Chapter 8

PREPARATIONS

They looked long and steadfastly at the retreating boat. Soon it diminished to a mere speck on the smooth sea. The even breeze kept its canvas taut, and the sailor knew that no ruse was intended--the Dyaks were flying from the island in fear and rage. They would return with a force sufficient to insure the wreaking of their vengeance.

That he would again encounter them at no distant date Jenks had no doubt whatever. They would land in such numbers as to render any resistance difficult and a prolonged defence impossible. Would help come first?--a distracting question to which definite answer could not be given. The sailor's brow frowned in deep lines; his brain throbbed now with an anxiety singularly at variance with his cool demeanor during the fight. He was utterly unconscious that his left arm encircled the shoulder of the girl until she gently disengaged herself and said appealingly--

"Please, Mr. Jenks, do not be angry with me. I could not help it. I could not bear to see you shoot them."

Then he abruptly awoke to the realities of the moment.

"Come." he said, his drawn features relaxing into a wonderfully pleasing smile. "We will return to our castle. We are safe for the remainder of this day, at any rate."

Something must be said or done to reassure her. She was still grievously disturbed, and he naturally ascribed her agitation to the horror of her capture. He dreaded a complete collapse if any further alarms threatened at once. Yet he was almost positive--though search alone would set at rest the last misgiving--that only one sampan had visited the island. Evidently the Dyaks were unprepared as he for the events of the preceding half-hour. They were either visiting the island to procure turtle and _bêche-de-mer_ or had merely called there _en route_ to some other destination, and the change in the wind had unexpectedly compelled them to put ashore. Beyond all doubt they must have been surprised by the warmth of the reception they encountered.

Probably, when he went to Summit Rock that morning, the savages had lowered their sail and were steadily paddling north against wind and current. The most careful scrutiny of the sea would fail to reveal them beyond a distance of six or seven miles at the utmost.

After landing in the hidden bay on the south side, they crossed the island through the trees instead of taking the more natural open way along the beach. Why? The fact that he and Iris were then passing the grown-over tract leading to the Valley of Death instantly determined this point. The Dyaks knew of this affrighting hollow, and would not approach any nearer to it than was unavoidable. Could he twist this circumstance to advantage if Iris and he were still stranded there when the superstitious sea-rovers next put in an appearance? He would see. All depended on the girl's strength. If she gave way now--if, instead of taking instant measures for safety, he were called upon to nurse her through a fever--the outlook became not only desperate but hopeless.

And, whilst he bent his brows in worrying thought, the color was returning to Iris's cheeks, and natural buoyancy to her step. It is the fault of all men to underrate the marvelous courage and constancy of woman in the face of difficulties and trials. Jenks was no exception to the rule.

"You do not ask me for any account of my adventures," she said quietly, after watching his perplexed expression in silence for some time.

Her tone almost startled him, its unassumed cheerfulness was so unlooked for.

"No," he answered. "I thought you were too overwrought to talk of them at present."

"Overwrought! Not a bit of it! I was dead beat with the struggle and with screaming for you, but please don't imagine that I am going to faint or treat you to a display of hysteria now that all the excitement has ended. I admit that I cried a little when you pushed me aside on the beach and raised your gun to fire at those poor wretches flying for their lives. Yet perhaps I was wrong to hinder you."

"You were wrong," he gravely interrupted.

"Then you should not have heeded me. No, I don't mean that. You always consider me first, don't you? No matter what I ask you to do you endeavor to please me, even when you know all the time that I am acting or speaking foolishly."

The unthinking _naïveté_ of her words sent the blood coursing wildly through his veins.

"Never mind," she went on with earnest simplicity. "God has been very good to us. I cannot believe that He has preserved us from so many dangers to permit us to perish miserably a few hours, or days, before help comes. And I _do_ want to tell you exactly what happened."

"Then you shall," he answered. "But first drink this." They had reached their camping-ground, and he hastened to procure a small quantity of brandy.

She swallowed the spirit with a protesting _moue_. She really needed no such adventitious support, she said.

