Moths, flying beetles, and other creatures were not slow to accept the invitation. They entered by twos, fours, sixes—at last by scores, insomuch that the room became uninhabitable except by the man himself, and his comrades soon retired to their own compartment, leaving him to carry on his work alone.

"You enjoy this sort of thing?" said Nigel, as he was about to retire.

"Enchoy it? yes—it is 'paradise regained!'" He pinned a giant moth at the moment and gazed triumphant through his blue glasses.

"'Paradise lost' to the moth, anyhow," said Nigel with a nod, as he bade him good-night, and carefully closed the wicker door to check the incursions of uncaptured specimens. Being rather tired with the day's journey, he lay down on a mat beside the hermit, who was already sound asleep.

But our hero found that sleep was not easily attainable so close to an inexhaustible enthusiast, whose every step produced a rattling of the bamboo floor, and whose unwearied energy enabled him to hunt during the greater part of the night.

At length slumber descended on Nigel's spirit, and he lay for some time in peaceful oblivion, when a rattling crash awoke him. Sitting up he listened, and came to the conclusion that the professor had upset some piece of furniture, for he could hear him distinctly moving about in a stealthy manner, as if on tip-toe, giving vent to a grumble of dissatisfaction every now and then.

"What can he be up to now, I wonder?" murmured the disturbed youth, sleepily.

The hermit, who slept through all noises with infantine simplicity, made no answer, but a peculiar snort from the negro, who lay not far off on his other side, told that he was struggling with a laugh.

"Hallo, Moses! are you awake?" asked Nigel, in a low voice.

"Ho yes, Massa Nadgel. I's bin wakin' a good while, larfin' fit to bu'st my sides. De purfesser's been a-goin' on like a mad renoceros for more'n an hour. He's arter suthin', which he can't ketch. Listen! You hear 'im goin' round an' round on his tip-toes. Dere goes anoder chair. I only hope he won't smash de lamp an' set de house a-fire."

"Vell, vell; I've missed him zee tence time. Nevair mind. Have at you vonce more, you aggravating leetle zing!"

Thus the unsuccessful man relieved his feelings, in a growling tone, as he continued to move about on tip-toe, rattling the bamboo flooring in spite of his careful efforts to move quietly.

"Why, Verkimier, what are you after?" cried Nigel at last, loud enough to be heard through the partition.

"Ah—I am sorry to vake you," he replied, without, however, suspending his hunt. "I have tried my best to make no noice, but zee bamboo floor is—hah! I have 'im at last!"

"What is it?" asked Nigel, becoming interested.

"Von leetle bat. He come in vis a moss—"

"A what?"

"A moss—a big, beautiful moss."

"Oh! a moth—well?"

"Vell, I shut zee window, capture zee moss, ant zen I hunt zee bat with my bootterfly-net for an hour, but have only captured him zis moment. Ant he is—sooch a—sooch a splendid specimen of a very rar' species, zee Caelops frizii—gootness! Zere goes zee lamp!"

The crash that followed told too eloquently of the catastrophe, and broke the slumbers even of the hermit. The whole party sprang up, and entered the naturalist's room with a light, for the danger from fire was great. Fortunately the lamp had been extinguished in its fall, so that, beyond an overpowering smell of petroleum and the destruction of a good many specimens, no serious results ensued.

After securing the Caelops frithii, removing the shattered glass, wiping up the oil, and putting chairs and tables on their legs, the professor was urged to go to bed,—advice which, in his excitement, he refused to take until it was suggested that, if he did not, he would be totally unfit for exploring the forest next day.

"Vy, it is next day already!" he exclaimed, consulting his watch.

"Just so. Now do turn in."

"I vill."

And he did.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

A TRYING ORDEAL—DANGER THREATENS AND FLIGHT AGAIN RESOLVED ON.

When the early birds are singing, and the early mists are scattering, and the early sun is rising to gladden, as with the smile of God, all things with life in earth and sea and sky—then it is that early-rising man goes forth to reap the blessings which his lazy fellow-man fails to appreciate or enjoy.

Among the early risers that morning was our friend Moses. Gifted with an inquiring mind, the negro had proceeded to gratify his propensities by making inquiries of a general nature, and thus had acquired, among other things, the particular information that the river on the banks of which the village stood was full of fish. Now, Moses was an ardent angler.

"I lub fishing," he said one day to Nigel when in a confidential mood; "I can't tell you how much I lub it. Seems to me dat der's nuffin' like it for proggin' a man!"

When Nigel demanded an explanation of what proggin' meant, Moses said he wasn't quite sure. He could "understand t'ings easy enough though he couldn't allers 'splain 'em." On the whole he thought that prog had a compound meaning—it was a combination of poke and pull "wid a flavour ob ticklin' about it," and was rather pleasant.

"You see," he continued, "when a leetle fish plays wid your hook, it progs your intellec' an' tickles up your fancy a leetle. When he grabs you, dat progs your hopes a good deal. When a big fish do de same, dat progs you deeper. An' when a real walloper almost pulls you into de ribber, dat progs your heart up into your t'roat, where it stick till you land him."

With surroundings and capacities such as we have attempted to describe, it is no wonder that Moses sat down on the river-bank and enjoyed himself, in company with a little Malay boy, who lent him his bamboo rod and volunteered to show him the pools.

But there were no particular pools in that river. It was a succession of pools, and fish swarmed in all of them. There were at least fifteen different species which nothing short of an ichthyologist could enumerate correctly. The line used by Moses was a single fibre of bark almost as strong as gut; the hook was a white tinned weapon like a small anchor, supplied by traders, and meant originally for service in the deep sea. The bait was nothing in particular, but, as the fish were not particular, that was of no consequence. The reader will not be surprised, then, when we state that in an hour or so Moses had had his heart progged considerably and had filled a large bag with superb fish, with which he returned, perspiring, beaming, and triumphant to breakfast.

After breakfast the whole party went forth for what Verkimier styled "zee business of zee day," armed with guns, spears, botanical boxes, bags, wallets, and butterfly-nets.

In the immediate neighbourhood of the village large clearings in the forest were planted as coffee gardens, each separated from the other for the purpose of isolation, for it seems that coffee, like the potato, is subject to disease. Being covered with scarlet flowers these gardens had a fine effect on the landscape when seen from the heights behind the village. Passing through the coffee grounds the party was soon in the tangled thickets of underwood through which many narrow paths had been cut.

We do not intend to drag our readers through bog and brake during the whole of this day's expedition; suffice it to say that the collection of specimens made, of all kinds, far surpassed the professor's most sanguine expectations, and, as for the others, those who could more or less intelligently sympathise did so, while those who could not were content with the reflected joy of the man of science.

At luncheon—which they partook of on the river-bank, under a magnificently umbrageous tree—plans for the afternoon were fixed.

"We have kept together long enough, I think," said Van der Kemp. "Those of us who have guns must shoot something to contribute to the national feast on our return."

"Vell, let us divide," assented the amiable naturalist. Indeed he was so happy that he would have assented to anything—except giving up the hunt. "Von party can go von vay, anoder can go anoder vay. I vill continue mine business. Zee place is more of a paradise zan zee last. Ve must remain two or tree veeks."

The hermit glanced at Nigel.

"I fear it is impossible for me to do so," said the latter. "I am pledged to return to Batavia within a specified time, and from the nature of the country I perceive it will take all the time at my disposal to reach that place so as to redeem my pledge."

"Ha! Zat is a peety. Vell, nevair mind. Let us enchoy to-day. Com', ve must not vaste more of it in zee mere gratification of our animal natures."

Acting on this broad hint they all rose and scattered in different groups—the professor going off ahead of his party in his eager haste, armed only with a butterfly-net.

Now, as the party of natives,—including Baso, who carried the professor's biggest box, and Grogo, who bore his gun,—did not overtake their leader, they concluded that he must have joined one of the other parties, and, as it was impossible to ascertain which of them, they calmly went hunting on their own account! Thus it came to pass that the man of science was soon lost in the depths of that primeval forest! But little cared the enthusiast for that—or, rather, little did he realise it. With perspiration streaming from every pore—except where the pores were stopped by mud—he dashed after "bootterflies" with the wisdom of Solomon and the eagerness of a school-boy, and not until the shades of evening began to descend did his true position flash upon him. Then, with all the vigour of a powerful intellect and an enlightened mind, he took it in at a glance—and came to a sudden halt.

"Vat shall I do?" he asked.

Not even an echo answered, and the animal kingdom was indifferent.

"Lat me see. I have been vandering avay all dis time. Now, I have not'ing to do but right-about-face and vander back."

Could reasoning be clearer or more conclusive? He acted on it at once, but, after wandering back a long time, he did not arrive at any place or object that he had recognised on the outward journey.

Meanwhile, as had been appointed, the rest of the party met a short time before dark at the rendezvous where they had lunched.

"Where is the professor, Baso?" asked Van der Kemp as he came up.

Baso did not know, and looked at Grogo, who also professed ignorance, but both said they thought the professor had gone with Nigel.

"I thought he was with you," said the latter, looking anxiously at the hermit.

"He's hoed an' lost his-self!" cried Moses with a look of concern.

Van der Kemp was a man of action. "Not a moment to lose," he said, and organised the band into several smaller parties, each led by a native familiar with the jungle.

"Let this be our meeting-place," he said, as they were on the point of starting off together; "and let those of us who have fire-arms discharge them occasionally."

Meanwhile, the professor was walking at full speed in what he supposed to be—and in truth was—"back."

He was not alone, however. In the jungle close beside him a tiger prowled along with the stealthy, lithe, sneaking activity of a cat. By that time it was not absolutely dark, but the forest had assumed a very sombre appearance. Suddenly the tiger made a tremendous bound on to the track right in front of the man. Whether it had miscalculated the position of its intended victim or not we cannot say, but it crouched for another spring. The professor, almost instinctively, crouched also, and, being a brave man, stared the animal straight in the face without winking! and so the two crouched there, absolutely motionless and with a fixed glare, such as we have often seen in a couple of tom-cats who were mutually afraid to attack each other.

