Chapter 12

A TRUCE

Though his eyes, like live coals, glowered with sullen fire at the strip of sand and the rocks in front, his troubled brain paid perfunctory heed to his task. The stern sense of duty, the ingrained force of long years of military discipline and soldierly thought, compelled him to keep watch and ward over his fortress, but he could not help asking himself what would happen if Iris were seriously wounded.

There was one enemy more potent than these skulking Dyaks, a foe more irresistible in his might, more pitiless in his strength, whose assaults would tax to the utmost their powers of resistance. In another hour the sun would be high in the heavens, pouring his ardent rays upon them and drying the blood in their veins.

Hitherto, the active life of the island, the shade of trees, hut or cave, the power of unrestricted movement and the possession of water in any desired quantity, robbed the tropical heat of the day of its chief terrors. Now all was changed. Instead of working amidst grateful foliage, they were bound to the brown rock, which soon would glow with radiated energy and give off scorching gusts like unto the opening of a furnace-door.

This he had foreseen all along. The tarpaulin would yield them some degree of uneasy protection, and they both were in perfect physical condition. But--if Iris were wounded! If the extra strain brought fever in its wake! That way he saw nothing but blank despair, to be ended, for her, by delirium and merciful death, for him by a Berserk rush among the Dyaks, and one last mad fight against overwhelming numbers.

Then the girl's voice reached him, self-reliant, almost cheerful--

"You will be glad to hear that the cut has stopped bleeding. It is only a scratch."

So a kindly Providence had spared them yet a little while. The cloud passed from his mind, the gathering mist from his eyes. In that instant he thought he detected a slight rustling among the trees where the cliff shelved up from the house. Standing as he was on the edge of the rock, this was a point he could not guard against.

When her welcome assurance recalled his scattered senses, he stepped back to speak to her, and in the same instant a couple of bullets crashed against the rock overhead. Iris had unwittingly saved him from a serious, perhaps fatal, wound.

He sprang to the extreme right of the ledge and boldly looked into the trees beneath. Two Dyaks were there, belated wanderers cut off from the main body. They dived headlong into the undergrowth for safety, but one of them was too late. The Lee-Metford reached him, and its reverberating concussion, tossed back and forth by the echoing rocks, drowned his parting scream.

In the plenitude of restored vigor the sailor waited for no counter demonstration. He turned and crouchingly approached the southern end of his parapet. Through his screen of grass he could discern the long black hair and yellow face of a man who lay on the sand and twisted his head around the base of the further cliff. The distance, oft measured, was ninety yards, the target practically a six-inch bull's-eye. Jenks took careful aim, fired, and a whiff of sand flew up.

Perhaps he had used too fine a sight and ploughed a furrow beneath the Dyak's ear. He only heard a faint yell, but the enterprising head vanished and there were no more volunteers for that particular service.

He was still peering at the place when a cry of unmitigated anguish came from Iris--

"Oh, come quick! Our water! The casks have burst!"

It was not until Jenks had torn the tarpaulin from off their stores, and he was wildly striving with both hands to scoop up some precious drops collected in the small hollows of the ledge, that he realized the full magnitude of the disaster which had befallen them.

During the first rapid exchange of fire, before the enemy vacated the cliff, several bullets had pierced the tarpaulin. By a stroke of exceeding bad fortune two of them had struck each of the water-barrels and started the staves. The contents quietly ebbed away beneath the broad sheet, and flowing inwards by reason of the sharp slope of the ledge, percolated through the fault. Iris and he, notwithstanding their frenzied efforts, were not able to save more than a pint of gritty discolored fluid. The rest, infinitely more valuable to them than all the diamonds of De Beers, was now oozing through the natural channel cut by centuries of storm, dripping upon the headless skeleton in the cave, soaking down to the very heart of their buried treasure.

Jenks was so paralyzed by this catastrophe that Iris became alarmed. As yet she did not grasp its awful significance. That he, her hero, so brave, so confident in the face of many dangers, should betray such sense of irredeemable loss, frightened her much more than the incident itself.

