110111    Ask the Bataks, Captain.”

110112    “Negro superstitions,” the captain declared with the jovial confidence of an educated man.

110113    “This is scientific nonsense.

110114    A demon can’t live in water anyway.

110115    What would he be doing in the water?

110116    You shouldn’t listen to all the nonsense talked by the natives, lad.

110117    Somebody gave the place the name Devil Bay and ever since then the Bataks have been afraid of it.

110118    That’s all there is to it,” the captain declared, and threw his chubby hand down on the table.

110119    “There’s nothing there, lad, that is scientifically obvious.”

110120    “There is, Captain,” affirmed the half-cast who had been to school in Badyoeng.

110121    “But no sensible person has any business going to Devil Bay.”

110122    Captain J. van Toch turned red.

110123    “What’s that?” he shouted.

110124    “You dirty Cuban, you think I’m afraid of these demons?

110125    We’ll see about that,” he said as he stood up with all the mass of his honest two hundred pounds.