What the tiger thought at that critical and crucial moment we cannot tell, but the professor's thoughts were swift, varied, tremendous— almost sublime, and once or twice even ridiculous!

"Vat shall I do? Deaf stares me in zee face! No veapons! only a net, ant he is not a bootterfly! Science, adieu! Home of my chilthood, farevell! My moder—Hah! zee fusees!"

Such were a few of the thoughts that burned but found no utterance. The last thought however led to action. Verkimier, foolish man! was a smoker. He carried fusees. Slowly, with no more apparent motion than the hour-hand on the face of a watch, he let his hand glide into his coat-pocket and took out the box of fusees. The tiger seemed uneasy, but the bold man never for one instant ceased to glare, and no disturbed expression or hasty movement gave the tiger the slightest excuse for a spring. Bringing the box up by painfully slow degrees in front of his nose the man opened it, took out a fusee, struck it, and revealed the blue binoculars!

The effect on the tiger was instantaneous and astounding. With a demi-volt or backward somersault it hurled itself into the jungle whence it had come with a terrific roar of alarm, and its tail—undoubtedly though not evidently—between its legs!

Heaving a deep, long-drawn sigh, the professor stood up and wiped his forehead. Then he listened intently.

"A shote, if mine ears deceive me not!" he said, and listened again.

He was right. Another shot, much nearer, was heard, and he replied with a shout to which joy as much as strength of lung gave fervour. Hurrying along the track—not without occasional side-glances at the jungle—the hero was soon again in the midst of his friends; and it was not until his eyes refused to remain open any longer that he ceased to entertain an admiring circle that night with the details of his face-to-face meeting with a tiger.

But Verkimier's anticipations in regard to that paradise were not to be realised. The evil passions of a wicked man, with whom he had personally nothing whatever to do, interfered with his plans. In the middle of the night a native Malay youth named Babu arrived at the village and demanded an interview with the chief. That worthy, after the interview, conducted the youth to the hut where his visitors lived, and, rousing Van der Kemp without disturbing the others, bade him listen to what the young man had to say. An expression of great anxiety overspread the hermit's usually placid countenance while Babu was speaking.

"It is fate!" he murmured, as if communing with himself—then, after a pause—"no, there is no such thing as fate. It is, it must be, the will of God. Go, young man, mention this to no one. I thank you for the kindness which made you take so long a journey for my sake."

"It is not kindness, it is love that makes me serve you," returned the lad earnestly. "Every one loves you, Van der Kemp, because that curse of mankind, revenge, has no place in your breast."

"Strange! how little man does know or guess the secret thoughts of his fellow!" said the hermit with one of his pitiful smiles. "Revenge no place in me!—but I thank you, boy, for the kind thought as well as the effort to save me. My life is not worth much to any one. It will not matter, I think, if my enemy should succeed. Go now, Babu, and God be with you!"

"He will surely succeed if you do not leave this place at once," rejoined the youth, in a tone of decision. "Baderoon is furious at all times. He is worse than ever just now, because you have thwarted his plans—so it is said—very often. If he knew that I am now thwarting them also, he would hunt me to death. I will not leave you till you are safe beyond his reach."

The hermit looked at the lad with kindly surprise.

"How comes it," he said, "that you are so much interested in me? I remember seeing you two years ago, but have no recollection of having done you any service."

"Do you not remember that my mother was ill when you spent a night in our hut, and my little sister was dying? You nursed her, and tried your best to save her, and when you could not save her, and she died, you wept as if the child had been your own. I do not forget that, Van der Kemp. Sympathy is of more value than service."

"Strangely mistaken again!" murmured the hermit. "Who can know the workings of the human mind! Self was mixed with my feelings— profoundly—yet my sympathy with you and your mother was sincere."

"We never doubted that," returned Babu with a touch of surprise in his tone.

"Well now, what do you propose to do, as you refuse to leave me?" asked the hermit with some curiosity.

"I will go on with you to the next village. It is a large one. The chief man there is my uncle, who will aid me, I know, in any way I wish. I will tell him what I know and have heard of the pirate's intention, of which I have proof. He will order Baderoon to be arrested on suspicion when he arrives. Then we will detain him till you are beyond his reach. That is not unjust."

"True—and I am glad to know by your last words that you are sensitive about the justice of what you propose to do. Indifference to pure and simple justice is the great curse of mankind. It is not indeed the root, but it is the fruit of our sins. The suspicion that detains Baderoon is more than justified, for I could bring many witnesses to prove that he has vowed to take my life, and I know him to be a murderer."

At breakfast-time Van der Kemp announced to his friends his intention of quitting the village at once, and gave an account of his interview with the Malay lad during the night. This, of course, reconciled them to immediate departure,—though, in truth, the professor was the only one who required to be reconciled.

"It is very misfortunate," he remarked with a sigh, which had difficulty in escaping through a huge mass of fish and rice. "You see zee vonderful variety of ornizological specimens I could find here, ant zee herbareum, not to mention zee magnificent Amblypodia eumolpus ant ozer bootterflies—ach!—a leetle mor' feesh if you please. Zanks. My frond, it is a great sacrifice, but I vill go avay viz you, for I could not joostify myself if I forzook you, ant I cannot ask you to remain vile your life is in dancher."

"I appreciate your sentiments and sacrifice thoroughly," said the hermit.

"So does I," said Moses, helping himself to coffee; "but ob course if I didn't it would be all de same. Pass de venison, Massa Nadgel, an' don't look as if you was goin' to gib in a'ready. It spoils my appetite."

"You will have opportunities," continued Van der Kemp, addressing the professor, "to gather a good many specimens as we go along. Besides, if you will consent to honour my cave in Krakatoa with a visit, I promise you a hearty welcome and an interesting field of research. You have no idea what a variety of species in all the branches of natural history my little island contains."

Hereupon the hermit proceeded to enter into details of the flora, fauna, and geology of his island-home, and to expatiate in such glowing language on its arboreal and herbal wealth and beauty, that the professor became quite reconciled to immediate departure.

"But how," he asked, "am I to get zere ven ve reach zee sea-coast? for your canoe holds only t'ree, as you have told me."

"There are plenty of boats to be had. Besides, I can send over my own boat for you to the mainland. The distance is not great."

"Goot. Zat vill do. I am happay now."

"So," remarked Nigel as he went off with Moses to pack up, "his 'paradise regained' is rather speedily to be changed into paradise forsaken! 'Off wi' the old love and on wi' the new.' 'The expulsive power of a new affection!'"

"Das true, Massa Nadgel," observed Moses, who entertained profound admiration for anything that sounded like proverbial philosophy. "De purfesser am an affectionit creeter. 'Pears to me dat he lubs de whole creation. He kills an' tenderly stuffs 'most eberyt'ing he kin lay hands on. If he could only lay hold ob Baderoon an' stuff an' stick him in a moozeum, he'd do good service to my massa an' also to de whole ob mankind."



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

A TERRIBLE MURDER AND A STRANGE REVELATION.

After letting the chief of the village know that the news just received rendered it necessary that they should proceed at once to the next town—but carefully refraining from going into particulars lest Baderoon should by any means be led to suspect their intentions—the party started off about daybreak under the guidance of the Malay youth Babu.

Anxious as he was that no evil should befall his friend, Nigel could not help wondering that a man of such a calm spirit, and such unquestionable courage, should be so anxious to escape from this pirate.

"I can't understand it at all," he said to Moses, as they walked through the forest together a little in rear of the party.

"No more kin I, Massa Nadgel," answered the negro, with one of those shakes of the head and glares of solemn perplexity with which he was wont to regard matters that were too deep for him.

"Surely Van der Kemp is well able to take care of himself against any single foe."

"Das true, Massa Nadgel,—'gainst any half-dozen foes as well."

"Fear, therefore, cannot be the cause."

The negro received this with a quiet chuckle.

"No," said he. "Massa nebber knowed fear, but ob dis you may be bery sure, massa's allers got good reasons for what he does. One t'ing's sartin, I neber saw him do nuffin' for fear, nor revenge, nor anger, no, nor yet for fun; allers for lub—and," added Moses, after a moment's thought, "sometimes for money, when we goes on a tradin' 'spidition—but he don't make much account ob dat."

"Well, perhaps the mystery may be cleared up in time," said Nigel, as they closed up with the rest of the party, who had halted for a short rest and some refreshment.

This last consisted largely of fruit, which was abundant everywhere, and a little rice with water from sparkling springs to wash it down.

In the afternoon they reached the town—a large one, with a sort of market-place in the centre, which at the time of their arrival was crowded with people. Strangers, especially Europeans, were not often seen in that region, so that Van der Kemp and his friends at once attracted a considerable number of followers. Among these was one man who followed them about very unobtrusively, usually hanging well in rear of the knot of followers whose curiosity was stronger than their sense of propriety. This man wore a broad sun-hat and had a bandage round his head pulled well over one eye, as if he had recently met with an accident or been wounded. He was unarmed, with the exception of the kriss, or long knife, which every man in that region carries.

This was no other than Baderoon himself, who had outwitted his enemies, had somehow discovered at least part of their plans, and had hurried on in advance of them to the town, where, disguising himself as described, he awaited their arrival.

Babu conducted his friends to the presence of his kinsman the chief man of the town, and, having told his story, received a promise that the pirate should be taken up when he arrived and put in prison. Meanwhile he appointed to the party a house in which to spend the night.

Baderoon boldly accompanied the crowd that followed them, saw the house, glanced between the heads of curious natives who watched the travellers while eating their supper, and noted the exact spot on the floor of the building where Van der Kemp threw down his mat and blanket, thus taking possession of his intended couch! He did not, however, see that the hermit afterwards shifted his position a little, and that Babu, desiring to be near his friend, lay down on the vacated spot.

In the darkest hour of the night, when even the owls and bats had sought repose, the pirate captain stole out of the brake in which he had concealed himself, and, kriss in hand, glided under the house in which his enemy lay.