Her lips whitened. Her words become incoherent.

"Tell me," she whispered. "I can bear anything but silence. Tell me, I implore you. Is it so bad?"

The sight of her distress sobered him. He ground his teeth together as a man does who submits to a painful operation and resolves not to flinch beneath the knife.

"It is very bad," he said; "not quite the end, but near it."

"The end," she bravely answered, "is death! We are living and uninjured. You must fight on. If the Lord wills it we shall not die."

He looked in her blue eyes and saw there the light of Heaven.

"God bless you, dear girl," he murmured brokenly. "You would cheer any man through the Valley of the Shadow, were he Christian or Faint-heart."

Her glance did not droop before his. In such moments heart speaks to heart without concealment.

"We still have a little water," she cried. "Fortunately we are not thirsty. You have not forgotten our supply of champagne and brandy?"

There was a species of mad humor in the suggestion. Oh for another miracle that should change the wine into water!

He could only fall in with her unreflective mood and leave the dreadful truth to its own evil time. In their little nook the power of the sun had not yet made itself felt. By ordinary computation it was about nine o'clock. Long before noon they would be grilling. Throughout the next few hours they must suffer the torture of Dives with one meager pint of water to share between them. Of course the wine and spirit must be shunned like a pestilence. To touch either under such conditions would be courting heat, apoplexy, and death. And next day!

He tightened his jaws before he answered--

"We will console ourselves with a bottle of champagne for dinner. Meanwhile, I hear our friends shouting to those left on this side of the island. I must take an active interest in the conversation."

He grasped a rifle and lay down on the ledge, already gratefully warm. There was a good deal of sustained shouting going on. Jenks thought he recognized the chief's voice, giving instructions to those who had come from Smugglers' Cove and were now standing on the beach near the quarry.

"I wonder if he is hungry," he thought. "If so, I will interfere with the commissariat."

Iris peeped forth at him.

"Mr. Jenks!"

"Yes," without turning his head. He knew it was an ordinary question.

"May I come too?"

"What! expose yourself on the ledge!"

"Yes, even that. I am so tired of sitting here alone."

"Well, there is no danger at present. But they might chance to see you, and you remember what I--"

"Yes, I remember quite well. If that is all--" There was a rustle of garments. "I am very mannish in appearance. If you promise not to look at me I will join you."

"I promise."

Iris stepped forth. She was flushed a little, and, to cover her confusion, may be, she picked up a Lee-Metford.

"Now there are two guns," she said, as she stood near him.

He could see through the tail of his eye that a slight but elegantly proportioned young gentleman of the sea-faring profession had suddenly appeared from nowhere. He was glad she had taken this course. It might better the position were the Dyaks to see her thus.

"The moment I tell you, you must fall flat," he warned her. "No ceremony about it. Just flop!"

"I don't know anything better calculated to make one flop than a bullet," she laughed. Not yet did the tragedy of the broken kegs appeal to her.

"Yes, but it achieves its purpose in two ways. I want you to adopt the precautionary method."

"Trust me for that. Good gracious!"

The sailor's rifle went off with an unexpected bang that froze the exclamation on her lips. Three Dyaks were attempting to run the gauntlet to their beleaguered comrades. They carried a jar and two wicker baskets. He with the jar fell and broke it. The others doubled back like hares, and the first man dragged himself after them. Jenks did not fire again.

Iris watched the wounded wretch crawling along the ground. Her eyes grew moist, and she paled somewhat. When he vanished she looked into the valley and at the opposing ledge; three men lay dead within twenty yards of her. Two others dangled from the rocks. It took her some time to control her quavering utterance sufficiently to say--

"I hope I may not have to use a gun. I know it cannot be helped, but if I were to kill a human being I do not think I would ever rest again."

"In that case I have indeed murdered sleep today," was the unfeeling reply.

