After a delicious pause Iris began again——

"Robert—I must call you Robert now—there, there, please let me get a word in even edgeways—well then, Robert dear, I do not care much what happens now. I suppose it was very wicked and foolish of me to speak as I did before—before you called me Iris. Now tell me at once. Why did you call me Iris?"

"You must propound that riddle to your godfather."

"No wriggling, please. Why did you do it?"

"Because I could not help myself. It slid out unawares."

"How long have you thought of me only as Iris, your Iris?"

"Ever since I first understood that somewhere in the wide world was a dear woman to love me and be loved."

"But at one time you thought her name was Elizabeth?"

"A delusion, a mirage! That is why those who christened you had the wisdom of the gods."

Another interlude. They grew calmer, more sedate. It was so undeniably true they loved one another that the fact was becoming venerable with age. Iris was perhaps the first to recognize its quiet certainty.

"As I cannot get you to talk reasonably," she protested, "I must appeal to your sympathy. I am hungry, and oh, so thirsty."

The girl had hardly eaten a morsel for her midday meal. Then she was despondent, utterly broken-hearted. Now she was filled with new hope. There was a fresh motive in existence. Whether destined to live an hour or half a century, she would never, never leave him, nor, of course, could he ever, ever leave her. Some things were quite impossible—for example, that they should part.

Jenks brought her a biscuit, a tin of meat, and that most doleful cup of champagne.

"It is not exactly frappe," he said, handing her the insipid beverage, "but, under other conditions, it is a wine almost worthy to toast you in."

She fancied she had never before noticed what a charming smile he had.

"'Toast' is a peculiarly suitable word," she cried. "I am simply frizzling. In these warm clothes——"

She stopped. For the first time since that prehistoric period when she was "Miss Deane" and he "Mr. Jenks" she remembered the manner of her garments.

"It is not the warm clothing you feel so much as the want of air," explained the sailor readily. "This tarpaulin has made the place very stuffy, but we must put up with it until sundown. By the way, what is that?"

A light tap on the tarred canvas directly over his head had caught his ear. Iris, glad of the diversion, told him she had heard the noise three or four times, but fancied it was caused by the occasional rustling of the sheet on the uprights.

Jenks had not allowed his attention to wander altogether from external events. Since the Dyaks' last escapade there was no sign of them in the valley or on either beach. Not for trivial cause would they come again within range of the Lee-Metfords.

They waited and listened silently. Another tap sounded on the tarpaulin in a different place, and they both concurred in the belief that something had darted in curved flight over the ledge and fallen on top of their protecting shield.

"Let us see what the game is," exclaimed the sailor. He crept to the back of the ledge and drew himself up until he could reach over the sheet. He returned, carrying in his hand a couple of tiny arrows.

"There are no less than seven of these things sticking in the canvas," he said. "They don't look very terrible. I suppose that is what my Indian friend meant by warning me against the trees on the right."

He did not tell Iris all the Mahommedan said. There was no need to alarm her causelessly. Even whilst they examined the curious little missile another flew up from the valley and lodged on the roof of their shelter.

The shaft of the arrow, made of some extremely hard wood, was about ten inches in length. Affixed to it was a pointed fish-bone, sharp, but not barbed, and not fastened in a manner suggestive of much strength. The arrow was neither feathered nor grooved for a bowstring. Altogether it seemed to be a childish weapon to be used by men equipped with lead and steel.

Jenks could not understand the appearance of this toy. Evidently the Dyaks believed in its efficacy, or they would not keep on pertinaciously dropping an arrow on the ledge.

"How do they fire it?" asked Iris. "Do they throw it?"

"I will soon tell you," he replied, reaching for a rifle.

"Do not go out yet," she entreated him. "They cannot harm us. Perhaps we may learn more by keeping quiet. They will not continue shooting these things all day."

Again a tiny arrow traveled towards them in a graceful parabola. This one fell short. Missing the tarpaulin, it almost dropped on the girl's outstretched hand. She picked it up. The fish-bone point had snapped by contact with the floor of the ledge.

