Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/147

Rh and Woodard walked forward to meet them, raising his empty hands to ask for peace and mercy.

The Malays stood silent for a long time, and then the chief advanced to lay down his creese and ceremoniously accept the strangers as captives. They were given food and conducted to a little town of bamboo huts, there to await the pleasure of the rajah in what Woodard called the judgment hall, while all the villagers gathered about them.

Soon the rajah strode in, tall and straight and warlike, a long, naked creese in his hand. These were the first white men that had ever been seen in his wild domain. He gazed admiringly at the stalwart chief mate, who looked him straight in the eyes, while the people murmured approval of the captive's bearing, for "he was six feet and an inch high, strong in proportion, and the largest-boned person they had ever beheld."

These were two bold, upstanding men who stood face to face in the judgment hall, and the rajah, after consultation with his chiefs, gave each of the five American sailors a betel-nut to chew as a token of his gracious inclination to spare their lives.

For twenty days they were closely held as prisoners in this forest settlement, during which time two old men arrived from another town and displayed a lively interest in the situation. They toddled off