Part 12

The proa had now run down opposite the capes, and the swell of the open sea slid her about like an airplane. That mountainous coast is always windy and stormy, and it was making the usual squally weather now. The proa bucked and plunged like a racehorse, her lee outrigger buried in foam, the weather one clipping the tops of combers, while the three whites sat out on the bamboo wings that hung out from each side on the outrigger braces like a basket. It was a wild and exceedingly wet ride, the proa careening down the wave slopes like a hawk and soaring almost bodily out of water when lifted up on the white-capped combers.

The land dropped swiftly astern; towering up into heavy banks of clouds rose the dark ranges of the Charles Louis Mountains, with the woolly pyramids of the afternoon thunderheads gathering in the sky back over the interior. It was their last look at Dutch New Guinea, for soon the cloud banks lowered and ugly squall clouds, like long dark cigars, swept across the horizon, shutting them in in the gray circle of the sea. A chip thrown over the side and timed by the curator’s watch showed a speed of nearly ten knots. At that rate they would reach Aru at night--a landfall that would be dangerous in the extreme until the stars came out and the sea went down.

Accordingly, the curator shortened sail, reefing the lateen down to half its original bulk. The proa now labored and wallowed, keeping at least one of them bailing vigorously. She was an able boat in the eyes of her original owners, no doubt; but then water, more or less, was nothing in their naked philosophy!

Then came the rain, beating the sea flat and drenching them to the skin. Through the smother of it the proa drove on steadily, laying her course for Aru as close as possible on the starboard tack. Later fell a flat calm and the stars came out. She rolled incredibly in the smooth, welling billows, but gradually these went down, until by midnight all was quiet and they lay drifting idly on the black bosom of the Banda Sea. Now and then the phosphorescent wake of a large shark would pass them, but finally this interest, too, waned, and everyone fell asleep except the curator, who had volunteered to take the watch.

He sat dreaming under the stars, the sail hanging out idly and scarcely straightening the sheet. A gentle gurgle of phosphorescent fire eddied from the captured Papuan paddle that they had used for a rudder. The dim forms of his companions lay huddled in the dark, lying on the bamboo framework over the outrigger poles.

The curator regarded them with feelings of quiet satisfaction. Their dash into Dutch New Guinea had been a success. They had brought back an immensely valuable natural-history collection, and mineral information to the world that would soon add a vigorous trade settlement to those two forlorn Dutch military posts, six hundred miles apart, on a wild and savage coast. But above all he rejoiced in the spiritual results of the expedition with deepest pride. Those two boys had shown courage and resourcefulness far beyond their years; they had faced privation, danger, and battle with a grit and determination, a cheerfulness and lack of grouch, that had proved them men after his own heart. And to serve the cause of science they had refused the opportunity for fabulous wealth and all the ease and comfort that money can give. With them and his two devoted natives the curator felt that he had a scientific organization that would do. Yes, it would do mighty well!

He smoked on, thinking silently as the hours slipped by. Finally a light breeze, the precursor of dawn, sprang up, and the proa slipped quietly along, little rills of water trickling against her planks. It grew light in the east, and after a time out of the mists in the west developed the solid cloud banks, pierced with pale outlines of islets, hill, and jungle, of the shore line of Aru.

“Land ho!” yelled the curator, waking them all up. “Here’s Aru, boys, dead ahead, and we’ve beaten our proa that was to have come for us by two days!”

THE END

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.