I had no intention of going for a schooner ride. The Bugis sailors of Sulawesi Island had practiced piracy for centuries—still did, according to the stories I’d heard in my six months in Indonesia. It was the Bugis who had inspired our word “boogeymen.” If I let a crew get me out to sea, my Indonesian friends had warned, the sailors would rape me. Then they would slit my throat, help themselves to my moneybelt, and toss my carcass overboard.

Retreating from the men’s shouts, I stumbled into a dockside eatery that smelled of the clove-flavored cigarettes popular with sailors. I rummaged in my pants pockets for a handkerchief to mop my streaming face and glasses. The place was empty. Although the sticky-sweet tea they drink in Indonesia always makes me perspire more, I sat down and ordered a cup, glad to be out from under the direct gaze of the sun and the sailors. Thank goodness I wasn’t going to set foot on any schooner. No. Certainly not. Lovely though it might be to see one of those wooden ships open its seven sails to the wind, I wasn’t crazy.

All I wanted, I told myself, was a second look. I’d fled the docks too soon to really see the boats. What harm could there be in going back to the docks just once? And if I should happen to meet a crew that seemed nice . . . What if the stories about the Bugis weren’t true? What if . . . ?