She sought for and found the small tip.

"See," she said. "It seems to have been dipped in something. It is quite discolored."

Jenks frowned peculiarly. A startling explanation had suggested itself to him. Fragments of forgotten lore were taking cohesion in his mind.

"Put it down. Quick!" he cried.

Iris obeyed him, with wonder in her eyes. He spilled a teasponful of champagne into a small hollow of the rock and steeped one of the fish-bones in the liquid. Within a few seconds the champagne assumed a greenish tinge and the bone became white. Then he knew.

"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, "these are poisoned arrows shot through a blowpipe. I have never before seen one, but I have often read about them. The bamboos the Dyaks carried were sumpitans. These fish-bones have been steeped in the juice of the upas tree. Iris, my dear girl, if one of them had so much as scratched your finger nothing on earth could save you."

She paled and drew back in sudden horror. This tiny thing had taken the semblance of a snake. A vicious cobra cast at her feet would be less alarming, for the reptile could be killed, whilst his venomous fangs would only be used in self-defence.

Another tap sounded on their thrice-welcome covering. Evidently the Dyaks would persist in their efforts to get one of those poisoned darts home.

Jenks debated silently whether it would be better to create a commotion, thus inducing the savages to believe they had succeeded in inflicting a mortal wound, or to wait until the next arrow fell, rush out, and try conclusions with Dum-dum bullets against the sumpitan blowers.

He decided in favor of the latter course. He wished to dishearten his assailants, to cram down their throats the belief that he was invulnerable, and could visit their every effort with a deadly reprisal.

Iris, of course, protested when he explained his project. But the fighting spirit prevailed. Their love idyll must yield to the needs of the hour.

He had not long to wait. The last arrow fell, and he sprang to the extreme right of the ledge. First he looked through that invaluable screen of grass. Three Dyaks were on the ground, and a fourth in the fork of a tree. They were each armed with a blowpipe. He in the tree was just fitting an arrow into the bamboo tube. The others were watching him.

Jenks raised his rifle, fired, and the warrior in the tree pitched headlong to the ground. A second shot stretched a companion on top of him. One man jumped into the bushes and got away, but the fourth tripped over his unwieldy sumpitan and a bullet tore a large section from his skull. The sailor then amused himself with breaking the bamboos by firing at them. He came back to the white-faced girl.

"I fancy that further practice with blowpipes will be at a discount on Rainbow Island," he cried cheerfully.

But Iris was anxious and distrait.

"It is very sad," she said, "that we are obliged to secure our own safety by the ceaseless slaughter of human beings. Is there no offer we can make them, no promise of future gain, to tempt them to abandon hostilities?"

"None whatever. These Borneo Dyaks are bred from infancy to prey on their fellow-creatures. To be strangers and defenceless is to court pillage and massacre at their hands. I think no more of shooting them than of smashing a clay pigeon. Killing a mad dog is perhaps a better simile."

"But, Robert dear, how long can we hold out?"

"What! Are you growing tired of me already?"

He hoped to divert her thoughts from this constantly recurring topic. Twice within the hour had it been broached and dismissed, but Iris would not permit him to shirk it again. She made no reply, simply regarding him with a wistful smile.

So Jenks sat down by her side, and rehearsed the hopes and fears which perplexed him. He determined that there should be no further concealment between them. If they failed to secure water that night, if the Dyaks maintained a strict siege of the rock throughout the whole of next day, well—they might survive—it was problematical. Best leave matters in God's hands.

With feminine persistency she clung to the subject, detecting his unwillingness to discuss a possible final stage in their sufferings.

"Robert!" she whispered fearfully, "you will never let me fall into the power of the chief, will you?"

"Not whilst I live."

"You must live. Don't you understand? I would go with them to save you. But I would have died—by my own hand. Robert, my love, you must do this thing before the end. I must be the first to die."

