"I daresay it was another ten minutes before I fetched breath enough and
looked about me; and as I turned my head, there, close behind me, lay
another crater with another lake smiling below, all blue and peaceful as
the one I had left! I gazed from one to the other. This new crater had
no opening on the sea; its sides were steeper, though not quite so tall;
and either my eyes played me a trick or its water stood at a higher
level. I stood there, comparing the two, when suddenly against the
skyline, and not two hundred yards away, I caught sight of a man.

"He was walking towards me around the edge of the crater, and halting
every now and then to stare down at my boat. He might be a friend, or
he might be a foe; but anyway it was not for me, in my condition, to
choose which, so I waited for him to come up. And first I saw that he
carried a spear, and wore a pair of wide dirty-white trousers and a
short coat embroidered with gold; and next that he was a true Malay,
pretty well on in years, with a greyish beard falling over his chest.
He had no shirt, but a scarlet sash wrapped about his waist and holding
a _kris_ and two long pistols handsomely inlaid with gold. In spite of
his weapons he seemed a benevolent old boy.

"He pointed towards my boat and tried me with a few questions, first in
his own language, then in Spanish, of which I knew very little beyond
the sound. But I spread out my hands towards the sea, by way of
explaining our voyage, and then pointed to my mouth. If he understood
he seemed in no hurry. He tapped O'Hara's cornet gingerly with two
fingers. I unstrung it and made shift to play 'Home, Sweet Home.'
This delighted him; he nodded, rubbed his hands, and stepped a few paces
from me, then turned and began fingering his spear in a way I did not
like at all. 'It's a matter of taste, sir,' said I, or words to that
effect, dropping the cornet like a hot potato; but he pointed towards