Native houses, as we have elsewhere explained, are usually built on posts, so that there is an open space under the floors, which is available as a store or lumber-room. It is also unfortunately available for evil purposes. The bamboo flooring is not laid so closely but that sounds inside may be heard distinctly by any one listening below. Voices were heard by the pirate as he approached, which arrested his steps. They were those of Van der Kemp and Nigel engaged in conversation. Baderoon knew that as long as his enemy was awake and conversing he might probably be sitting up and not in a position suitable to his fell purpose. He crouched therefore among some lumber like a tiger abiding its time.

"Why are you so anxious not to meet this man?" asked Nigel, who was resolved, if possible without giving offence, to be at the bottom of the mystery.

For some moments the hermit was silent, then in a constrained voice he said slowly—"Because revenge burns fiercely in my breast. I have striven to crush it, but cannot. I fear to meet him lest I kill him."

"Has he, then, done you such foul wrong?"

"Ay, he has cruelly—fiendishly—done the worst he could. He robbed me of my only child—but I may not talk of it. The unholy desire for vengeance burns more fiercely when I talk. 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.' My constant prayer is that I may not meet him. Good-night."

As the hermit thus put an abrupt end to the conversation he lay down and drew his blanket over him. Nigel followed his example, wondering at what he had heard, and in a few minutes their steady regular breathing told that they were both asleep. Then Baderoon advanced and counted the bamboo planks from the side towards the centre of the house. When looking between the heads of the people he had counted the same planks above. Standing under one he looked up, listened intently for a few seconds, and drew his kriss. The place was almost pitch-dark, yet the blade caught a faint gleam from without, which it reflected on the pirate's face as he thrust the long keen weapon swiftly, yet deliberately, between the bamboos.

A shriek, that filled those who heard it with a thrill of horror, rang out on the silent night. At the same moment a gush of warm blood poured over the murderer's face before he could leap aside. Instant uproar and confusion burst out in the neighbourhood, and spread like wildfire until the whole town was aroused. When a light was procured and the people crowded into the hut where the strangers lay, Van der Kemp was found on his knees holding the hand of poor Babu, who was at his last gasp. A faint smile, that yet seemed to have something of gladness in it, flitted across his pale face as he raised himself, grasped the hermit's hand and pressed it to his lips. Then the fearful drain of blood took effect and he fell back—dead. One great convulsive sob burst from the hermit as he leaped up, drew his knife, and, with a fierce glare in his blue eyes, rushed out of the room.

Vengeance would indeed have been wreaked on Baderoon at that moment if the hermit had caught him, but, as might have been expected, the murderer was nowhere to be found. He was hid in the impenetrable jungle, which it was useless to enter in the darkness of night. When daybreak enabled the towns-people to undertake an organised search, no trace of him could be discovered.

Flight, personal safety, formed no part of the pirate's plan. The guilty man had reached that state of depravity which, especially among the natives of that region, borders close on insanity. While the inhabitants of the village were hunting far a-field for him, Baderoon lay concealed among some lumber in rear of a hut awaiting his opportunity. It was not very long of coming.

Towards afternoon the various searching parties began to return, and all assembled in the market-place, where the chief man, with the hermit and his party, were assembled discussing the situation.

"I will not now proceed until we have buried poor Babu," said Van der Kemp. "Besides, Baderoon will be sure to return. I will meet him now."

"I do not agree viz you, mine frond," said the professor. "Zee man is not a fool zough he is a villain. He knows vat avaits him if he comes."

"He will not come openly," returned the hermit, "but he will not now rest till he has killed me."

Even as he spoke a loud shouting, mingled with shrieks and yells, was heard at the other end of the main street. The sounds of uproar appeared to approach, and soon a crowd of people was seen rushing towards the market-place, uttering cries of fear in which the word "amok" was heard. At the sound of that word numbers of people— specially women and children—turned and fled from the scene, but many of the men stood their ground, and all of them drew their krisses. Among the latter of course were the white men and their native companions.

We have already referred to that strange madness, to which the Malays seem to be peculiarly liable, during the paroxysms of which those affected by it rush in blind fury among their fellows, slaying right and left. From the terrified appearance of some of the approaching crowd and the maniac shouts in rear, it was evident that a man thus possessed of the spirit of amok was venting his fury on them.

Another minute and he drew near, brandishing a kriss that dripped with the gore of those whom he had already stabbed. Catching sight of the white men he made straight for them. He was possessed of only one eye, but that one seemed to concentrate and flash forth the fire of a dozen eyes, while his dishevelled hair and blood-stained face and person gave him an appalling aspect.

"It is Baderoon!" said Van der Kemp in a subdued but stern tone.

Nigel, who stood next to him, glanced at the hermit. His face was deadly pale; his eyes gleamed with a strange almost unearthly light, and his lips were firmly compressed. With a sudden nervous motion, unlike his usually calm demeanour, he drew his long knife, and to Nigel's surprise cast it away from him. At that moment a woman who came in the madman's way was stabbed by him to the heart and rent the air with her dying shriek as she fell. No one could have saved her, the act was so quickly done. Van der Kemp would have leaped to her rescue, but it was too late; besides, there was no need to do so now, for the maniac, recognising his enemy, rushed at him with a shout that sounded like a triumphant yell. Seeing this, and that his friend stood unarmed, as well as unmoved, regarding Baderoon with a fixed gaze, Nigel stepped a pace in advance to protect him, but Van der Kemp seized his arm and thrust him violently aside. Next moment the pirate was upon him with uplifted knife, but the hermit caught his wrist, and with a heave worthy of Samson hurled him to the ground, where he lay for a moment quite stunned.

Before he could recover, the natives, who had up to this moment held back, sprang upon the fallen man with revengeful yells, and a dozen knives were about to be buried in his breast when the hermit sprang forward to protect his enemy from their fury. But the man whose wife had been the last victim came up at the moment and led an irresistible rush which bore back the hermit as well as his comrades, who had crowded round him, and in another minute the maniac was almost hacked to pieces.

"I did not kill him—thank God!" muttered Van der Kemp as he left the market-place, where the relatives of those who had been murdered were wailing over their dead.

After this event even the professor was anxious to leave the place, so that early next morning the party resumed their journey, intending to make a short stay at the next village. Failing to reach it that night, however, they were compelled to encamp in the woods. Fortunately they came upon a hill which, although not very high, was sufficiently so, with the aid of watch-fires, to protect them from tigers. From the summit, which rose just above the tree-tops, they had a magnificent view of the forest. Many of the trees were crowned with flowers among which the setting sun shone for a brief space with glorious effulgence.

Van der Kemp and Nigel stood together apart from the others, contemplating the wonderful scene.

"What must be the dwelling-place of the Creator Himself when his footstool is so grand?" said the hermit in a low voice.

"That is beyond mortal ken," said Nigel.

"True—true. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived it. Yet, methinks, the glory of the terrestrial was meant to raise our souls to the contemplation of the celestial."

"And yet how signally it has failed in the case of Baderoon," returned Nigel, with a furtive glance at the hermit, whose countenance had quite recovered its look of quiet simple dignity. "Would it be presumptuous if I were to ask why it is that this pirate had such bitter enmity against you?"

"It is no secret," answered the hermit, in a sad tone. "The truth is, I had discovered some of his nefarious plans, and more than once have been the means of preventing his intended deeds of violence—as in the case of the Dyaks whom we have so lately visited. Besides, the man had done me irreparable injury, and it is one of the curious facts of human experience that sometimes those who injure us hate us because they have done so."

"May I venture to ask for a fuller account of the injury he did you?" said Nigel with some hesitancy.

For some moments the hermit did not answer. He was evidently struggling with some suppressed feeling. Turning a look full upon his young friend, he at length spoke in a low sad voice—"I have never mentioned my grief to mortal man since that day when it pleased God to draw a cloud of thickest darkness over my life. But, Nigel, there is that in you which encourages confidence. I confess that more than once I have been tempted to tell you of my grief—for human hearts crave intelligent sympathy. My faithful servant and friend Moses is, no doubt, intensely sympathetic, but—but—well, I cannot understand, still less can I explain, why I shrink from making a confidant of him. Certainly it is not because of his colour, for I hold that the souls of men are colourless!"

"I need not trouble you with the story of my early life," continued the hermit. "I lost my dear wife a year after our marriage, and was left with a little girl whose lovely face became more and more like that of her mother every day she lived. My soul was wrapped up in the child. After three years I went with her as a passenger to Batavia. On the way we were attacked by a couple of pirate junks. Baderoon was the pirate captain. He killed many of our men, took some of us prisoners, sank the vessel, seized my child, and was about to separate us, putting my child into one junk while I was retained, bound, in the other."

He paused, and gazed over the glowing tree-tops into the golden horizon, with a longing, wistful look. At the same time something like an electric shock passed through Nigel's frame, for was not this narrative strangely similar in its main features to that which his own father had told him on the Keeling Islands about beautiful little Kathleen Holbein and her father? He was on the point of seizing the hermit by the hand and telling him what he knew, when the thought occurred that attacks by pirates were common enough in those seas, that other fathers might have lost daughters in this way, and that, perhaps, his suspicion might be wrong. It would be a terrible thing, he thought, to raise hope in his poor friend's breast unless he were pretty sure of the hope being well founded. He would wait and hear more. He had just come to this conclusion, and managed to subdue the feelings which had been aroused, when Van der Kemp turned to him again, and continued his narrative—"I know not how it was, unless the Lord gave me strength for a purpose as he gave it to Samson of old, but when I recovered from the stinging blow I had received, and saw the junk hoist her sails and heard my child scream, I felt the strength of a lion come over me; I burst the bonds that held me and leaped into the sea, intending to swim to her. But it was otherwise ordained. A breeze which had sprung up freshened, and the junk soon left me far behind. As for the other junk, I never saw it again, for I never looked back or thought of it—only, as I left it, I heard a mocking laugh from the one-eyed villain, who, I afterwards found out, owned and commanded both junks."