"No! no! A man must be made of sterner stuff. We have a right to defend ourselves. If need be I will exercise that right. Still it is horrid, oh, so horrid!"

She could not see the sailor's grim smile. It would materially affect his rest, for the better, were he able to slay every Dyak on the island with a single shot. Yet her gentle protest pleased him. She could not at the same time be callous to human suffering and be Iris. But he declined the discussion of such sentiments.

"You were going to say something when a brief disturbance took place?" he inquired.

"Yes. I was surprised to find how hot the ledge has become."

"You notice it more because you are obliged to remain here."

After a pause--

"I think I understand now why you were so upset by the loss of our water supply. Before the day ends we will be in great straits, enduring agonies from thirst!"

"Let us not meet the devil half-way," he rejoined. He preferred the unfair retort to a confession which could only foster dismay.

"But, please, I am thirsty now."

He moved uneasily. He was only too conscious of the impish weakness, common to all mankind, which creates a desire out of sheer inability to satisfy it. Already his own throat was parched. The excitement of the early struggle was in itself enough to engender an acute thirst. He thought it best to meet their absolute needs as far as possible.

"Bring the tin cup," he said. "Let us take half our store and use the remainder when we eat. Try to avoid breathing through your mouth. The hot air quickly affects the palate and causes an artificial dryness. We cannot yet be in real need of water. It is largely imagination."

Iris needed no second bidding. She carefully measured out half a pint of the unsavory fluid--the dregs of the casks and the scourings of the ledge.

"I will drink first," she cried.

"No, no," he interrupted impatiently. "Give it to me."

She pretended to be surprised.

"As a mere matter of politeness----"

"I am sorry, but I must insist."

She gave him the cup over his shoulder. He placed it to his lips and gulped steadily.

"There," he said, gruffly. "I was in a hurry. The Dyaks may make another rush at any moment."

Iris looked into the vessel.

"You have taken none at all," she said.

"Nonsense!"

"Mr. Jenks, be reasonable! You need it more than I. I d-don't want to--live w-without--you."

His hands shook somewhat. It was well there was no call for accurate shooting just then.

"I assure you I took all I required," he declared with unnecessary vehemence.

"At least drink your share, to please me," she murmured.

"You wished to humbug me," he grumbled. "If you will take the first half I will take the second."

And they settled it that way. The few mouthfuls of tepid water gave them new life. One sense can deceive the others. A man developing all the symptoms of hydrophobia has been cured by the assurance that the dog which bit him was not mad. So these two, not yet aflame with drought, banished the arid phantom for a little while.

Nevertheless, by high noon they were suffering again. The time passed very slowly. The sun rose to the zenith and filled earth and air with his ardor. It seemed to be a miracle--now appreciated for the first time in their lives--that the sea did not dry up, and the leaves wither on the trees. The silence, the deathly inactivity of all things, became intolerable. The girl bravely tried to confine her thoughts to the task of the hour. She displayed alert watchfulness, an instant readiness to warn her companion of the slightest movement among the trees or by the rocks to the north-west, this being the arc of their periphery assigned to her.

Looking at a sunlit space from cover, and looking at the same place when sweltering in the direct rays of a tropical sun, are kindred operations strangely diverse in achievement. Iris could not reconcile the physical sensitiveness of the hour with the careless hardihood of the preceding days. Her eyes ached somewhat, for she had tilted her sou'wester to the back of her head in the effort to cool her throbbing temples. She put up her right hand to shade the too vivid reflection of the glistening sea, and was astounded to find that in a few minutes the back of her hand was scorched. A faint sound of distant shouting disturbed her painful reverie.

"How is it," she asked, "that we feel the heat so much today? I have hardly noticed it before."

"For two good reasons--forced idleness and radiation from this confounded rock. Moreover, this is the hottest day we have experienced on the island. There is not a breath of air, and the hot weather has just commenced."

"Don't you think," she said, huskily, "that our position here is quite hopeless?"

