Song followed song after this, the crackling of the roaring fire and the ceaseless din of the jungle forming an obligato accompaniment, which somehow seemed appropriate to the occasion, till a gun from the distant ship warned us that our time was up. Hereupon the officer in charge sent a couple of hands to haul in the cutter, which had been left at anchor in the river. Easier said than done, however, seeing that after a prolonged absence they returned, looking somewhat alarmed, and reported that they could not find the boat anywhere. This caused rather a commotion among the party, which a whisper of ‘Pirates’ did not diminish; so a rush was made for the rifles; and thus armed we marched to the beach; but not a sign of the boat could be found. There was just a chance that she had broken adrift; so the dingey was quickly manned and shoved off in search; but almost directly a loud shout announced that the cutter had been found full of water and apparently sinking. A number of men swam off to her at once; but the steep banks prevented our hauling her up; and we had just time, by dint of hard work, to remove her sails, oars, &c., when she sank, leaving us to our resources on the sand. Our position looked unpleasant enough now, thus cast away in a piratical district; and besides, the gathering clouds to windward, of inky blackness, foretold to our experienced eyes that one of the violent squalls of wind and rain called Sumatras, which are of daily occurrence at this season, would soon be upon us. Seamen, however, are the handiest of mortals; and in a surprisingly short space of time a tent was rigged from the boats’ sails and spars, under which we all huddled from the storm, which was now in full strength. How the rain did come down! As if the very flood-gates of heaven were open! And how the furious wind shook our frail tent till we expected every moment to have it down about our ears. The situation was becoming every moment the more trying, as with sails soaked through, we were subjected to the full brunt of the awful drench. In spite of the trenches that we had dug in the sand with our oars to serve as water-ways, we were soon lying in a pool of water.