Note 2 — Chapter XXII · The Government of the Non-Christian Tribes (Continued)

This proposition did not seem attractive to me, so I suggested that I would take a little walk up the river. I had been positively assured that there was no other boat in the vicinity, but at the very first turn discovered a suspicious looking trail running up into the bushes and following it found a fully rigged war-canoe over which freshly cut brush had been hastily thrown. I suggested to the Moros that this looked very much like a boat. They replied that it leaked. I asked them to put it into the water, stating that I liked to see boats leak. Not a Moro stirred. We had brought twenty-five soldiers ashore with us, as Tumay’s reputation was by no means of the best, and I now called to some of them to come and put the boat into the river. In passing back of the group of Moros, one of these men stubbed his toe on the shaft of a lance which was hidden in the grass, and fell on his nose. He raised the lance as he recovered his feet, then stooped and picked up a second one, trailed them behind him until he reached a position in front of me and dropped them on the ground. Both had the sheaths removed from their long steel heads. Another soldier kicked around in the grass a bit and produced a serpent kriss which had been drawn from its scabbard. Still another fished up a baróng.2