A MONTH WITH THE DYAKS. 437 



go far away ; but I quickly silenced liim by saying that there was 

 no possibility of his (Perara's) getting lost, for he seldom went out 

 of hearing of the house, and that if he had had pluck to go a little 

 farther now and then, he might have shot something. We took a 

 torch of wood called 'suloe,' which is full of resin and bums 

 brij?htly, and, with two extra bvmdles of it, we set out — three 

 Dyaks, Dobah, and L The big alarm-gong was brought out and 

 loudly beaten, and, taking our departure by its sound, we went in 

 the direction of Ah Kee's last shot. We were soon half-knee deep 

 in water and ooze, but with the aid of the toi'ch we got on reason- 

 ably well. At intervals I fired a shot as we proceeded, and the men 

 kept calhng. After going a mile or so we heard a shot far away on 

 our left. We said that must be Ah Kee and we turned that way. 

 After a long time we heard two shots on our right and to the rear. 

 The men all said it was Ah Kee, but I declared it came from the 

 house, and was Perara's gun. No, they were sure that it was Ah 

 Kee, while I persisted that it was Perara, so we came to an unde- 

 cided standstill. They did not Avant to go on, and so I reluctantly 

 consented to turn back in the direction of the last reports. 



"For several hours we wandered about, firing the rifle and call- 

 ing, but could get no answer, and at last had no idea which way wa 

 ourselves were going. If we had only had a compass we could have 

 gone straight from the house in the direction of Ah Kee's last shot-; 

 but alas ! my only compass had been lost some weeks before. At 

 length the torch-wood was nearly exhausted and there was simply 

 nothing to do but go back, get more wood, and start again. For the 

 last time we fired the rifle ; then shouted : ' Ho ! Ah Kee ! ' until 

 the foi'est rang for a mile on every side, and as the echoes died away 

 we held our breath to Hsteu. Only the soft twitter of the night 

 birds and the chii'ping of the tree frogs answered us. The bix>wn 

 half-naked Dyaks looked at me and at each other in hopeless per- 

 plexity, but no one had any new plan or thought to suggest. The 

 torch-bearer knocked the ashes fi'om his torch, waved it to and fro 

 until it blazed up again, and then, reluctantly enough, we turned 

 our faces homeward. 



"We had gone but a short distance, and I was just planning 

 how we would arouse all the Dyaks in the three villages and offer 

 twenty-five dollars in silver (a fortune to a Dj'ak) as a reward for 

 finding Ah Kee, when we were startled by a deep ' boom ! ' from 

 behind us, which we knew at once was from Ah Kee. Luckily we 

 caught the direction exactly. In less than a minute, two men had 