Nigel had no doubt now, but the agitation of his feelings still kept him silent.

"Need I say," continued the hermit, "that revenge burned fiercely in my breast from that day forward? If I had met the man soon after that, I should certainly have slain him. But God mercifully forbade it. Since then He has opened my eyes to see the Crucified One who prayed for His enemies. And up till now I have prayed most earnestly that Baderoon and I might not meet. My prayer has not been answered in the way I wished, but a better answer has been granted, for the sin of revenge was overcome within me before we met."

Van der Kemp paused again.

"Go on," said Nigel, eagerly. "How did you escape?"

"Escape! Where was I—Oh! I remember," said the hermit, awaking as if out of a dream; "Well, I swam after the junk until it was out of sight, and then I swam on in silent despair until so completely exhausted that I felt consciousness leaving me. Then I knew that the end must be near and I felt almost glad; but when I began to sink, the natural desire to prolong life revived, and I struggled on. Just as my strength began a second time to fail, I struck against something. It was a dead cocoa-nut tree. I laid hold of it and clung to it all that night. Next morning I was picked up by some fishermen who were going to Telok Betong by the outer passage round Sebesi Island, and were willing to land me there. But as my business connections had been chiefly with the town of Anjer, I begged of them to land me on the island of Krakatoa. This they did, and it has been my home ever since. I have been there many years."

"Have you never seen or heard of your daughter since?" asked Nigel eagerly, and with deep sympathy.

"Never—I have travelled far and near, all over the archipelago; into the interior of the islands, great and small, but have failed to find her. I have long since felt that she must be dead—for—for she could not live with the monsters who stole her away."

A certain contraction of the mouth, as he said this, and a gleam of the eyes, suggested to Nigel that revenge was not yet dead within the hermit's breast, although it had been overcome.

"What was her name?" asked Nigel, willing to gain time to think how he ought to act, and being afraid of the effect that the sudden communication of the news might have on his friend.

"Winnie—darling Winnie—after her mother," said the hermit with deep pathos in his tone.

A feeling of disappointment came over our hero. Winnie bore not the most distant resemblance to Kathleen!

"Did you ever, during your search," asked Nigel slowly, "visit the Cocos-Keeling Islands?"

"Never. They are too far from where the attack on us was made."

"And you never heard of a gun-boat having captured a pirate junk and—"

"Why do you ask, and why pause?" said the hermit, looking at his friend in some surprise.

Nigel felt that he had almost gone too far.

"Well, you know—" he replied in some confusion, "you—you are right when you expect me to sympathise with your great sorrow, which I do most profoundly, and—and—in short, I would give anything to be able to suggest hope to you, my friend. Men should never give way to despair."

"Thank you. It is kindly meant," returned the hermit, looking at the youth with his sad smile. "But it is vain. Hope is dead now."

They were interrupted at this point by the announcement that supper was ready. At the same time the sun sank, like the hermit's hope, and disappeared beyond the dark forest.



CHAPTER TWENTY.

NIGEL MAKES A CONFIDANT OF MOSES—UNDERTAKES A LONELY WATCH AND SEES SOMETHING WONDERFUL.

It was not much supper that Nigel Roy ate that night. The excitement resulting from his supposed discovery reduced his appetite seriously, and the intense desire to open a safety-valve in the way of confidential talk with some one induced a nervously absent disposition which at last attracted attention.

"You vant a goot dose of kvinine," remarked Verkimier, when, having satiated himself, he found time to think of others—not that the professor was selfish by any means, only he was addicted to concentration of mind on all work in hand, inclusive of feeding.

The hermit paid no attention to anything that was said. His recent conversation had given vent to a flood of memories and feelings that had been pent-up for many years.

After supper Nigel resolved to make a confidant of Moses. The negro's fidelity to and love for his master would ensure his sympathy at least, if not wise counsel.

"Moses," he said, when the professor had raised himself to the seventh heaven by means of tobacco fumes, "come with me. I want to have a talk."

"Das what I's allers wantin', Massa Nadgel; talkin's my strong point, if I hab a strong point at all."

They went together to the edge of a cliff on the hill-top, whence they could see an almost illimitable stretch of tropical wilderness bathed in a glorious flood of moonlight, and sat down.

On a neighbouring cliff, which was crowned with a mass of grasses and shrubs, a small monkey also sat down, on a fallen branch, and watched them with pathetic interest, tempered, it would seem, by cutaneous irritation.

"Moses, I am sorely in need of advice," said Nigel, turning suddenly to his companion with ill-suppressed excitement.

"Well, Massa Nadgel, you does look like it, but I'm sorry I ain't a doctor. P'r'aps de purfesser would help you better nor—"

"You misunderstand me. Can you keep a secret, Moses?"

"I kin try—if—if he's not too diffikilt to keep."

"Well, then; listen."

The negro opened his eyes and his mouth as if these were the chief orifices for the entrance of sound, and advanced an ear. The distant monkey, observing, apparently, that some unusual communication was about to be made, also stretched out its little head, cocked an ear, and suspended its other operations.

Then, in low earnest tones, Nigel told Moses of his belief that Van der Kemp's daughter might yet be alive and well, and detailed the recent conversation he had had with his master.

"Now, Moses; what d'ye think of all that?"

Profundity unfathomable sat on the negro's sable brow as he replied, "Massa Nadgel, I don't bery well know what to t'ink."

"But remember, Moses, before we go further, that I tell you all this in strict confidence; not a word of it must pass your lips."

The awful solemnity with which Nigel sought to impress this on his companion was absolutely trifling compared with the expression of that companion's countenance, as, with a long-drawn argumentative and remonstrative Oh! he replied:—

"Massa Nadgel. Does you really t'ink I would say or do any mortal t'ing w'atsumiver as would injure my massa?"

"I'm sure you would not," returned Nigel, quickly. "Forgive me, Moses, I merely meant that you would have to be very cautious—very careful—that you do not let a word slip—by accident, you know—I believe you'd sooner die than do an intentional injury to Van der Kemp. If I thought you capable of that, I think I would relieve my feelings by giving you a good thrashing."

The listening monkey cocked its ear a little higher at this, and Moses, who had at first raised his flat nose indignantly in the air, gradually lowered it, while a benignant smile supplanted indignation.

"You're right dere, Massa Nadgel. I'd die a t'ousand times sooner dan injure massa. As to your last obserwation, it rouses two idees in my mind. First, I wonder how you'd manidge to gib me a t'rashin', an' second, I wonder if your own moder would rikognise you arter you'd tried it."

At this the monkey turned its other ear as if to make quite sure that it heard aright. Nigel laughed shortly.

"But seriously, Moses," he continued; "what do you think I should do? Should I reveal my suspicions to Van der Kemp?"

"Cer'nly not!" answered the negro with prompt decision. "What! wake up all his old hopes to hab 'em all dashed to bits p'raps when you find dat you's wrong!"

"But I feel absolutely certain that I'm not wrong!" returned Nigel, excitedly. "Consider—there is, first, the one-eyed pirate; second, there is—"

"'Scuse me, Massa Nadgel, dere's no occasion to go all ober it again. I'll tell you what you do."

"Well?" exclaimed Nigel, anxiously, while his companion frowned savagely under the force of the thoughts that surged through his brain.

"Here's what you'll do," said Moses.

"Well?" (impatiently, as the negro paused.)

"We're on our way home to Krakatoa."

"Yes—well?"

"One ob our men leabes us to-morrer—goes to 'is home on de coast. Kitch one ob de steamers dat's allers due about dis time."

"Well, what of that?"

"What ob dat! why, you'll write a letter to your fadder. It'll go by de steamer to Batavia. He gits it long before we gits home, so dere's plenty time for 'im to take haction."

"But what good will writing to my father do?" asked Nigel in a somewhat disappointed tone. "He can't help us."

"Ho yes, he can," said Moses with a self-satisfied nod. "See here, I'll tell you what to write. You begin, 'Dear fadder—or Dearest fadder'— I's not quite sure ob de strengt' ob your affection. P'raps de safest way."

"Oh! get on, Moses. Never mind that."

"Ho! it's all bery well for you to say dat, but de ole gen'leman'll mind it. Hows'ever, put it as you t'ink best—'Dear fadder, victual your ship; up anchor; hois' de sails, an' steer for de Cocos-Keelin' Islands. Go ashore; git hold ob do young 'ooman called Kat'leen Hobbleben.'"

"Holbein, Moses."

"What! is she Moses too?"

"No, no! get on, man."

"Well, 'Dearest fadder, git a hold ob her, whateber her name is, an' carry her off body and soul, an' whateber else b'longs to her. Take her to de town ob Anjer an' wait dere for furder orders.' Ob course for de windin' up o' de letter you must appeal agin to de state ob your affections, for, as—"

"Not a bad idea," exclaimed Nigel. "Why, Moses, you're a genius! Of course I'll have to explain a little more fully."

"'Splain what you please," said Moses. "My business is to gib you de bones ob de letter; yours—bein' a scholar—is to clove it wid flesh."

"I'll do it, Moses, at once."

"I should like," rejoined Moses, with a tooth-and-gum-disclosing smile, "to see your fadder when he gits dat letter!"

The picture conjured up by his vivid imagination caused the negro to give way to an explosive laugh that sent the eavesdropping monkey like a brown thunderbolt into the recesses of its native jungle, while Nigel went off to write and despatch the important letter.

Next day the party arrived at another village, where, the report of their approach having preceded them, they were received with much ceremony—all the more that the professor's power with the rifle had been made known, and that the neighbourhood was infested by tigers.

There can be little doubt that at this part of the journey the travellers must have been dogged all the way by tigers, and it was matter for surprise that so small a party should not have been molested. Possibly the reason was that these huge members of the feline race were afraid of white faces, being unaccustomed to them, or, perchance, the appearance and vigorous stride of even a few stalwart and fearless men had intimidated them. Whatever the cause, the party reached the village without seeing a single tiger, though their footprints were observed in many places.

The wild scenery became more and more beautiful as this village was neared.

