304

THE LOAN OF A LOVE-LETTER.

CHAP. XXII.

Jadee offers the Loan of a Love-Letter. - A Midshipman's Scruples. The "Emerald" ordered to Pouchou. Enter the River during the Night. Jadee's Suggestions for warding off Musquitoes. - Jadee foresees Trouble. — A nautical Superstition of the olden Day. - The Flight.-The Sampan repulsed. The Chase. - A Prahu captured.Proceed to Tangong Gaboose.-Starving piratical Fugitives. A Threat of Cannibalism. - The Horrors of Asiatic Warfare. Jamboo's View of the Malays' Position. Reflections.

ABOUT this time, we received from Tonkoo Mahomet Said formal expressions of his gratitude for the kindness shown to his wife and family. From them he had somehow received intelligence direct from Penang. Of the lovely little Baju-Mira I did not again hear; and Jadee proposed that I should send her a letter written by my interpreter. Amused at the idea, I suggested that he should compose one for me, as, by his own acknowledgment, he had been a perfect lady-killer at Singapore. Jadee was not easily abashed where his vanity was involved, and very handsomely placed at my disposal a love-letter which

to me

A MIDSHIPMAN'S SCRUPLES.

305

he was about to address to his Dulcinea at Penang. Before accepting it, however, I thought it as well to make Jamboo translate the document word for word a measure which soon showed me the impropriety of sending any such billet doux; although it indulged in the usual amount of poetical allusions to the beauty of the fair one's eyes, nose, lips, teeth, and hair, with graceful compliments about her figure, her walk, and her voice, it wound up with an abrupt proposal of marriage, entering rather freely into the charms of that blessed state of bondage; and as a further inducement to overcome any scruples the young lady might entertain on the score of Jadee's matrimonial inexperience, he assured her that seven wives were already placed on his list, though she should alone be his Penang sultaness.

These were lengths to which I, as a midshipman in the receipt of ten sovereigns a quarter, did not feel justified in going; "alas, for the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!" But Jadee, like an evil spirit, whispered that an anna a day (three half-pence) would equip and support even such a Peri as Baju-Mira, in a style of princely magnificence, only to be read of in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments." Possibly, recollections of a sternfaced captain, and the "I'll stop your leave, sir," of

X

306

"EMERALD" ORDERED AWAY.

a ruthless first-lieutenant, kept me from disturbing the peace of mind of the fair Malay, and then other affairs distracted my attention.

April the 2nd found us surrounded by a flying multitude, and a repetition of the wretched scenes enacted at Quedah. The Siamese were finally victorious, and Sauve qui peut! was the cry. Rumours were flying about that the war prahus were going to make a dash out; one or two threatening messages were sent, and it became every moment more certain that the Tonkoos must fly, or fall into Siamese hands. The excitement was intense, and no one knew the minute that the pirates might swoop down upon the little blockading squadron, and make us fight for our very lives.

In the middle of all this, while, youngster-like, I was longing to "flesh my maiden sword," some instructions arrived from Captain Warren to the officer commanding the boats (the present Captain G. Drake), ordering a gun-boat to be detached to watch another river called the "Pouchou," about four miles to the northward. As the junior officer, it fell to my lot to go; and I own I left with the moral conviction that there would be a bloody fray, and the little "Emerald" would be left out of it; a feeling not assuaged by my waggish brother officer

THE RIVER POUCHOU.

307

Halkett, who made a pen-and-ink caricature of a sulky midshipman tied by the leg at a distance, while he and others were slaying whole hecatombs of enemies.

My gun-boat was soon off the mouth of the Pouchou like all the western Malayan rivers, it had a tidal bar across its mouth, though abundance of water within. The tide being then on the ebb, we hauled to seaward for an Island called Pulo Pangang, or Long Island. We found it full of Malay fugitives-men, women, and children; their sufferings from want of water were something hideous to contemplate. Some had already died, others were perishing; yet, what could we do? The "Hyacinth" and her boats had long been on a rigid allowance; every drop of water we could spare I ordered to be given away; and a few days afterwards, as will be seen, we were reduced in consequence to great

straits.

How all these people had reached the island, we could not learn; but they owned that they came from the neighbourhood of Parlis; and some of the families remembered seeing me on the occasion of my visit to Kangah. From them we learnt that the Pouchou ran parallel to the Parlis river, and close past the These fugitives had, I suspect,

town of that name.

308 ENTER THE RIVER DURING THE NIGHT.

availed themselves of the former stream as a means of escape. All expressed sorrow and anxiety when they heard I was going to blockade it; indeed, one man of superior aspect was evidently distressed when he learnt that it was to be so, and tried hard to persuade me not to go there until the morrow; " for,” said he, "there will be a number of women and children down to-night, and if frightened back by you, they will fall into the hands of the cruel Siamese."

A beautiful night with a bright moon lighted up the sea and forest-clad shores, as with the first of the land-wind I sought my way into the Pouchou river. The rippling music of my gun-boat's stem, as she cut through the phosphorescent sea, the whirling eddies of molten silver, which in a long line astern showed our trail, and the low call of the leadsman, were the only signs of life. As we approached the bar in the shoal water, the fish, affrighted at our intrusion, darted singly away, leaving a long fiery streak behind them in the sea, such as a rocket leaves in its path through the air, and the night-hawk and other nocturnal birds swept round us, and uttered their characteristic cries.

With some difficulty—for the tide only just afforded water enough for us to float over the shoals of the