rajah of Tomboa; but the odds were so nearly even, five Americans against seven natives, that Woodard laughed at them. Hoisting sail, he drove his canoe to windward of the proa, and handled it so well that he fairly ran away from pursuit.
The wind was too strong for the fragile canoe, and they had to seek refuge in the mouth of a river, where they built a fire to cook some rice. Here they encountered two natives who had come ashore from a trading proa, one of them a captain who had seen the fugitives while at Tomboa. He insisted that they surrender and return with him. Tired of so much interference, the chief mate knocked him down, and held a knife at his throat until the Malay mariner changed his opinion.
The proa chased them, however, when the canoe resumed its voyage; but night came on, and a thunder squall enabled them to slip away undiscovered. Eight days after leaving Tomboa they began to pass many towns and a great deal of shipping on the coast of Celebes, but they doggedly kept on their course to Macassar. They fought off a war-canoe, which attacked them with arrows and spears, but had no serious misadventures until a large boat came swiftly paddling out of an inlet and fairly overwhelmed them by force of numbers.
Captives again, the five long-suffering seafarers