"All right," commented Jenks. "If you don't want a drink, I do."

"I can quite believe it," she retorted. "_Your_ case is very different. _I_ knew the men would not hurt me--after the first shock of their appearance had passed, I mean--I also knew that you would save me. But you, Mr. Jenks, had to do the fighting. You were called upon to rescue precious me. Good gracious! No wonder you were excited."

The sailor mentally expressed his inability to grasp the complexities of feminine nature, but Iris rattled on----

"I carried my tin of water to the pitcher-plant, and was listening to the greedy roots gurgling away for dear life, when suddenly four men sprang out from among the trees and seized my arms before I could reach my revolver."

"Thank Heaven you failed."

"You think that if I had fired at them they would have retaliated. Yes, especially if I had hit the chief. But it was he who instantly gave some order, and I suppose it meant that they were not to hurt me. As a matter of fact, they seemed to be quite as much astonished as I was alarmed. But if they could hold my hands they could not stop my voice so readily. Oh! didn't I yell?"

"You did."

"I suppose you could not hear me distinctly?"

"Quite distinctly."

"Every word?"

"Yes."

She bent to pick some leaves and bits of dry grass from her dress. "Well, you know," she continued rapidly, "in such moments one cannot choose one's words. I just shouted the first thing that came into my head."

"And I," he said, "picked up the first rifle I could lay hands on. Now, Miss Deane, as the affair has ended so happily, may I venture to ask you to remain in the cave until I return?"

"Oh, please--" she began.

"Really, I must insist. I would not leave you if it were not quite imperative. You _cannot_ come with me."

Then she understood one at least of the tasks he must perform, and she meekly obeyed.

He thought it best to go along Turtle Beach to the cove, and thence follow the Dyaks' trail through the wood, as this line of advance would entail practically a complete circuit of the island. He omitted no precautions in his advance. Often he stopped and listened intently. Whenever he doubled a point or passed among the trees he crept back and peered along the way he had come, to see if any lurking foes were breaking shelter behind him.

The marks on the sand proved that only one sampan had been beached. Thence he found nothing of special interest until he came upon the chief's gun, lying close to the trees on the north side. It was a very ornamental weapon, a muzzle-loader. The stock was inlaid with gold and ivory, and the piece had evidently been looted from some mandarin's junk surprised and sacked in a former foray.

The lock was smashed by the impact of the Lee-Metford bullet, but close investigation of the trigger-guard, and the discovery of certain unmistakable evidences on the beach, showed that the Dyak leader had lost two if not three fingers of his right hand.

"So he has something more than his passion to nurse," mused Jenks. "That at any rate is fortunate. He will be in no mood for further enterprise for some time to come."

He dreaded lest any of the Dyaks should be only badly wounded and likely to live. It was an actual relief to his nerves to find that the improvised Dum-dums had done their work too well to permit anxiety on that score. On the principle that a "dead Injun is a good Injun" these Dyaks were good Dyaks.

He gathered the guns, swords and krisses of the slain, with all their uncouth belts and ornaments. In pursuance of a vaguely defined plan of future action he also divested some of the men of their coarse garments, and collected six queer-looking hats, shaped like inverted basins. These things he placed in a heap near the pitcher-plants. Thenceforth, for half an hour, the placid surface of the lagoon was disturbed by the black dorsal fins of many sharks.

To one of the sailor's temperament there was nothing revolting in the concluding portion of his task. He had a God-given right to live. It was his paramount duty, remitted only by death itself, to endeavor to save Iris from the indescribable fate from which no power could rescue her if ever she fell into the hands of these vindictive savages. Therefore it was war between him and them, war to the bitter end, war with no humane mitigation of its horrors and penalties, the last dread arbitrament of man forced to adopt the methods of the tiger.