They were talking to each other sideways. The sailor never turned his gaze from the southern end of the valley.

"It is no more hopeless now than last night or this morning," he replied.

"But suppose we are kept here for several days?"

"That was always an unpleasant probability."

"We had water then. Even with an ample supply it would be difficult to hold out. As things are, such a course becomes simply impossible."

Her despondency pierced his soul. A slow agony was consuming her.

"It is hard, I admit," he said. "Nevertheless you must bear up until night falls. Then we will either obtain water or leave this place."

"Surely we can do neither."

"We may be compelled to do both."

"But how?"

In this, his hour of extremest need, the man was vouchsafed a shred of luck. To answer her satisfactorily would have baffled a Talleyrand. But before he could frame a feeble pretext for his too sanguine prediction, a sampan appeared, eight hundred yards from Turtle Beach, and strenuously paddled by three men. The vague hallooing they had heard was explained.

The Dyaks, though to the manner born, were weary of sun-scorched rocks and salt water. The boat was coming in response to their signals, and the sight inspired Jenks with fresh hope. Like a lightning flash came the reflection that if he could keep them away from the well and destroy the sampan now hastening to their assistance, perhaps conveying the bulk of their stores, they would soon tire of slaking their thirst, on the few pitcher-plants growing on the north shore.

"Come quick," he shouted, adjusting the backsight of a rifle. "Lie down and aim at the front of that boat, a little short if anything. It doesn't matter if the bullets strike the sea first."

He placed the weapon in readiness for her and commenced operations himself before Iris could reach his side. Soon both rifles were pitching twenty shots a minute at the sampan. The result of their long-range practice was not long in doubt. The Dyaks danced from seat to seat in a state of wild excitement. One man was hurled overboard. Then the craft lurched seaward in the strong current, and Jenks told Iris to leave the rest to him.

Before he could empty a second magazine a fortunate bullet ripped a plank out and the sampan filled and went down, amidst a shrill yell of execration from the back of the cliff. The two Dyaks yet living endeavored to swim ashore, half a mile through shark-invested reefs. The sailor did not even trouble about them. After a few frantic struggles each doomed wretch flung up his arms and vanished. In the clear atmosphere the on-lookers could see black fins cutting the pellucid sea.

This exciting episode dispelled the gathering mists from the girl's brain. Her eyes danced and she breathed hard. Yet something worried her.

"I hope I didn't hit the man who fell out of the boat," she said.

"Oh," came the prompt assurance, "I took deliberate aim at that chap. He was a most persistent scoundrel."

Iris was satisfied. Jenks thought it better to lie than to tell the truth, for the bald facts hardly bore out his assertion. Judging from the manner of the Dyak's involuntary plunge he had been hit by a ricochet bullet, whilst the sailor's efforts were wholly confined to sinking the sampan. However, let it pass. Bullet or shark, the end was the same.

They were quieting down--the thirst fiend was again slowly salting their veins--when something of a dirty white color fluttered into sight from behind the base of the opposite cliff. It was rapidly withdrawn, to reappear after an interval. Now it was held more steadily and a brown arm became visible. As Jenks did not fire, a turbaned head popped into sight. It was the Mahommedan.

"No shoot it," he roared. "Me English speak it."

"Don't you speak Hindustani?" shouted Jenks in Urdu of the Higher Proficiency.

"Hañ, sahib!"[Footnote: Yes, sir.] was the joyful response. "Will your honor permit his servant to come and talk with him?"

"Yes, if you come unarmed."

"And the chief, too, sahib?"

"Yes, but listen! On the first sign of treachery I shoot both of you!"

"We will keep faith, sahib. May kites pick our bones if we fail!"

Then there stepped into full view the renegade Mussulman and his leader. They carried no guns; the chief wore his kriss.

"Tell him to leave that dagger behind!" cried the sailor imperiously. As the enemy demanded a parley he resolved to adopt the conqueror's tone from the outset. The chief obeyed with a scowl, and the two advanced to the foot of the rock.

