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Chapter 11 - "I AM COMING!"

The morning following the capture of Virginia Maxon by Muda Saffir, Professor

Maxon, von Horn, Sing Lee and the sole surviving lascar from the crew of the

Ithaca set out across the strait toward the mainland of Borneo in the small boat

which the doctor had secreted in the jungle near the harbor. The party was well

equipped with firearms and ammunition, and the bottom of the boat was packed

full with provisions and cooking utensils. Von Horn had been careful to see that

the boat was furnished with a mast and sail, and now, under a good breeze the

party was making excellent time toward the mysterious land of their destination.

They had scarcely cleared the harbor when they sighted a ship far out across the

strait. Its erratic movements riveted their attention upon it, and later, as they

drew nearer, they perceived that the strange craft was a good sized schooner with

but a single short mast and tiny sail. For a minute or two her sail would belly

with the wind and the vessel make headway, then she would come suddenly

about, only to repeat the same tactics a moment later. She sailed first this way

and then that, losing one minute what she had gained the minute before.

Von Horn was the first to recognize her.

"It is the Ithaca," he said, "and her Dyak crew are having a devil of a time

managing her--she acts as though she were rudderless."

Von Horn ran the small boat within hailing distance of the dismasted hulk whose

side was now lined with waving, gesticulating natives. They were peaceful

fishermen, they explained, whose prahus had been wrecked in the recent

typhoon. They had barely escaped with their lives by clambering aboard this

wreck which Allah had been so merciful as to place directly in their road. Would

the Tuan Besar be so good as to tell them how to make the big prahu steer?

Von Horn promised to help them on condition that they would guide him and his

party to the stronghold of Rajah Muda Saffir in the heart of Borneo. The Dyaks

willingly agreed, and von Horn worked his small boat in close under the Ithaca's

stern. Here he found that the rudder had been all but unshipped, probably as

the vessel was lifted over the reef during the storm, but a single pintle remaining

in its gudgeon. A half hour's work was sufficient to repair the damage, and then

the two boats continued their journey toward the mouth of the river up which

those they sought had passed the night before.

Inside the river's mouth an anchorage was found for the Ithaca near the very

island upon which the fierce battle between Number Thirteen and Muda Saffir's

The Monster Men