He hung his head in a paroxysm of silent despair. Her words rung like a tocsin of the bright romance conjured up by the avowal of their love. It seemed to him, in that instant, they had no separate existence as distinguished from the great stream of human life—the turbulent river that flowed unceasingly from an eternity of the past to an eternity of the future. For a day, a year, a decade, two frail bubbles danced on the surface and raced joyously together in the sunshine; then they were broken—did it matter how, by savage sword or lingering ailment? They vanished—absorbed again by the rushing waters—and other bubbles rose in precarious iridescence. It was a fatalist view of life, a dim and obscurantist groping after truth induced by the overpowering nature of present difficulties. The famous Tentmaker of Naishapur blindly sought the unending purpose when he wrote:—

"Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate I rose, and on the throne of Saturn sate, And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate.

"There was the Door to which I found no Key; There was the Veil through which I could not see: Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was—and then no more of Thee and Me."

The sailor, too, wrestled with the great problem. He may be pardoned if his heart quailed and he groaned aloud.

"Iris," he said solemnly, "whatever happens, unless I am struck dead at your feet, I promise you that we shall pass the boundary hand in hand. Be mine the punishment if we have decided wrongly. And now," he cried, tossing his head in a defiant access of energy, "let us have done with the morgue. For my part I refuse to acknowledge I am inside until the gates clang behind me. As for you, you cannot help yourself. You must do as I tell you. I never knew of a case where the question of Woman's Rights was so promptly settled."

His vitality was infectious. Iris smiled again. Her sensitive highly strung nerves permitted these sharp alternations between despondency and hope.

"You must remember," he went on, "that the Dyak score is twenty-one to the bad, whilst our loss stands at love. Dear me, that cannot be right. Love is surely not a loss."

"A cynic might describe it as a negative gain."

"Oh, a cynic is no authority. He knows nothing whatever about the subject."

"My father used to say, when he was in Parliament, that people who knew least oft-times spoke best. Some men get overweighted with facts."

They chatted in lighter vein with such pendulum swing back to nonchalance that none would have deemed it possible for these two to have already determined the momentous issue of the pending struggle should it go against them. There is, glory be, in the Anglo-Saxon race the splendid faculty of meeting death with calm defiance, almost with contempt. Moments of panic, agonizing memories of bygone days, visions of dear faces never to be seen again, may temporarily dethrone this proud fortitude. But the tremors pass, the gibbering specters of fear and lamentation are thrust aside, and the sons and daughters of Great Britain answer the last roll-call with undaunted heroism. They know how to die.

And so the sun sank to rest in the sea, and the star, pierced the deepening blue of the celestial arch, whilst the man and the woman awaited patiently the verdict of the fates.

Before the light failed, Jenks gathered all the poisoned arrows and ground their vemoned points to powder beneath his heel. Gladly would Iris and he have dispensed with the friendly protection of the tarpaulin when the cool evening breeze came from the south. But such a thing might not be even considered. Several hours of darkness must elapse before the moon rose, and during that period, were their foes so minded, they would be absolutely at the mercy of the sumpitan shafts if not covered by their impenetrable buckler.

The sailor looked long and earnestly at the well. Their own bucket, improvised out of a dish-cover and a rope, lay close to the brink. A stealthy crawl across the sandy valley, half a minute of grave danger, and he would be up the ladder again with enough water to serve their imperative needs for days to come.

There was little or no risk in descending the rock. Soon after sunset it was wrapped in deepest gloom, for night succeeds day in the tropics with wondrous speed. The hazard lay in twice crossing the white sand, were any of the Dyaks hiding behind the house or among the trees.

He held no foolhardy view of his own powers. The one-sided nature of the conflict thus far was due solely to his possession of Lee-Metfords as opposed to muzzle-loaders. Let him be surrounded on the level at close quarters by a dozen determined men and he must surely succumb.

Were it not for the presence of Iris he would have given no second thought to the peril. It was just one of those undertakings which a soldier jumps at. "Here goes for the V.C. or Kingdom Come!" is the pithy philosophy of Thomas Atkins under such circumstances.