His guess at the weather conditions heralded by the change of wind was right. As the two partook of their evening meal the complaining surf lashed the reef, and the tremulous branches of the taller trees voiced the approach of a gale. A tropical storm, not a typhoon, but a belated burst of the periodic rains, deluged the island before midnight. Hours earlier Iris retired, utterly worn by the events of the day. Needless to say, there was no singing that evening. The gale chanted a wild melody in mournful chords, and the noise of the watery downpour on the tarpaulin roof of Belle Vue Castle was such as to render conversation impossible, save in wearying shouts.

Luckily, Jenks's carpentry was effective, though rough. The building was water-tight, and he had calked every crevice with unraveled rope until Iris's apartment was free from the tiniest draught.

The very fury of the external turmoil acted as a lullaby to the girl. She was soon asleep, and the sailor was left to his thoughts.

Sleep he could not. He smoked steadily, with a magnificent prodigality, for his small stock of tobacco was fast diminishing. He ransacked his brains to discover some method of escape from this enchanted island, where fairies jostled with demons, and hours of utter happiness found their bane in moments of frightful peril.

Of course he ought to have killed those fellows who escaped. Their sampan might have provided a last desperate expedient if other savages effected a landing. Well, there was no use in being wise after the event, and, scheme as he might, he could devise no way to avoid disaster during the next attack.

This, he felt certain, would take place at night. The Dyaks would land in force, rush the cave and hut, and overpower him by sheer numbers. The fight, if fight there was, would be sharp, but decisive. Perhaps, if he received some warning, Iris and he might retreat in the darkness to the cover of the trees. A last stand could be made among the boulders on Summit Rock. But of what avail to purchase their freedom until daylight? And then----

If ever man wrestled with desperate problem, Jenks wrought that night. He smoked and pondered until the storm passed, and, with the changefulness of a poet's muse, a full moon flooded the island in glorious radiance. He rose, opened the door, and stood without, listening for a little while to the roaring of the surf and the crash of the broken coral swept from reef and shore by the backwash.

The petty strife of the elements was soothing to him. "They are snarling like whipped dogs," he said aloud. "One might almost fancy her ladyship the Moon appearing on the scene as a Uranian Venus, cowing sea and storm by the majesty of her presence."

Pleased with the conceit, he looked steadily at the brilliant luminary for some time. Then his eyes were attracted by the strong lights thrown upon the rugged face of the precipice into which the cavern burrowed. Unconsciously relieving his tired senses, he was idly wondering what trick of color Turner would have adopted to convey those sharp yet weirdly beautiful contrasts, when suddenly he uttered a startled exclamation.

"By Jove!" he murmured. "I never noticed that before."

The feature which so earnestly claimed his attention was a deep ledge, directly over the mouth of the cave, but some forty feet from the ground. Behind it the wall of rock sloped darkly inwards, suggesting a recess extending by haphazard computation at least a couple of yards. It occurred to him that perhaps the fault in the interior of the tunnel had its outcrop here, and the deodorizing influences of rain and sun had extended the weak point thus exposed in the bold panoply of stone.

He surveyed the ledge from different points of view. It was quite inaccessible, and most difficult to estimate accurately from the ground level. The sailor was a man of action. He chose the nearest tall tree and began to climb. He was not eight feet from the ground before several birds flew out from its leafy recesses, filling the air with shrill clucking.

"The devil take them!" he growled, for he feared that the commotion would awaken Iris. He was still laboriously worming his way through the inner maze of branches when a well-known voice reached him from the ground.

"Mr. Jenks, what on earth are you doing up there?"

"Oh! so those wretched fowls aroused you?" he replied.

"Yes; but why did you arouse them?"

"I had a fancy to roost by way of a change"

"Please be serious."

"I am more than serious. This tree grows a variety of small sharp thorn that induces a maximum of gravity--before one takes the next step."

"But why do you keep on climbing?"

"It is sheer lunacy, I admit. Yet on such a moonlit night there is some reasonable ground for even a mad excuse."

"Mr. Jenks, tell me at once what you are doing."

Iris strove to be severe, but there was a touch of anxiety in her tone that instantly made the sailor apologetic. He told her about the ledge, and explained his half-formed notion that here they might secure a safe retreat in case of further attack--a refuge from which they might defy assault during many days. It was, he said, absolutely impossible to wait until the morning. He must at once satisfy himself whether the project was impracticable or worthy of further investigation.

