“When I got there the fighting was over, and but one prahu had escaped, and I learned from the men who had swum ashore from those that had been sunk that one of the English boats had been destroyed, and many men killed, but that two boats had gone down the creek again. It was also said that the white officers and sailors had boarded the boat that had escaped, and had been all killed. I thought it best to follow the prahu, so that I could send word to you where she was to be found. As there were many passages, it was difficult to find her, and I should have lost her altogether had I not heard where Sehi was hiding, and guessed that she would go there. It was late when I arrived at the village. There one of my men learned that two young officers, who had been wounded, had been brought there, and that Sehi was sending word to you that, unless you gave him the conditions he asked, they would be put to death. “I did not know whether to send down to you, or to send up the river for help; but I thought the last was best, for if you came in boats, then Sehi's men would hear you, and the officers would be killed; so I sent off my man with the sampan. I told him that he must not stop until he got here. He must tell them that all my men, except fifty old ones who were to guard the village, were to start in their canoes, and paddle their hardest till they came within half a mile of the village, and he was to come back with them to guide them, and I was to meet them. As the prahus that had been up there were destroyed, the river was safe for them to descend. I said that they must be at the point I named last evening. They were two hours late, though they had paddled their hardest. As soon as they disembarked I led them to the spot, and the rest was easy. I knew that the prisoners who had been taken were my two friends, for I saw them on the deck of the prahu; and glad indeed I was to be able to pay my debt to them.” “You have paid it indeed most nobly, Hassan,” the captain said, holding out his hand, and grasping that of the chief, when, sentence by sentence, the story was translated to him. “Little did we think, when you were brought on board the Serpent, that your friendship would turn out of such value to us.”