Although flowers as a rule were small and inconspicuous in many parts of the great forest through which they passed, the rich pink and scarlet of many of the opening leaves, and the autumn-tinted foliage which lasts through all seasons of the year, fully made up for the want of them—at least as regards colour, while the whole vegetation was intermingled in a rich confusion that defies description.

The professor went into perplexed raptures, his mind being distracted by the exuberant wealth of subjects which were presented to it all at the same time.

"Look zere!" he cried, at one turning in the path which opened up a new vista of exquisite beauty—"look at zat!"

"Ay, it is a Siamang ape—next in size to the orang-utan," said Van der Kemp, who stood at his friend's elbow.

The animal in question was a fine full-grown specimen, with long jet-black glancing hair. Its height might probably have been a few inches over three feet, and the stretch of its arms over rather than under five feet, but at the great height at which it was seen—not less than eighty feet—it looked much like an ordinary monkey. It was hanging in the most easy nonchalant way by one hand from the branch of a tree, utterly indifferent to the fact that to drop was to die!

The instant the Siamang observed the travellers it set up a loud barking howl which made the woods resound, but it did not alter its position or seem to be alarmed in any degree.

"Vat a 'straordinary noise!" remarked the professor.

"It is indeed," returned the hermit, "and it has an extraordinary appliance for producing it. There is a large bag under its throat extending to its lips and cheeks which it can fill with air by means of a valve in the windpipe. By expelling this air in sudden bursts it makes the varied sounds you hear."

"Mos' vonderful! A sort of natural air-gun! I vill shoot it," said the professor, raising his deadly rifle, and there is no doubt that the poor Siamang would have dropped in another moment if Van der Kemp had not quietly and gravely touched his friend's elbow just as the explosion took place.

"Hah! you tooched me!" exclaimed the disappointed naturalist, looking fiercely round, while the amazed ape sent forth a bursting crack of its air-gun as it swung itself into the tree-top and made off.

"Yes, I touched you, and if you will shoot when I am so close to you, you cannot wonder at it—especially when you intend to take life uselessly. The time now at the disposal of my friend Nigel Roy will not permit of our delaying long enough to kill and preserve large specimens. To say truth, my friend, we must press on now, as fast as we can, for we have a very long way to go."

Verkimier was not quite pleased with this explanation, but there was a sort of indescribable power about the hermit, when he was resolved to have his way, that those whom he led found it impossible to resist.

On arriving at the village they were agreeably surprised to find a grand banquet, consisting chiefly of fruit, with fowl, rice, and Indian corn, spread out for them in the Balai or public hall, where also their sleeping quarters were appointed. An event had recently occurred, however, which somewhat damped the pleasure of their reception. A young man had been killed by a tiger. The brute had leaped upon him while he and a party of lads were traversing a narrow path through the jungle, and had killed him with one blow of its paw. The other youths courageously rushed at the beast with their spears and axes, and, driving it off, carried the body of their comrade away.

"We have just buried the young man," said the chief of the village, "and have set a trap for the tiger, for he will be sure to visit the grave."

"My friends would like to see this trap," said the hermit, who, of course, acted the part of interpreter wherever they went, being well acquainted with most of the languages and dialects of the archipelago.

"There will yet be daylight after you have finished eating," said the chief.

Although anxious to go at once to see this trap, they felt the propriety of doing justice to what had been provided for them, and sat down to their meal, for which, to say truth, they were quite ready.

Then they went with a large band of armed natives to see this curious tiger-trap, the bait of which was the grave of a human being!

The grave was close to the outskirts of the village, and, on one side, the jungle came up to within a few yards of it. The spot was surrounded by a strong and high bamboo fence, except at one point where a narrow but very conspicuous opening had been left. Here a sharp spear was so arranged beside the opening that it could be shot across it at a point corresponding with the height of a tiger's heart from the ground—as well, at least, as that point could be estimated by men who were pretty familiar with tigers. The motive power to propel this spear was derived from a green bamboo, so strong that it required several powerful men to bend it in the form of a bow. A species of trigger was arranged to let the bent bow fly, and a piece of fine cord passed from this across the opening about breast-high for a tiger. The intention was that the animal, in entering the enclosure, should become its own executioner— should commit unintentional suicide, if we may so put it.

"I have an ambition to shoot a tiger," said Nigel to Van der Kemp that evening. "Do you think the people would object to my getting up into a tree with my rifle and watching beside the grave, part of the night?"

"I am sure that they would not. But your watch will probably be in vain, for tigers are uncommonly sagacious creatures and seem to me to have exceptional powers for scenting danger."

"No matter, I will try."

Accordingly, a little before dark that evening our hero borrowed the professor's double-barrelled rifle, being more suitable for large game than his own gun, and sauntered with Moses down to the grave where he ensconced himself in the branches of a large tree about thirty feet from the ground. The form of the tree was such, that among its forks Nigel could form a sort of nest in which he could sit, in full view of the poor youth's grave, without the risk of falling to the ground even if he should chance to drop asleep.

"Good-night, massa Nadgel," said Moses as he turned to leave his companion to his solitary vigil. "See you not go to sleep."

"No fear of that!" said Nigel.

"An' whateber you do, don't miss."

"I'll do my best—Good-night."

While there was yet a little daylight, our hunter looked well about him; took note of the exact position of the fence, the entrance to the enclosure, and the grave; judged the various distances of objects, and arranged the sights of the rifle, which was already loaded with a brace of hardened balls. Then he looked up through the tree-tops and wished for darkness.

It came sooner than he expected. Night always descends more suddenly in tropical than in temperate regions. The sun had barely dipped below the horizon when night seemed to descend like a pall over the jungle, and an indescribable sensation of eerieness crept over Nigel's spirit. Objects became very indistinct, and he fancied that he saw something moving on the newly-made grave. With a startled feeling he grasped his weapon, supposing that the tiger must have entered the enclosure with cat-like stealth. On second thoughts, however, he discarded the idea, for the entrance was between him and the grave, and still seemed quite visible. Do what he would, however, the thought of ghosts insisted on intruding upon him! He did not believe in ghosts—oh no!—had always scouted the idea of their existence. Why, therefore, did he feel uncomfortable? He could not tell. It must simply be the excitement natural to such a very new and peculiar situation. He would think of something else. He would devote his mind to the contemplation of tigers! In a short time the moon would rise, he knew—then he would be able to see better.

While he was in this very uncomfortable state of mind, with the jungle wrapped in profound silence as well as gloom, there broke on the night air a wail so indescribable that the very marrow in Nigel's bones seemed to shrivel up. It ceased, but again broke forth louder than before, increasing in length and strength, until his ears seemed to tingle with the sound, and then it died away to a sigh of unutterable woe.

"I have always," muttered Nigel, "believed myself to be a man of ordinary courage, but now—I shall write myself a coward, if not an ass!"

He attempted to laugh at this pleasantry, but the laugh was hollow and seemed to freeze in his gullet as the wail broke forth again, ten times more hideous than at first. After a time the wail became more continuous, and the watcher began to get used to it. Then a happy thought flashed into his mind—this was, perhaps, some sort of mourning for the dead! He was right. The duty of the father of the poor youth who had been killed was, for several days after the funeral, to sit alone in his house and chant from sunset till daybreak a death-dirge, or, as it is called, the tjerita bari. It was not till next day that this was told to him, but meanwhile the surmise afforded him instantaneous relief.

As if nature sympathised with his feelings, the moon arose at the same time and dispelled the thick darkness, though it was not till much later that, sailing across a clear sky, she poured her bright beams through the tree-tops and finally rested on the dead man's grave.

By that time Nigel had quite recovered his equanimity, and mentally blotted out the writing of "coward" and "ass" which he had written against himself. But another trouble now assailed him. He became sleepy! Half-a-dozen times at least within half-an-hour he started wide awake under the impression that he was falling off the tree.

"This will never do," he exclaimed, rising to his feet, resting his rifle in a position of safety, and then stretching himself to his utmost extent so that he became thoroughly awake. After this "rouser," as he called it, he sat down again, and almost immediately fell fast asleep.

How long he sat in this condition it is impossible to say, but he opened his eyes at length with an indescribable sensation that something required attention, and the first thing they rested on, (for daylight was dawning), was an enormous tiger not forty yards away from him, gliding like a shadow and with cat-like stealth towards the opening of the enclosure. The sight was so sudden and so unexpected that, for the moment, he was paralysed. Perhaps he thought it was a dream. Before he could recover presence of mind to seize his rifle, the breast of the animal had touched the fatal line; the trigger was drawn; the stout bamboo straightened with a booming sound, and the spear—or, rather, the giant arrow—was shot straight through the tiger's side!

Then occurred a scene which might well have induced Nigel to imagine that he dreamt, for the transfixed creature bounded into the enclosure with a terrific roar that rang fearfully through the arches of the hitherto silent forest. Rushing across the grave, it sprang with one tremendous bound right over the high fence, carrying the spear along with it into the jungle beyond.

By that time Nigel was himself again, with rifle in hand, but too late to fire. The moment he heard the thud of the tiger's descent, he slid down the tree, and, forgetful or regardless of danger,—went crashing into the jungle, while the yells and shouts of hundreds of aroused natives suggested the peopling of the region with an army of fiends.

But our hero had not to go far. In his haste he almost tumbled over the tiger. It was lying stone dead on the spot where it had fallen!

A few minutes more and the natives came pouring round him, wild with excitement and joy. Soon he was joined by his own comrades.

"Well, you've managed to shoot him, I see," said Van der Kemp as he joined the group.

"Alas! no. I have not fired a shot," said Nigel, with a half disappointed look.

"You's got de better ob him anyhow," remarked Moses as he pushed to the front.

"The spear got the better of him, Moses."

"Vell now, zat is a splendid animal. Lat me see," said the professor, pulling out his tape-measure.