Now, there was no V.C., but there was Iris.

To act without consulting her was impossible, so they discussed the project. Naturally she scouted it.

"The Mahommedan may be able to help us," she pointed out. "In any event let us wait until the moon wanes. That is the darkest hour. We do not know what may happen meanwhile."

The words had hardly left her mouth when an irregular volley was fired at them from the right flank of the enemy's position. Every bullet struck yards above their heads, the common failing of musketry at night being to take too high an aim. But the impact of the missiles on a rock so highly impregnated with minerals caused sparks to fly, and Jenks saw that the Dyaks would obtain by this means a most dangerous index of their faulty practice. Telling Iris to at once occupy her safe corner, he rapidly adjusted a rifle on the wooden rests already prepared in anticipation of an attack from that quarter, and fired three shots at the opposing crest, whence came the majority of gun-flashes.

One, at least, of the three found a human billet. There was a shout of surprise and pain, and the next volley spurted from the ground level. This could do no damage owing to the angle, but he endeavored to disconcert the marksmen by keeping up a steady fire in their direction. He did not dream of attaining other than a moral effect, as there is a lot of room to miss when aiming in the dark. Soon he imagined that the burst of flame from his rifle helped the Dyaks, because several bullets whizzed close to his head, and about this time firing recommenced from the crest.

Notwithstanding all his skill and manipulation of the wooden supports, he failed to dislodge the occupants. Every minute one or more ounces of lead pitched right into the ledge, damaging the stores and tearing the tarpaulin, whilst those which struck the wall of rock were dangerous to Iris by reason of the molten spray.

He could guess what had happened. By lying flat on the sloping plateau, or squeezing close to the projecting shoulder of the cliff, the Dyaks were so little exposed that idle chance alone would enable him to hit one of them. But they must be shifted, or this night bombardment would prove the most serious development yet encountered.

"Are you all right, Iris?" he called out.

"Yes, dear," she answered.

"Well, I want you to keep yourself covered by the canvas for a little while—especially your head and shoulders. I am going to stop these chaps. They have found our weak point, but I can baffle them."

She did not ask what he proposed to do. He heard the rustling of the tarpaulin as she pulled it. Instantly he cast loose the rope-ladder, and, armed only with a revolver, dropped down the rock. He was quite invisible to the enemy. On reaching the ground he listened for a moment. There was no sound save the occasional reports ninety yards away. He hitched up the lower rungs of the ladder until they were six feet from the level, and then crept noiselessly, close to the rock, for some forty yards.

He halted beside a small poon-tree, and stooped to find something embedded near its roots. At this distance he could plainly hear the muttered conversation of the Dyaks, and could see several of them prone on the sand. The latter fact proved how fatal would be an attempt on his part to reach the well. They must discover him instantly once he quitted the somber shadows of the cliff. He waited, perhaps a few seconds longer than was necessary, endeavoring to pierce the dim atmosphere and learn something of their disposition.

A vigorous outburst of firing sent him back with haste. Iris was up there alone. He knew not what might happen. He was now feverishly anxious to be with her again, to hear her voice, and be sure that all was well.

To his horror he found the ladder swaying gently against the rock. Some one was using it. He sprang forward, careless of consequence, and seized the swinging end which had fallen free again. He had his foot on the bottom rung when Iris's voice, close at hand and shrill with terror, shrieked—

"Robert, where are you?"

"Here!" he shouted; the next instant she dropped into his arms.

A startled exclamation from the vicinity of the house, and some loud cries from the more distant Dyaks on the other side of Prospect Park, showed that they had been overheard.

"Up!" he whispered. "Hold tight, and go as quickly as you can."

"Not without you!"

"Up, for God's sake! I follow at your heels."

She began to climb. He took some article from between his teeth, a string apparently, and drew it towards him, mounting the ladder at the same time. The end tightened. He was then about ten feet from the ground. Two Dyaks, yelling fiercely, rushed from the cover of the house.

