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114 into the jungle, but came again with a Mahomedan priest called Tuan Hadjee, who was a bit of a linguist in that he spoke a few words of English, some Portuguese, and a smattering of the Moorish tongue. He was a man of the world, having journeyed to Bombay and Bengal on his way to Mecca, and displayed a letter from the British governor of Balambangan, on the island of Borneo, to show that he was a good and trustworthy person and was empowered to assist all distressed Englishmen.

This Tuan Hadjee lived up to his credentials, for he offered the rajah a hundred dollars in gold-dust as ransom for the five seamen, which price was haughtily refused, and the kindly priest went away to see what else could be done about it. Nothing more was seen of this amiable pilgrim, and the Americans were set to work in the forest to clear the fields or to gather sago. After two months they were left unguarded by day, but shut up in a house at night. Week after week dragged by in this wearisome drudgery, but they kept alive, and their spirit was unbroken, although the food was poor and scanty and the tropical heat scorched the very souls out of them.

At the end of half a year of this enslavement another rajah who seems to have been a kind of overlord of the region summoned them into his presence