aid from us if he embroils himself with his neighbors by interfering
with their trade. Is he strong?"

"He has many war prahus, which sometimes come down to the sea and return
with plunder, either collected from the cultivators near the coast or
from trading ships captured and burnt."

"I will mention what you tell me to the Captain, and it will prepare
him to listen to any complaint that may be made to him. But you must
remember that he is only acting under the orders of the Governor of the
Straits Settlements, and must refer all important matters to him."

"I will come when you are there," Hassan said gravely. "If nothing is
done, the