"Stand close to me," said Jenks to Iris. "Let them see you plainly, but pull your hat well down over your eyes."

She silently followed his instructions. Now that the very crisis of their fate had arrived she was nervous, shaken, conscious only of a desire to sink on her knees, and pray.

One or two curious heads were craned round the corner of the rock.

"Stop!" cried Jenks. "If those men do not instantly go away I will fire at them."

The Indian translated this order and the chief vociferated some clanging syllables which had the desired effect. The two halted some ten paces in front of the cavern, and the belligerents surveyed each other. It was a fascinating spectacle, this drama in real life. The yellow-faced Dyak, gaudily attired in a crimson jacket and sky-blue pantaloons of Chinese silk--a man with the _beauté du diable_, young, and powerfully built--and the brown-skinned white-clothed Mahommedan, bony, tall, and grey with hardship, looked up at the occupants of the ledge. Iris, slim and boyish in her male garments, was dwarfed by the six-foot sailor, but her face was blood-stained, and Jenks wore a six weeks' stubble of beard. Holding their Lee-Metfords with alert ease, with revolvers strapped to their sides, they presented a warlike and imposing tableau in their inaccessible perch. In the path of the emissaries lay the bodies of the slain. The Dyak leader scowled again as he passed them.

"Sahib," began the Indian, "my chief, Taung S'Ali, does not wish to have any more of his men killed in a foolish quarrel about a woman. Give her up, he says, and he will either leave you here in peace, or carry you safely to some place where you can find a ship manned by white men."

"A woman!" said Jenks, scornfully. "That is idle talk! What woman is here?"

This question nonplussed the native.

"The woman whom the chief saw half a month back, sahib."

"Taung S'Ali was bewitched. I slew his men so quickly that he saw spirits."

The chief caught his name and broke in with a question. A volley of talk between the two was enlivened with expressive gestures by Taung S'Ali, who several times pointed to Iris, and Jenks now anathematized his thoughtless folly in permitting the Dyak to approach so near. The Mahommedan, of course, had never seen her, and might have persuaded the other that in truth there were two men only on the rock.

His fears were only too well founded. The Mussulman salaamed respectfully and said--

"Protector of the poor, I cannot gainsay your word, but Taung S'Ali says that the maid stands by your side, and is none the less the woman he seeks in that she wears a man's clothing."

"He has sharp eyes, but his brain is addled," retorted the sailor. "Why does he come here to seek a woman who is not of his race? Not only has he brought death to his people and narrowly escaped it himself, but he must know that any violence offered to us will mean the extermination of his whole tribe by an English warship. Tell him to take away his boats and never visit this isle again. Perhaps I will then forget his treacherous attempt to murder us whilst we slept last night."

The chief glared back defiantly, whilst the Mahommedan said--

"Sahib, it is beet not to anger him too much. He says he means to have the girl. He saw her beauty that day and she inflamed his heart. She has cost him many lives, but she is worth a Sultan's ransom. He cares not for warships. They cannot reach his village in the hills. By the tomb of Nizam-ud-din, sahib, he will not harm you if you give her up, but if you refuse he will kill you both. And what is one woman more or less in the world that she should cause strife and blood-letting?"

The sailor knew the Eastern character too well not to understand the man's amazement that he should be so solicitous about the fate of one of the weaker sex. It was seemingly useless to offer terms, yet the native was clearly so anxious for an amicable settlement that he caught at a straw.

"You come from Delhi?" he asked.

"Honored one, you have great wisdom."

"None but a Delhi man swears by the tomb on the road to the Kutub. You have escaped from the Andamans?"

"Sahib, I did but slay a man in self-defence."

"Whatever the cause, you can never again see India. Nevertheless, you would give many years of your life to mix once more with the bazaar-folk in the Chandni Chowk, and sit at night on a charpoy near the Lahore Gate?"