So the girl only enjoined him to be careful, and he vigorously renewed the climb. At last, some twenty-five feet from the ground, an accidental parting in the branches enabled him to get a good look at the ledge. One glance set his heart beating joyously. It was at least fifteen feet in length; it shelved back until its depth was lost in the blackness of the shadows, and the floor must be either nearly level or sloping slightly inwards to the line of the fault.

The place was a perfect eagle's nest. A chamois could not reach it from any direction; it became accessible to man only by means of a ladder or a balloon.

More excited by this discovery than he cared for Iris to know, he endeavored to appear unconcerned when he regained the ground.

"Well," she said, "tell me all about it."

He described the nature of the cavity as well as he understood it at the moment, and emphasized his previous explanation of its virtues. Here they might reasonably hope to make a successful stand against the Dyaks.

"Then you feel sure that those awful creatures will come back?" she said slowly.

"Only too sure, unfortunately."

"How remorseless poor humanity is when the veneer is stripped off! Why cannot they leave us in peace? I suppose they now cherish a blood feud against us. Perhaps, if I had not been here, they would not have injured you. Somehow I seem to be bound up with your misfortunes."

"I would not have it otherwise were it in my power," he answered. For an instant he left unchallenged the girl's assumption that she was in any way responsible for the disasters which had broken up his career. He looked into her eyes and almost forgot himself. Then the sense of fair dealing that dominates every true gentleman rose within him and gripped his wavering emotions with ruthless force. Was this a time to play upon the high-strung sensibilities of this youthful daughter of the gods, to seek to win from her a confession of love that a few brief days or weeks might prove to be only a spasmodic, but momentarily all-powerful, gratitude for the protection he had given her?

And he spoke aloud, striving to laugh, lest his words should falter--

"You can console yourself with the thought, Miss Deane, that your presence on the island will in no way affect my fate at the hands of the Dyaks. Had they caught me unprepared today my head would now be covered with a solution of the special varnish they carry on every foreign expedition."

"Varnish?" she exclaimed.

"Yes, as a preservative, you understand."

"And yet these men are human beings!"

"For purposes of classification, yes. Keeping to strict fact, it was lucky for me that you raised the alarm, and gave me a chance to discount the odds of mere numbers. So, you see, you really did me a good turn."

"What can be done now to save our lives? Anything will be better than to await another attack."

"The first thing to do is to try to get some sleep before daylight. How did you know I was not in the Castle?"

"I cannot tell you. I awoke and knew you were not near me. If I wake in the night I can always tell whether or not you are in the next room. So I dressed and came out."

"Ah!" he said, quietly. "Evidently I snore."

This explanation killed romance.

Iris retreated and the sailor, tired out at last, managed to close his weary eyes.

Next morning he hastily constructed a pole of sufficient length and strong enough to bear his weight, by tying two sturdy young trees together with ropes. Iris helped him to raise it against the face of the precipice, and he at once climbed to the ledge.

Here he found his observations of the previous night abundantly verified. The ledge was even wider than he dared to hope, nearly ten feet deep in one part, and it sloped sharply downwards from the outer lip of the rock. By lying flat and carefully testing all points of view, he ascertained that the only possible positions from which even a glimpse of the interior floor could be obtained were the branches of a few tall trees and the extreme right of the opposing precipice, nearly ninety yards distant. There was ample room to store water and provisions, and he quickly saw that even some sort of shelter from the fierce rays of the sun and the often piercing cold of the night might be achieved by judiciously rigging up a tarpaulin.

"This is a genuine bit of good luck," he mused. "Here, provided neither of us is hit, we can hold out for a week or longer, at a pinch. How can it be possible that I should have lived on this island so many days and yet hit upon this nook of safety by mere chance, as it were?"

Not until he reached the level again could he solve the puzzle. Then he perceived that the way in which the cliff bulged out on both sides prevented the ledge from becoming evident in profile, whilst, seen _en plein face_ in the glare of the sunlight, it suggested nothing more than a slight indentation.

