294 TRAVELS IN THE EAST mDlAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



In short, every thing was made ready to do battle. 

 Meautime the six prau8 came to anchor off the beach. 

 One of tliem had the required pass from the Dutcli 

 authorities at Ceram, allowing his boat to come to 

 Kayeli, but the others had no such papers, and, ac- 

 cording to theii* own story, had become frightened at 

 the great guns in Ceram, and had also deserted their 

 homes. This seemed to me bo probable that I went 

 down on the beach, and, if the authorities had al- 

 lowed it^ I would have taken half a dozen natives in 

 a canoe and boarded every one of the praus myself, 

 and found out what they contained, I was impor- 

 tune<l to come back from the shore, but as I had been 

 in battle myself, I did not purpose to get frightened 

 and hide in the fort until I could see some cause 

 for it After a long consultation, it was decided 

 that I should not be i>ennitted to inspect the praus, 

 and a number of Malays were sent off to carefully 

 examine each of the dangerous vessels. This was 

 done, and the report brought back that there were 

 only thi'ee or four natives in each, and that as to 

 weapons, not one of them had even an old flint-lock. 

 Thus ended the alarm, and once more the usual duU 

 routine set in, but this time to be broken by a cir- 

 cumstance as romantic as it was peculiar. 



In our little community of nine persons there was 

 a yoimg officer. He was aftable, energetic, and withal 

 a good militaiy man for one of his years, but, unfor- 

 tunately, his minil had been fed on novels until this 

 world appeared to him little more than half real. 

 He was engaged to a young lady, who lived also in 

 our little village. Besides his romantic notions, 



