every robbery in future should be laid at their door, and every crime committed should be avenged on them. As the officers were men doing a good business at the time, they quickly got rid of their banners and meeting house, and I heard no more of the Hué during the rest of the time I remained in Borneo, but during my last visit I found the chief officers of the society reduced to comparative poverty, as their partners and agents in Singapore, happening to be real British subjects, had refused to have anything further to do with them when they knew of their conduct. I requested the Sultan to let the prisoners go, as all except Ahtan were kept in the stocks in an open verandah, exposed to sun and rain, and tormented the whole day by boat boys, who delighted in torturing those whom they considered as infidels: in Brunei they have no prisons whatever. Ahtan was better treated, as he was known to have been a favourite servant, though his conduct was very bad, particularly in dosing me with opium, yet I could not forget his kindness to me during our wanderings in the interior, and asked for his liberty on that plea. The Sultan’s answer was,--“The plea is good, but the stubbornness of that boy in refusing to confess when all the others had acknowledged their crime, deserves death.” I heard a few months ago that he was keeping a small shop in Labuan. A man in whom I felt a very great interest, and was very sorry to part with, was Musa, my Manilla steersman and coxswain; as a boy he had been educated as a Christian, but having been captured very young and sold by the Balignini pirates to the Mahomedans, he had been circumcised, and joined their communion. He had a particular antipathy to Signor Cuarteron, who returned the dislike, and used gravely to assure me that my quiet, respectful follower had a design to massacre him. When the priests first came to Brunei, all my Manilla men attended mass, but were suddenly disgusted with something which took place; and on my inquiring the cause, one of them said, “We don’t like to be told that if we don’t again join the Padre’s religion, he will send for a Spanish man-of-war to take us all off prisoners to Manilla.” If he really did threaten them, he made a great mistake, as some of them never went near the church again. Musa, though modest and gentle in his manner, was as brave as a lion, and would have followed me anywhere. Though very short, he was squarely built, and exceedingly strong; a very powerful swimmer, and good boatman. Many of these men excite a personal regard, and I have always felt that for Inchi Mahomed, my Malay writer, who was entrusted with the charge of the Consulate during my lengthened absences, and he well deserved the trust. CHAPTER VIII. THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO. FIRST VISIT.