He rapidly sketched to Iris the defensive plan which the Eagle's Nest suggested. Access must be provided by means of a rope-ladder, securely fastened inside the ledge, and capable of being pulled up or let down at the will of the occupants. Then the place must be kept constantly stocked with a judicious supply of provisions, water, and ammunition. They could be covered with a tarpaulin, and thus kept in fairly good condition.

"We ought to sleep there every night," he went on, and his mind was so engrossed with the tactical side of the preparations that he did not notice how Iris blanched at the suggestion.

"Surely not until danger actually threatens?" she cried.

"Danger threatens us each hour after sunset. It may come any night, though I expect at least a fortnight's reprieve. Nevertheless, I intend to act as if tonight may witness the first shot of the siege."

"Do you mean that?" she sighed. "And my little room is becoming so very cozy!"

Belle Vue Castle, their two-roomed hut, was already a home to them.

Jenks always accepted her words literally.

"Well," he announced, after a pause, "it may not be necessary to take up our quarters there until the eleventh hour. After I have hoisted up our stores and made the ladder, I will endeavor to devise an efficient cordon of sentinels around our position. We will see."

Not another word could Iris get out of him on the topic. Indeed, he provided her with plenty of work. By this time she could splice a rope more neatly than her tutor, and her particular business was to prepare no less than sixty rungs for the rope-ladder. This was an impossible task for one day, but after dinner the sailor helped her. They toiled late, until their fingers were sore and their backbones creaked as they sat upright.

Meanwhile Jenks swarmed up the pole again, and drew up after him a crowbar, the sledge-hammer, and the pickaxe. With these implements he set to work to improve the accommodation. Of course he did not attempt seriously to remove any large quantity of rock, but there were projecting lumps here and inequalities of floor there which could be thumped or pounded out of existence.

It was surprising to see what a clearance he made in an hour. The existence of the fault helped him a good deal, as the percolation of water at this point had oxidized the stone to rottenness. To his great joy he discovered that a few prods with the pick laid bare a small cavity which could be easily enlarged. Here he contrived a niche where Iris could remain in absolute safety when barricaded by stores, whilst, with a squeeze, she was entirely sheltered from the one dangerous point on the opposite cliff, nor need she be seen from the trees.

Having hauled into position two boxes of ammunition--for which he had scooped out a special receptacle--the invaluable water-kegs from the stranded boat, several tins of biscuits and all the tinned meats, together with three bottles of wine and two of brandy, he hastily abandoned the ledge and busied himself with fitting a number of gun-locks to heavy faggots.

Iris watched his proceedings in silence for some time. At last the interval for luncheon enabled her to demand an explanation.

"If you don't tell me at once what you intend to do with those strange implements," she said, "I will form myself into an amalgamated engineer and come out on strike."

"If you do," he answered, "you will create a precedent. There is no recorded case of a laborer claiming what he calls his rights when his life is at stake. Even an American tramp has been known to work like a fiend under that condition."

"Simply because an American tramp tries, like every other mere male, to be logical. A woman is more heroic. I once read of a French lady being killed during an earthquake because she insisted on going into a falling house to rescue that portion of her hair which usually rested on the dressing-table whilst she was asleep."

"I happen to know," he said, "that you are personally unqualified to emulate her example."

She laughed merrily, so lightly did yesterday's adventure sit upon her. The allusion to her disheveled state when they were thrown ashore by the typhoon simply impressed her as amusing. Thus quickly had she become inured to the strange circumstances of a new life.

"I withdraw the threat and substitute a more genuine plea--curiosity," she cried.

"Then you will be gratified promptly. These are our sentinels. Come with me to allot his post to the most distant one."

He picked up a faggot with its queer attachment, shouldered a Lee-Metford, and smiled when he saw the business-like air with which Iris slung a revolver around her waist.

