They went down to the beach of the bay, wondering what their fate might be, John Cole, who was a stripling lad of seventeen, blubbering that he would sooner die in the woods than be killed by the Malays. The canoes had gone away, but three brown-skinned girls were fishing in a brook, and they fled when they saw the tattered castaways. Presently a group of men came down a forest path, and Woodard walked forward to meet them, raising his empty hands to ask for peace and mercy. The Malays stood silent for a long time, and then the chief advanced to lay down his creese and ceremoniously accept the strangers as captives. They were given food and conducted to a little town of bamboo huts, there to await the pleasure of the rajah in what Woodard called the judgment hall, while all the villagers gathered about them. Soon the rajah strode in, tall and straight and warlike, a long, naked creese in his hand. These were the first white men that had ever been seen in his wild domain. He gazed admiringly at the stalwart chief mate, who looked him straight in the eyes, while the people murmured approval of the captive’s bearing, for “he was six feet and an inch high, strong in proportion, and the largest-boned person they had ever beheld.” These were two bold, upstanding men who stood face to face in the judgment hall, and the rajah, after consultation with his chiefs, gave each of the five American sailors a betel-nut to chew as a token of his gracious inclination to spare their lives. For twenty days they were closely held as prisoners in this forest settlement, during which time two old men arrived from another town and displayed a lively interest in the situation. They toddled off into the jungle, but came again with a Mahomedan priest called Tuan Hadjee, who was a bit of a linguist in that he spoke a few words of English, some Portuguese, and a smattering of the Moorish tongue. He was a man of the world, having journeyed to Bombay and Bengal on his way to Mecca, and displayed a letter from the British governor of Balambangan, on the island of Borneo, to show that he was a good and trustworthy person and was empowered to assist all distressed Englishmen. This Tuan Hadjee lived up to his credentials, for he offered the rajah a hundred dollars in golddust as ransom for the five seamen, which price was haughtily refused, and the kindly priest went away to see what else could be done about it. Nothing more was seen of this amiable pilgrim, and the Americans were set to work in the forest to clear the fields or to gather sago. After two months they were left unguarded by day, but shut up in a house at night. Week after week dragged by in this wearisome drudgery, but they kept alive, and their spirit was unbroken, although the food was poor and scanty and the tropical heat scorched the very souls out of them.