It was with difficulty that the man of science made and noted his measurements, for the people were pressing eagerly round the carcase to gratify their revenge by running their spears into the still warm body. They dipped the points in the blood and passed their krisses broadside over the creature that they might absorb the courage and boldness which were supposed to emanate from it! Then they skinned it, and pieces of the heart and brain were eaten raw by some of those whose relatives had been killed by tigers. Finally the skull was hacked to pieces for the purpose of distributing the teeth, which are used by the natives as charms.



CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

IN WHICH THE PROFESSOR DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF.

Leaving this village immediately after the slaying of the tiger, the party continued to journey almost by forced marches, for not only was Nigel Roy very anxious to keep tryst with his father, and to settle the question of Kathleen's identity by bringing father and daughter together, but Van der Kemp himself, strange to say, was filled with intense and unaccountable anxiety to get back to his island-home.

"I don't know how it is," he said to Nigel as they walked side by side through the forest, followed by Moses and the professor, who had become very friendly on the strength of a certain amount of vacant curiosity displayed by the former in regard to scientific matters—"I don't know how it is, but I feel an unusually strong desire to get back to my cave. I have often been absent from home for long periods at a time, but have never before experienced these strange longings. I say strange, because there is no such thing as an effect without a cause."

"May not the cause be presentiment?" suggested Nigel, who, knowing what a tremendous possibility for the hermit lay in the future, felt a little inclined to be superstitious. It did not occur to him just then that an equally, if not more, tremendous possibility lay in the future for himself—touching his recent discovery or suspicion!

"I do not believe in presentiments," returned the hermit. "They are probably the result of indigestion or a disordered intellect, from neither of which complaints do I suffer—at least not consciously!"

"But you have never before left home in such peculiar circumstances," said Nigel. "Have you not told me that this is the first time for about two hundred years that Krakatoa has broken out in active eruption?"

"True, but that cannot be to me the cause of longings or anxieties, for I have seen many a long-dormant crater become active without any important result either to me or to any one else."

"Stop, stop!" cried Professor Verkimier in a hoarse whisper at that moment; "look! look at zee monkeys!"

Monkeys are very abundant in Sumatra, but the nest of them which the travellers discovered at that time, and which had called forth the professor's admiration, was enough—as Moses said—to make a "renocerus laugh." The trees around absolutely swarmed with monkeys; those of a slender form and with very long tails being most numerous. They were engaged in some sort of game, swinging by arms, legs, and tails from branches, holding on to or chasing each other, and taking the most astonishing leaps in circumstances where a slip would have no doubt resulted in broken limbs or in death.

"Stand still! Oh! do stand still—like you vas petrivied," said the professor in a low voice of entreaty.

Being quite willing to humour him, the whole party stood immovable, like statues, and thus avoided attracting the attention of the monkeys, who continued their game. It seemed to be a sort of "follow my leader," for one big strong fellow led off with a bound from one branch to another which evidently tried the nerves of his more timid and less agile companions. They all succeeded, however, from the largest even to the smallest—which last was a very tiny creature with a pink face, a sad expression, and a corkscrew tail.

For a time they bounded actively among the branches, now high, now low, till suddenly the big leader took a tremendous leap, as if for the express purpose of baffling or testing his companions. It was immensely amusing to see the degrees of trepidation with which the others followed. The last two seemed quite unable to make up their minds to the leap, until the others seemed about to disappear, when one of them took heart and bounded wildly across. Thus little pink-face with the corkscrew tail was left alone! Twice did that little monkey make a desperate resolution to jump, and twice did its little heart fail as it measured the distance between the branches and glanced at the abyss below. Its companions seemed to entertain a feeling of pity for it. Numbers of them came back, as if to watch the jump and encourage the little one. A third time it made an abortive effort to spring, and looked round pitifully, whereupon Moses gave vent to an uncontrollable snort of suppressed laughter.

"Vat you mean by zat?" growled the professor angrily.

The growl and snort together revealed the intruders, and all the monkeys, except pink-face, crowding the trees above the spot where they stood, gazed down upon them with expressions in which unparalleled indignation and inconceivable surprise struggled for the mastery.

Then, with a wild shriek, the whole troop fled into the forest.

This was too much for poor, half-petrified pink-face with the twisted tail. Seeing that its comrades were gone in earnest, it became desperate, flung itself frantically into the air with an agonising squeak, missed its mark, went crashing through the slender branches and fell to the ground.

Fortunately these branches broke its fall so that it arose unhurt, bounded into a bush, still squeaking with alarm, and made after its friends.

"Why did you not shoot it, professor?" asked Nigel, laughing as much at Verkimier's grave expression as at the little monkey's behaviour.

"Vy did I not shot it?" echoed the professor. "I vould as soon shot a baby. Zee pluck of zat leetle creature is admirable. It vould be a horrible shame to take his life. No! I do love to see ploock vezer in man or beast! He could not shoomp zat. He knew he could not shoomp it, but he tried to shoomp it. He vould not be beat, an' I vould not kill him—zough I vant 'im very mooch for a specimen."

It seemed as if the professor was to be specially rewarded for his self-denial on this occasion, for while he was yet speaking, a soft "hush!" from Van der Kemp caused the whole party to halt in dead silence and look at the hermit inquiringly.

"You are in luck, professor," he murmured, in a soft, low voice—very different from that hissing whisper which so many people seem to imagine is an inaudible utterance. "I see a splendid Argus pheasant over there making himself agreeable to his wife!"

"Vare? oh! vare?" exclaimed the enthusiast with blazing eyes, for although he had already seen and procured specimens of this most beautiful creature, he had not yet seen it engage in the strange love-dance—if we may so call it—which is peculiar to the bird.

"You'll never get near enough to see it if you hiss like a serpent," said the hermit. "Get out your binoculars, follow me, and hold your tongue, all of you—that will be the safest plan. Tread lightly."

It was a sight to behold the professor crouching almost double in order to render himself less conspicuous, with his hat pushed back, and the blue glasses giving him the appearance of a great-eyed seal. He carried his butterfly-net in one hand, and the unfailing rifle in the other.

Fortunately the hermit's sharp and practised eye had enabled him to distinguish the birds in the distance before their advance had alarmed them, so that they were able to reach a mound topped with low bushes over which they could easily watch the birds.

"Zat is very koorious an' most interesting," murmured the professor after a short silence.

He was right. There were two Argus pheasants, a male and female—the male alone being decorated superbly. The Argus belongs to the same family as the peacock, but is not so gaudy in colouring, and therefore, perhaps, somewhat more pleasing. Its tail is formed chiefly by an enormous elongation of the two tail quills, and of the secondary wing feathers, no two of which are exactly the same, and the closer they are examined the greater is seen to be the extreme beauty of their markings, and the rich varied harmony of their colouring.

When a male Argus wishes to show off his magnificence to his spouse—or when she asks him to show it off we know not which—he makes a circle in the forest some ten or twelve feet in diameter, which he clears of every leaf, twig, and branch. On the margin of this circus there is invariably a projecting branch, or overarching root a few feet above the ground, on which the female takes her place to watch the exhibition. This consists of the male strutting about, pluming his feathers, and generally displaying his gorgeous beauty.

"Vat ineffable vanity!" exclaimed the professor, after gazing for some time in silence.

His own folly in thus speaking was instantly proved by the two birds bringing the exhibition to an abrupt close and hastily taking wing.

Not long after seeing this they came to a small but deep and rapid river, which for a time checked their progress, for there was no ford, and the porters who carried Verkimier's packages seemed to know nothing about a bridge, either natural or artificial. After wandering for an hour or so along its banks, however, they found a giant tree which had fallen across the stream, and formed a natural bridge.

On the other side of the stream the ground was more rugged and the forest so dense that they had to walk in a sort of twilight—only a glimpse of blue sky being visible here and there through the tree-tops. In some places, however, there occurred bright little openings which swarmed with species of metallic tiger-beetles and sand-bees, and where sulphur, swallow-tailed, and other butterflies sported their brief life away over the damp ground by the water's edge.

The native forest path which they followed was little better than a tunnel cut through a grove of low rattan-palms, the delicate but exceedingly tough tendrils of which hung down in all directions. These were fringed with sharp hooks which caught their clothing and tore it, or held on unrelentingly, so that the only way of escape was to step quietly back and unhook themselves. This of itself would have rendered their progress slow as well as painful, but other things tended to increase the delay. At one place they came to a tree about seven feet in diameter which lay across the path and had to be scrambled over, and this was done with great difficulty. At another, a gigantic mud-bath— the wallowing hole of a herd of elephants—obstructed the way, and a yell from one of the porters told that in attempting to cross it he had fallen in up to the waist. A comrade in trying to pull him out also fell in and sank up to the armpits. But they got over it—as resolute men always do—somehow!

"Zis is horrible!" exclaimed the professor, panting from his exertions, and making a wild plunge with his insect-net at some living creature. "Hah! zee brute! I have 'im."

The man of science was flat on his stomach as he spoke, with arm outstretched and the net pressed close to the ground, while a smile of triumph beamed through the mud and scratches on his face.

"What have you got?" asked Nigel, doing his best to restrain a laugh.

"A splendid Ornit'optera a day-flying moss," said Verkimier as he cautiously rose, "vich mimics zee Trepsichrois mulciber. Ant zis very morning I caught von Leptocircus virescens, vich derives protection from mimicking zee habits ant appearance of a dragon-fly."

"What rubbish dat purfesser do talk!" remarked Moses in an undertone to the hermit as they moved on again.

"Not such rubbish as it sounds to you, Moses. These are the scientific names of the creatures, and you know as well as he does that many creatures think they find it advantageous to pretend to be what they are not. Man himself is not quite free from this characteristic. Indeed, you have a little of it yourself," said the hermit with one of his twinkling glances. "When you are almost terrified out of your wits don't you pretend that there's nothing the matter with you?"

"Nebber, massa, nebber!" answered the negro with remonstrative gravity. "When I's nigh out ob my wits, so's my innards feels like nuffin' but warmish water, I gits whitey-grey in de chops, so I's told, an' blue in de lips, an' I pretends nuffin'—I don't care who sees it!"