The brown skin assumed a sallow tinge.

"That is good speaking," he gurgled.

"Then help me and my friend to escape. Compel your chief to leave the island. Kill him! Plot against him! I will promise you freedom and plenty of rupees. Do this, and I swear to you I will come in a ship and take you away. The miss-sahib's father is powerful. He has great influence with the Sirkar."[Footnote: The Government of India.]

Taung S'Ali was evidently bewildered and annoyed by this passionate appeal which he did not understand. He demanded an explanation, and the ready-witted native was obliged to invent some plausible excuse. Yet when he raised his face to Jenks there was the look of a hunted animal in his eyes.

"Sahib," he said, endeavoring to conceal his agitation. "I am one among many. A word from me and they would cut my throat. If I were with you there on the rock I would die with you, for I was in the Kumaon Rissala[Footnote: A native cavalry regiment.] when the trouble befell me. It is of no avail to bargain with a tiger, sahib. I suppose you will not give up the miss-sahib. Pretend to argue with me. I will help in any way possible."

Jenks's heart bounded when this unlooked-for offer reached his ears. The unfortunate Mahommedan was evidently eager to get away from the piratical gang into whose power he had fallen. But the chief was impatient, if not suspicious of these long speeches.

Angrily holding forth a Lee-Metford the sailor shouted--

"Tell Taung S'Ali that I will slay him and all his men ere tomorrow's sun rises. He knows something of my power, but not all. Tonight, at the twelfth hour, you will find a rope hanging from the rock. Tie thereto a vessel of water. Fail not in this. I will not forget your services. I am Anstruther Sahib, of the Belgaum Rissala."

The native translated his words into a fierce defiance of Taung S'Ali and his Dyaks. The chief glanced at Jenks and Iris with an ominous smile. He muttered something.

"Then, sahib. There is nothing more to be said. Beware of the trees on your right. They can send silent death even to the place where you stand. And I will not fail you tonight, on my life," cried the interpreter.

"I believe you. Go! But inform your chief that once you have disappeared round the rock whence you came I will talk to him only with a rifle."

Taung S'Ali seemed to comprehend the Englishman's emphatic motions. Waving his hand defiantly, the Dyak turned, and, with one parting glance of mute assurance, the Indian followed him.

And now there came to Jenks a great temptation. Iris touched his arm and whispered--

"What have you decided? I did not dare to speak lest he should hear my voice."

Poor girl! She was sure the Dyak could not penetrate her disguise, though she feared from the manner in which the conference broke up that it had not been satisfactory.

Jenks did not answer her. He knew that if he killed Taung S'Ali his men would be so dispirited that when the night came they would fly. There was so much at stake--Iris, wealth, love, happiness, life itself--all depended on his plighted word. Yet his savage enemy, a slayer of women, a human vampire soiled with every conceivable crime, was stalking back to safety with a certain dignified strut, calmly trusting to the white man's bond.

Oh, it was cruel! The ordeal of that ghastly moment was more trying than all that he had hitherto experienced. He gave a choking sob of relief when the silken-clad scoundrel passed out of sight without even deigning to give another glance at the ledge or at those who silently watched him.

Iris could not guess the nature of the mortal struggle raging in the sailor's soul.

"Tell me," she repeated, "what have you done?"

"Kept faith with that swaggering ruffian," he said, with an odd feeling of thankfulness that he spoke truly.

"Why? Have you made him any promise?"

"Unhappily I permitted him to come here, so I had to let him go. He recognized you instantly."

This surprised her greatly.

"Are you sure? I saw him pointing at me, but he seemed to be in such a bad temper that I imagined that he was angry with you for exchanging a prepossessing young lady for an ill-favored youth."

Jenks with difficulty suppressed a sigh. Her words for an instant had the old piquant flavor.

