a Spanish frigate appeared before the island and a demand was sent
to the Sultan to deliver Omar and his companions, Babalatchi was
not surprised to hear that they were going to be made the victims of
political expediency. But from that sane appreciation of danger to tame
submission was a very long step. And then began Omar's second flight. It
began arms in hand, for the little band had to fight in the night on
the beach for the possession of the small canoes in which those that
survived got away at last. The story of that escape lives in the hearts
of brave men even to this day. They talk of Babalatchi and of the strong
woman who carried her blind father through the surf under the fire
of the warship from the north. The companions of that piratical and
son-less Aeneas are dead now, but their ghosts wander over the waters
and the islands at night--after the manner of ghosts--and haunt the
fires by which sit armed men, as is meet for the spirits of fearless
warriors who died in battle. There they may hear the story of their own
deeds, of their own courage, suffering and death, on the lips of living
men. That story is told in many places. On the cool mats in breezy
verandahs of Rajahs' houses it is alluded to disdainfully by impassive
statesmen, but amongst armed men that throng the courtyards it is a tale
which stills the murmur of voices and the tinkle of anklets; arrests the
passage of the siri-vessel, and fixes the eyes in absorbed gaze. They
talk of the fight, of the fearless woman, of the wise man; of long
suffering on the thirsty sea in leaky canoes; of those who died. . . .
Many died. A few survived. The chief, the woman, and another one who
became great.

There was no hint of incipient greatness in Babalatchi's unostentatious
arrival in Sambir. He came with Omar and Aissa in a small prau loaded
with green cocoanuts, and claimed the ownership of both vessel and
cargo. How it came to pass that Babalatchi, fleeing for his life in a