The track for some distance beyond this point became worse and worse. Then the nature of the ground changed somewhat—became more hilly, and the path, if such it could be styled, more rugged in some places, more swampy in others, while, to add to their discomfort, rain began to fall, and night set in dark and dismal without any sign of the village of which they were in search. By that time the porters who carried Verkimier's boxes seemed so tired that the hermit thought it advisable to encamp, but the ground was so wet and the leeches were so numerous that they begged him to go on, assuring him that the village could not be far distant. In another half-hour the darkness became intense, so that a man could scarcely see his fellow, even when within two paces of him. Ominous mutterings and rumblings like distant thunder also were heard, which appeared to indicate an approaching storm. In these circumstances encamping became unavoidable, and the order was given to make a huge fire to scare away the tigers, which were known to be numerous, and the elephants whose fresh tracks had been crossed and followed during the greater part of the day. The track of a rhinoceros and a tapir had also been seen, but no danger was to be anticipated from those creatures.

"Shall we have a stormy night, think you?" asked Nigel, as he assisted in striking a light.

"It may be so," replied the hermit, flinging down one after another of his wet matches, which failed to kindle. "What we hear may be distant thunder, but I doubt it. The sounds seem to me more like the mutterings of a volcano. Some new crater may have burst forth in the Sumatran ranges. This thick darkness inclines me to think so—especially after the new activity of volcanic action we have seen so recently at Krakatoa. Let me try your matches, Nigel, perhaps they have escaped— mine are useless."

But Nigel's matches were as wet as those of the hermit. So were those of the professor. Luckily Moses carried the old-fashioned flint and steel, with which, and a small piece of tinder, spark was at last kindled, but as they were about to apply it to a handful of dry bamboo scrapings, an extra spurt of rain extinguished it. For an hour and more they made ineffectual attempts to strike a light. Even the cessation of the rain was of no avail.

"Vat must ve do now?" asked the professor in tones that suggested a woe-begone countenance, though there was no light by which to distinguish.

"Grin and bear it," said Nigel, in a voice suggestive of a slight expansion of the mouth—though no one could see it.

"Dere's nuffin' else left to do," said Moses, in a tone which betrayed such a very wide expansion that Nigel laughed outright.

"Hah! you may laugh, my yoong frond, bot if zee tigers find us out or zee elephants trample on us, your laughter vill be turned to veeping. Vat is zat? Is not zat vonderful?"

The question and exclamation were prompted by the sudden appearance of faint mysterious lights among the bushes. That the professor viewed them as unfriendly lights was clear from the click of his rifle-locks which followed.

"It is only phosphoric light," explained Van der Kemp. "I have often seen it thus in electric states of the atmosphere. It will probably increase—meanwhile we must seat ourselves on our boxes and do the best we can till daylight. Are you there, boys?"

This question, addressed to the bearers in their native tongue, was not answered, and it was found, on a feeling examination, that, in spite of leeches, tigers, elephants, and the whole animal creation, the exhausted porters had flung themselves on the wet ground and gone to sleep while their leaders were discussing the situation.

Dismal though the condition of the party was, the appearances in the forest soon changed the professor's woe into eager delight, for the phosphorescence became more and more pronounced, until every tree-stem blinked with a palish green light, and it trickled like moonlight over the ground, bringing out thick dumpy mushrooms like domes of light. Glowing caterpillars and centipedes crawled about, leaving a trail of light behind them, and fireflies, darting to and fro, peopled the air and gave additional animation to the scene.

In the midst of the darkness, thus made singularly visible, the white travellers sat dozing and nodding on their luggage, while the cries of metallic-toned horned frogs and other nocturnal sounds peculiar to that weird forest formed their appropriate lullaby.

But Moses neither dozed nor nodded. With a pertinacity peculiarly his own he continued to play a running accompaniment to the lullaby with his flint and steel, until his perseverance was rewarded with a spark which caught on a dry portion of the tinder and continued to burn. By that time the phosphoric lights had faded, and his spark was the only one which gleamed through intense darkness.

How he cherished that spark! He wrapped it in swaddling clothes of dry bamboo scrapings with as much care as if it had been the essence of his life. He blew upon it tenderly as though to fan its delicate brow with the soft zephyrs of a father's affection. Again he blew more vigorously, and his enormous pouting lips came dimly into view. Another blow and his flat nose and fat cheeks emerged from darkness. Still another—with growing confidence—and his huge eyes were revealed glowing with hope. At last the handful of combustible burst into a flame, and was thrust into a prepared nest of twigs. This, communicating with a heap of logs, kindled a sudden blaze which scattered darkness out of being, and converted thirty yards of the primeval forest into a chamber of glorious light, round which the human beings crowded with joy enhanced by the unexpectedness of the event, and before which the wild things of the wilderness fled away.

When daylight came at last, they found that the village for which they had been searching was only two miles beyond the spot where they had encamped.

Here, being thoroughly exhausted, it was resolved that they should spend that day and night, and, we need scarcely add, they spent a considerable portion of both in sleep—at least such parts of both as were not devoted to food. And here the professor distinguished himself in a way that raised him greatly in the estimation of his companions and caused the natives of the place to regard him as something of a demi-god. Of course we do not vouch for the truth of the details of the incident, for no one save himself was there to see, and although we entertained the utmost regard for himself, we were not sufficiently acquainted with his moral character to answer for his strict truthfulness. As to the main event, there was no denying that. The thing happened thus:—

Towards the afternoon of that same day the travellers began to wake up, stretch themselves, and think about supper. In the course of conversation it transpired that a tiger had been prowling about the village for some days, and had hitherto successfully eluded all attempts to trap or spear it. They had tethered a goat several times near a small pond and watched the spot from safe positions among the trees, with spears, bows and arrows, and blow-pipes ready, but when they watched, the tiger did not come, and when they failed to watch, the tiger did come and carried off the goat. Thus they had been baffled.

"Mine frond," said the professor to the hermit on hearing this. "I vill shot zat tiger! I am resolved. Vill you ask zee chief to show me zee place ant zen tell his people, on pain of def, not to go near it all night, for if zey do I vill certainly shot zem—by accident of course!"

The hermit did as he was bid, but advised his sanguine friend against exposing himself recklessly. The chief willingly fell in with his wishes.

"Won't you tell us what you intend to do, professor?" asked Nigel, "and let us help you."

"No, I vill do it all by mineself—or die! I vill vant a shofel or a spade of some sort."

The chief provided the required implement, conducted his visitor a little before sunset to the spot, just outside the village, and left him there armed with his rifle, a revolver, and a long knife or kriss, besides the spade.

When alone, the bold man put off his glasses, made a careful inspection of the ground, came to a conclusion—founded on scientific data no doubt—as to the probable spot whence the tiger would issue from the jungle when about to seize the goat, and, just opposite that spot, on the face of a slope about ten yards from the goat, he dug a hole deep enough to contain his own person. The soil was sandy easy to dig, and quite dry. It was growing dusk when the professor crept into this rifle-pit, drew his weapons and the spade in after him, and closed the mouth of the pit with moist earth, leaving only a very small eye-hole through which he could see the goat standing innocently by the brink of the pool.

"Now," said he, as he lay resting on his elbows with the rifle laid ready to hand and the revolver beside it; "now, I know not vezer you can smell or not, but I have buried mineself in eart', vich is a non-conductor of smell. Ve shall see!"

It soon became very dark, for there was no moon, yet not so dark but that the form of the goat could be seen distinctly reflected in the pond. Naturally the professor's mind reverted to the occasion when Nigel had watched in the branches of a tree for another tiger. The conditions were different, and so, he thought, was the man!

"Mine yoong frond," he said mentally, "is brav', oondoubtedly, but his nerves have not been braced by experience like mine. It is vell, for zere is more dancher here zan in a tree. It matters not. I am resolf to shot zat tigre—or die!"

In this resolute and heroic frame of mind he commenced his vigil.

It is curious to note how frequently the calculations of men fail them— even those of scientific men! The tiger came indeed to the spot, but he came in precisely the opposite direction from that which the watcher expected, so that while Verkimier was staring over the goat's head at an opening in the jungle beyond the pond, the tiger was advancing stealthily and slowly through the bushes exactly behind the hole in which he lay.

Suddenly the professor became aware of something! He saw nothing consciously, he heard nothing, but there stole over him, somehow, the feeling of a dread presence!

Was he asleep? Was it nightmare? No, it was night-tiger! He knew it, somehow; he felt it—but he could not see it.

To face death is easy enough—according to some people—but to face nothing at all is at all times trying. Verkimier felt it to be so at that moment. But he was a true hero and conquered himself.

"Come now," he said mentally, "don't be an ass! Don't lose your shance by voomanly fears. Keep kviet."

Another moment and there was a very slight sound right over his head. He glanced upwards—as far as the little hole would permit—and there, not a foot from him, was a tawny yellow throat! with a tremendous paw moving slowly forward—so slowly that it might have suggested the imperceptible movement of the hour-hand of a watch, or of a glacier. There was indeed motion, but it was not perceptible.

The professor's perceptions were quick. He did not require to think. He knew that to use the rifle at such close quarters was absolutely impossible. He knew that the slightest motion would betray him. He could see that as yet he was undiscovered, for the animal's nose was straight for the goat, and he concluded that either his having buried himself was a safeguard against being smelt, or that the tiger had a cold in its head. He thought for one moment of bursting up with a yell that would scare the monster out of his seven senses—if he had seven— but dismissed the thought as cowardly, for it would be sacrificing success to safety. He knew not what to do, and the cold perspiration consequent upon indecision at a supreme moment broke out all over him. Suddenly he thought of the revolver!

Like lightning he seized it, pointed it straight up and fired. The bullet—a large army revolver one—entered the throat of the animal, pierced the root of the tongue, crashed through the palate obliquely, and entered the brain. The tiger threw one indescribable somersault and fell—fell so promptly that it blocked the mouth of the pit, all the covering earth of which had been blown away by the shot, and Verkimier could feel the hairy side of the creature, and hear the beating of its heart as it gasped its life away. But in his cramped position he could not push it aside. Well aware of the tenacity of life in tigers, he thought that if the creature revived it would certainly grasp him even in its dying agonies, for the weight of its body and its struggles were already crushing in the upper part of the hole.

