Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/151

Rh trudged to his hut on the mountain-side and crawled into it before dawn.

Undiscouraged, he broke away again, and made for a town called Dungalla, where he had a notion that his friend Tuan Hadjee, the priest, might be found. He somehow steered a course through the forests and ravines and fetched up at the stockade which surrounded Dungalla. As a disquieting apparition he alarmed a nervous old gentleman, who scampered off to shriek to the village that a gigantic white devil was sitting on a log at the edge of the clearing. The old codger turned out to be a servant of Tuan Hadjee, who warmly welcomed the chief mate and took him into his house as a guest.

The rajah to whom Woodard belonged got wind of his whereabouts and wrathfully demanded that he be sent back. The prideful rajah of Dungalla refused in language no less provocative. Woodard smuggled a message through to his men, urging them to escape and join him.. This they succeeded in doing, and the people of Dungalla were delighted to receive them. This episode strained the relations of the two rajahs to the breaking-point, and war was promptly declared.

Inasmuch as they were the bone of contention, Woodard and his seamen promptly offered to fight on the side of the rajah of Dungalla; so they pro-