Keeping a close watch on the sheltering promontory, he told her all that had taken place. Iris became very downcast when she grasped the exact state of affairs. She was almost certain when the Dyaks proposed a parley that reasonable terms would result. It horrified her beyond measure to find that she was the rock on which negotiations were wrecked. Hope died within her. The bitterness of death was in her breast.

"What an unlucky influence I have had on your existence!" she exclaimed. "If it were not for me this trouble at least would be spared you. Because I am here you are condemned. Again, because I stopped you from shooting that wretched chief and his companions they are now demanding your life as a forfeit. It is all my fault. I cannot bear it."

She was on the verge of tears. The strain had become too great for her. After indulging in a wild dream of freedom, to be told that they must again endure the irksome confinement, the active suffering, the slow horrors of a siege in that rocky prison, almost distracted her.

Jenks was very stern and curt in his reply.

"We must make the best of a bad business," he said. "If we are in a tight place the Dyaks are not much better off, and eighteen of their number are dead or wounded. You forget, too, that Providence has sent us a most useful ally in the Mahommedan. When all is said and done, things might be far worse than they are."

Never before had his tone been so cold, his manner so abrupt, not even in the old days when he purposely endeavored to make her dislike him.

She walked along the ledge and timidly bent over him.

"Forgive me!" she whispered; "I did forget for the moment, not only the goodness of Providence, but also your self-sacrificing devotion. I am only a woman, and I don't want to die yet, but I will not live unless you too are saved."

Once already that day she had expressed this thought in other words. Was some shadowy design flitting through her brain? Suppose they were faced with the alternatives of dying from thirst or yielding to the Dyaks. Was there another way out? Jenks shivered, though the rock was grilling him. He must divert her mind from this dreadful brooding.

"The fact is," he said with a feeble attempt at cheerfulness, "we are both hungry and consequently grumpy. Now, suppose you prepare lunch. We will feel ever so much better after we have eaten."

The girl choked back her emotion, and sadly essayed the task of providing a meal which was hateful to her. In doing so she saw her Bible, lying where she had placed it that morning, the leaves still open at the 91st Psalm. She had indeed forgotten the promise it contained--

"For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."

A few tears fell now and made little furrows down her soiled cheeks. But they were helpful tears, tears of resignation, not of despair. Although the "destruction that wasteth at noonday" was trying her sorely she again felt strong and sustained.

She even smiled on detecting an involuntary effort to clear her stained face. She was about to carry a biscuit and some tinned meat to the sailor when a sharp exclamation from him caused her to hasten to his side.

The Dyaks had broken cover. Running in scattered sections across the sands, they were risking such loss as the defenders might be able to inflict upon them during a brief race to the shelter and food to be obtained in the other part of the island.

Jenks did not fire at the scurrying gang. He was waiting for one man, Taung S'Ali. But that redoubtable person, having probably suggested this dash for liberty, had fully realized the enviable share of attention he would attract during the passage. He therefore discarded his vivid attire, and, by borrowing odd garments, made himself sufficiently like unto the remainder of his crew to deceive the sailor until the rush of men was over. Among them ran the Mahommedan, who did not look up the valley but waved his hand.

When all had quieted down again Jenks understood how he had been fooled. He laughed so heartily that Iris, not knowing either the cause of his merriment or the reason of his unlooked-for clemency to the flying foe, feared the sun had affected him.

He at once quitted the post occupied during so protracted a vigil.

"Now," he cried, "we can eat in peace. I have stripped the chief of his finery. His men can twit him on being forced to shed his gorgeous plumage in order to save his life. Anyhow, they will leave us in peace until night falls, so we must make the best of a hot afternoon."

But he was mistaken. A greater danger than any yet experienced now threatened them, though Iris, after perusing that wonderful psalm, might have warned him of it had she known the purpose of those long bamboos carried by some of the savages.

For Taung S'Ali, furious and unrelenting, resolved that if he could not obtain the girl he would slay the pair of them; and he had terrible weapons in his possession--weapons that could send "silent death even to the place where they stood."