In the end the sultan, curious to see whether these letters could perhaps tell him something of further ships which might be on their way, agreed to make his appearance upon the ship of the admiral, where he was received with great courtesy. Then, after the fashion of the Indian ruler of his day and of our own, he demanded to know what his profits were to be in case he allowed the Hollanders to trade in his city. Van Neck began negotiations about the bribe which the different functionaries were to receive. For a consideration of 3200 reals to the sultan and the commander of the harbor, the Dutch ships were at last given permission to approach the shore and buy whatever they wanted. For ten days long canoes filled with pepper and nutmeg surrounded the ships. The pepper was bought for three reals a bag. Everything was very pleasant, but one day Abdul, the native who came from Bali, got on shore and visited the city. Here among his own people he cut quite a dash, and bragging about the wonders of the great Dutch Republic, he volunteered the information that on the Amsterdam market he had seen how a bag of pepper was sold for 100 reals. That sum, therefore, was just ninety-seven reals more than the people in Bantam received for their own raw product. Of course they did not like the idea of getting so little, and at once they refused to sell to Van Neck at the old rate. It was a great disappointment. He tried to do business with some Chinamen, but they were worse than the Javanese. They offered their pepper to the Hollanders at a ridiculously low price, but after the bags had been weighed they were found to be weighted with stones and sand and pieces of glass. There was no end to all the small annoyances which the Dutch admiral was made to suffer. There were a number of Portuguese soldiers hanging about the town. They had been made prisoners during the last fatal expedition against Bantam, and they suffered a good many hardships. One day they were allowed to pay a visit to the Dutch ships, and the tales of their misery were so harrowing that the admiral had given them some money to be used for the purpose of buying food and clothes. No sooner, however, were the prisoners back on dry land than they started the rumor that the Hollanders were dangerous pirates and ought not to be trusted. Van Neck vowed that he would hang his ungrateful visitors if ever they came to him again with their tales of woe. Meanwhile, in order to stop further talk, he promised to raise the price of pepper two reals. For five reals a bag his ships were now filled with a cargo of the costly spice.