To put an end to its sufferings and his own danger, he pointed the revolver at its side and again fired. The crash in the confined hole was tremendous—so awful that the professor thought the weapon must have burst. The struggles of the tiger became more violent than ever, and its weight more oppressive as the earth crumbled away. Again the cold perspiration broke out all over the man, and he became unconscious.

It must not be supposed that the professor's friends were unwatchful. Although they had promised not to disturb him in his operations, they had held themselves in readiness with rifle, revolver, and spear, and the instant the first shot was heard, they ran down to the scene of action. Before reaching it the second shot quickened their pace as they ran down to the pond—a number of natives yelling and waving torches at their heels.

"Here he is," cried Moses, who was first on the scene, "dead as mutton!"

"What! the professor?" cried Nigel in alarm.

"No; de tiger."

"Where's Verkimier?" asked the hermit as he came up.

"I dun know, massa," said Moses, looking round him vacantly.

"Search well, men, and be quick, he may have been injured," cried Van der Kemp, seizing a torch and setting the example.

"Let me out!" came at that moment from what appeared to be the bowels of the earth, causing every one to stand aghast gazing in wonder around and on each other.

"Zounds! vy don't you let me out?" shouted the voice again.

There was an indication of a tendency to flight on the part of the natives, but Nigel's asking "Where are you?" had the effect of inducing them to delay for the answer.

"Here—oonder zee tigre! Kweek, I am suffocat!"

Instantly Van der Kemp seized the animal by the tail, and, with a force worthy of Hercules, heaved it aside as if it had been a dead cat, revealing the man of science underneath—alive and well, but dishevelled, scratched, and soiled—also, as deaf as a door-post.



CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

A PYTHON DISCOVERED AND A GEYSER INTERVIEWED.

"It never rains but it pours" is a well-known proverb which finds frequent illustration in the experience of almost every one. At all events Verkimier had reason to believe in the truth of it at that time, for adventures came down on him, as it were, in a sort of deluge, more or less astounding, insomuch that his enthusiastic spirit, bathing, if we may say so, in an ocean of scientific delight, pronounced Sumatra to be the very paradise of the student of nature.

We have not room in this volume to follow him in the details of his wonderful experiences, but we must mention one adventure which he had on the very day after the tiger-incident, because it very nearly had the effect of separating him from his travelling companions.

Being deaf, as we have said—owing to the explosion of his revolver in the hole—but not necessarily dumb, the professor, after one or two futile attempts to hear and converse, deemed it wise to go to bed and spend the few conscious minutes that might precede sleep in watching Van der Kemp, who kindly undertook to skin his tiger for him. Soon the self-satisfied man fell into a sweet infantine slumber, and dreamed of tigers, in which state he gave vent to sundry grunts, gasps, and half-suppressed cries, to the immense delight of Moses, who sat watching him, indulging in a running commentary suggestive of the recent event, and giving utterance now and then to a few imitative growls by way of enhancing the effect of the dreams!

"Look! look! Massa Nadgel, he's twitchin' all ober. De tiger's comin' to him now."

"Looks like it, Moses."

"Yes—an', see, he grip de 'volver—no, too soon, or de tiger's hoed away, for he's stopped twitchin'!—dare; de tiger comes agin!"

A gasp and clenching of the right hand seemed to warrant this assumption. Then a yell rang through the hut; Moses displayed all, and more than all his teeth, and the professor, springing up on one elbow, glared fearfully.

"I'n't it awrful?" inquired Moses in a low tone. The professor awoke mentally, recognised the situation, smiled an imbecile smile, and sank back again on his pillow with a sigh of relief.

After that, when the skinning of the tiger was completed, the dreams appeared to leave him, and all his comrades joined him in the land of Nod. He was first to awake when daylight entered their hut the following morning, and, feeling in a fresh, quiescent state of mind after the excitement of the preceding night, he lay on his back, his eyes fixed contentedly on the grand tiger-skin which hung on the opposite wall.

By degrees his eyes grew wearied of that object, and he allowed them to travel languidly upwards and along the roof until they rested on the spot directly over his head, where they became fixed, and, at the same time, opened out to a glare, compared to which all his previous glaring was as nothing—for there, in the thatch, looking down upon him, was the angular head of a huge python. The snake was rolled up in a tight coil, and had evidently spent the night within a yard of the professor's head! Being unable to make out what sort of snake it was, and fearing that it might be a poisonous one, he crept quietly from his couch, keeping his eyes fixed on the reptile as he did so. One result of this mode of action was that he did not see where he was going, and inadvertently thrust one finger into Moses' right eye, and another into his open mouth. The negro naturally shut his mouth with a snap, while the professor opened his with a roar, and in another moment every man was on his feet blinking inquiringly.

"Look! zee snake!" cried the professor, when Moses released him.

"We must get him out of that," remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over its head.

"Clear out, friends," he said, looking round.

All obeyed with uncommon promptitude except the professor, who valiantly stood his ground. Van der Kemp pulled the python violently down to the floor, where it commenced a tremendous scuffle among the chairs and posts. The hermit kept its head off with the pole, and sought to catch its tail, but failed twice. Seeing this the professor caught the tail as it whipped against his legs, and springing down the steps so violently that he snapped the cord by which the hermit held it, and drew the creature straight out—a thick monster full twelve feet long, and capable of swallowing a dog or a child.

"Out of zee way!" shouted the professor, making a wild effort to swing the python against a tree, but the tail slipped from his grasp, the professor fell, and the snake went crashing against a log, under which it took refuge.

Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree. Before it could recover from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with one blow. The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale.

"Zat is strainch—very strainch," slowly remarked the professor, as, still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts.

"Not so very strange, after all," said Van der Kemp; "I've seen the head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow."

"Mine frond, you mistake me. It is zee vorking of physical law in zee spiritual vorld zat perplexes me. Moses has cut zee brute in two— physical fact, substance can be divided. Zee two parts are still alife, zerfore, zee life—zee spirit—has also been divided!"

"It is indeed very strange," said Nigel, with a laugh. "Stranger still that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground, professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not hurt, I hope—are you?"

"I razer zink I am," returned the philosopher with a faint smile; "mine onkle, I zink, is spraint."

This was indeed true, and it seemed as if the poor man's wanderings were to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close. Fortunately it was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the professor should ride until his ankle recovered.

We must now pass over a considerable portion of time and space, and convey the reader, by a forced march, to the crater of an active volcano. By that time Verkimier's ankle had recovered and the pony had been dismissed. The heavy luggage, with the porters, had been left in the low grounds, for the mountain they had scaled was over 10,000 feet above the sea-level. Only one native from the plain below accompanied them as guide, and three of their porters whose inquiring minds tempted them to make the ascent.

At about 10,000 feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below them. It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with clumps of heath and rhododendrons. In the centre of this was a cone which formed the true—or modern—crater. On scrambling up to the lip of the cone and looking down some 300 feet of precipitous rock they beheld what seemed to be a pure white lake set in a central basin of 200 feet in diameter. The surface of this lakelet smoked, and although it reflected every passing cloud as if it were a mirror, it was in reality a basin of hot mud, the surface of which was about thirty feet below its rim.

"You will soon see a change come over it," said the hermit, as the party gazed in silent admiration at the weird scene.

He had scarcely spoken, when the middle of the lake became intensely black and scored with dark streaks. This, though not quite obvious at first from the point where they stood, was caused by the slow formation of a great chasm in the centre of the seething lake of mud. The lake was sinking into its own throat. The blackness increased. Then a dull sullen roar was heard, and next moment the entire lake upheaved, not violently, but in a slow, majestic manner some hundreds of feet into the air, whence it fell back into its basin with an awful roar which reverberated and echoed from the rocky walls of the caldron like the singing of an angry sea. An immense volume of steam—the motive power which had blown up the lake—was at the same time liberated and dissipated in the air.

The wave-circles died away on the margin of the lake, and the placid, cloud-reflecting surface was restored until the geyser had gathered fresh force for another upheaval.

"Amazing!" exclaimed Nigel, who had gazed with feelings of awe at this curious exhibition of the tremendous internal forces with which the Creator has endowed the earth.

"Vonderful!" exclaimed the professor, whose astonishment was such, that his eyebrows rose high above the rim of his huge blue binoculars.

Moses, to whom such an exhibition of the powers of nature was familiar, was, we are sorry to say, not much impressed, if impressed at all! Indeed he scarcely noticed it, but watched, with intense teeth-and-gum disclosing satisfaction, the faces of two of the native porters who had never seen anything of the kind before, and whose terrified expressions suggested the probability of a precipitate flight when their trembling limbs became fit to resume duty.

"Will it come again soon?" asked Nigel, turning to Van der Kemp.

"Every fifteen or twenty minutes it goes through that process all day and every day," replied the hermit.

"But, if I may joodge from zee stones ant scoriae around," said the professor, "zee volcano is not always so peaceful as it is joost now."

"You are right. About once in every three years, and sometimes oftener, the crops of coffee, bananas, rice, etcetera, in this region are quite destroyed by sulphur-rain, which covers everything for miles around the crater."

"Hah! it vould be too hote a place zis for us, if zat vas to happin joost now," remarked Verkimier with a smile.

"It cannot be far off the time now, I should think," said Van der Kemp.

All this talk Moses translated, and embellished, to the native porters with the solemn sincerity of a true and thorough-paced hypocrite. He had scarcely finished, and was watching with immense delight the changeful aspect of their whitey-green faces, when another volcanic fit came on, and the deep-toned roar of the coming explosion was heard. It was so awesome that the countenance even of Van der Kemp became graver than usual. As for the two native porters, they gazed and trembled. Nigel and the professor also gazed with lively expectation. Moses—we grieve to record it—hugged himself internally, and gloated over the two porters.