They walked rapidly to Smugglers' Cove, and the girl soon perceived the ingenuity of his automatic signal. He securely bound the block of wood to a tree where it was hidden by the undergrowth. Breaking the bullet out of a cartridge, he placed the blank charge in position in front of the striker, the case being firmly clasped by a bent nail. To the trigger, the spring of which he had eased to a slight pressure, he attached a piece of unraveled rope, and this he carefully trained among the trees at a height of six inches from the ground, using as carriers nails driven into the trunks. The ultimate result was that a mere swish of Iris's dress against the taut cord exploded the cartridge.

"There!" he exclaimed, exultantly. "When I have driven stakes into the sand to the water's edge on both sides of the cove, I will defy them to land by night without giving us warning."

"Do you know," said Iris, in all seriousness, "I think you are the cleverest man in the world."

"My dear Miss Deane, that is not at all a Trades Unionist sentiment. Equality is the key-note of their propaganda."

Nevertheless he was manifestly pleased by the success of his ingenious contrivance, and forthwith completed the cordon. To make doubly sure, he set another snare further within the trees. He was certain the Dyaks would not pass along Turtle Beach if they could help it. By this time the light was failing.

"That will suffice for the present," he told the girl. "Tomorrow we will place other sentries in position at strategic points. Then we can sleep in the Castle with tolerable safety."

By the meager light of the tiny lamp they labored sedulously at the rope-ladder until Iris's eyes were closing with sheer weariness. Neither of them had slept much during the preceding night, and they were both completely tired.

It was with a very weak little smile that the girl bade him "good night," and they were soon wrapped in that sound slumber which comes only from health, hard work, and wholesome fare.

The first streaks of dawn were tipping the opposite crags with roseate tints when the sailor was suddenly aroused by what he believed to be a gunshot. He could not be sure. He was still collecting his scattered senses, straining eyes and ears intensely, when there came a second report.

Then he knew what had happened. The sentries on the Smugglers' Cove post were faithful to their trust. The enemy was upon them.

At such a moment Jenks was not a man who prayed. Indeed, he was prone to invoke the nether powers, a habit long since acquired by the British army, in Flanders, it is believed.

There was not a moment to be lost. He rushed into Iris's room, and gathered in his arms both her and the weird medley of garments that covered her. He explained to the protesting girl, as he ran with her to the foot of the rock, that she must cling to his shoulders with unfaltering courage whilst he climbed to the ledge with the aid of the pole and the rope placed there the previous day. It was a magnificent feat of strength that he essayed. In calmer moments he would have shrunk from its performance, if only on the score of danger to the precious burden he carried. Now there was no time for thought. Up he went, hand over hand, clinging to the rough pole with the tenacity of a limpet, and taking a turn of the rope over his right wrist at each upward clutch. At last, breathless but triumphant, he reached the ledge, and was able to gasp his instructions to Iris to crawl over his bent back and head until she was safely lodged on the broad platform of rock.

Then, before she could expostulate, he descended, this time for the rifles. These he hastily slung to the rope, again swarmed up the pole, and drew the guns after him with infinite care.

Even in the whirl of the moment he noticed that Iris had managed to partially complete her costume.

"Now we are ready for them," he growled, lying prone on the ledge and eagerly scanning both sides of Prospect Park for a first glimpse of their assailants.

For two shivering hours they waited there, until the sun was high over the cliff and filled sea and land with his brightness. At last, despite the girl's tears and prayers, Jenks insisted on making a reconnaissance in person.

Let this portion of their adventures be passed over with merciful brevity. Both watch-guns had been fired by the troupe of tiny wou-wou monkeys! Iris did not know whether to laugh or cry, when Jenks, with much difficulty, lowered her to mother earth again, and marveled the while how he had managed to carry forty feet into the air a young woman who weighed so solidly.

They sat down to a belated breakfast, and Jenks then became conscious that the muscles of his arms, legs, and back were aching hugely. It was by that means he could judge the true extent of his achievement. Iris, too, realized it gradually, but, like the Frenchwoman in the earthquake, she was too concerned with memories of her state of deshabille to appreciate, all at once, the incidents of the dawn.