"Go on," he said to Iris. "Don't lose your nerve whatever happens. I am close behind you."

"I am quite safe," she gasped.

Turning, and clinging on with one hand, he drew his revolver and fired at the pair beneath, who could now faintly discern them, and were almost within reach of the ladder. The shooting made them halt. He did not know or care if they were hit. To frighten them was sufficient. Several others were running across the sands to the cave, attracted by the noise and the cries of the foremost pursuers.

Then he gave a steady pull to the cord. The sharp crack of a rifle came from the vicinity of the old quarry. He saw the flash among the trees. Almost simultaneously a bright light leapt from the opposite ledge, illumining the vicinity like a meteor. It lit up the rock, showed Iris just vanishing into the safety of the ledge, and revealed Jenks and the Dyaks to each other. There followed instantly a tremendous explosion that shook earth and air, dislodging every loose stone in the south-west pile of rocks, hurling from the plateau some of its occupants, and wounding the remainder with a shower of lead and debris.

The island birds, long since driven to the remote trees, clamored in raucous peal, and from the Dyaks came yells of fright or anguish.

The sailor, unmolested further, reached the ledge to find Iris prostrate where she had fallen, dead or unconscious, he knew not which. He felt his face become grey in the darkness. With a fierce tug he hauled the ladder well away from the ground and sank to his knees beside her.

He took her into his arms. There was no light. He could not see her eyes or lips. Her slight breathing seemed to indicate a fainting fit, but there was no water, nor was it possible to adopt any of the ordinary expedients suited to such a seizure. He could only wait in a dreadful silence—wait, clasping her to his breast—and dumbly wonder what other loss he could suffer ere the final release came.

At last she sighed deeply. A strong tremor of returning life stirred her frame.

"Thank God!" he murmured, and bowed his head. Were the sun shining he could not see her now, for his eyes were blurred.

"Robert!" she whispered.

"Yes, darling."

"Are you safe?"

"Safe! my loved one! Think of yourself! What has happened to you?"

"I fainted—I think. I have no hurt. I missed you! Something told me you had gone. I went to help you, or die with you. And then that noise! And the light! What did you do?"

He silenced her questioning with a passionate kiss. He carried her to a little nook and fumbled among the stores until he found a bottle of brandy. She drank some. Under its revivifying influence she was soon able to listen to the explanation he offered—after securing the ladder.

In a tall tree near the Valley of Death he had tightly fixed a loaded rifle which pointed at a loose stone in the rock overhanging the ledge held by the Dyaks. This stone rested against a number of percussion caps extracted from cartridges, and these were in direct communication with a train of powder leading to a blasting charge placed at the end of a twenty-four inch hole drilled with a crowbar. The impact of the bullet against the stone could not fail to explode some of the caps. He had used the contents of three hundred cartridges to secure a sufficiency of powder, and the bullets were all crammed into the orifice, being tamped with clay and wet sand. The rifle was fired by means of the string, the loose coils of which were secreted at the foot of the poon. By springing this novel mine he had effectually removed every Dyak from the ledge, over which its contents would spread like a fan. Further, it would probably deter the survivors from again venturing near that fatal spot.

Iris listened, only half comprehending. Her mind was filled with one thought to the exclusion of all others. Robert had left her, had done this thing without telling her. She forgave him, knowing he acted for the best, but he must never, never deceive her again in such a manner. She could not bear it.

What better excuse could man desire for caressing her, yea, even squeezing her, until the sobs ceased and she protested with a weak little laugh——

"Robert, I haven't got much breath—after that excitement—but please—leave me—the remains!"



CHAPTER XIV

THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS

"You are a dear unreasonable little girl," he said. "Have you breath enough to tell me why you came down the ladder?"

"When I discovered you were gone, I became wild with fright. Don't you see, I imagined you were wounded and had fallen from the ledge. What else could I do but follow, either to help you, or, if that were not possible—"

He found her hand and pressed it to his lips.

"I humbly crave your pardon," he said. "That explanation is more than ample. It was I who behaved unreasonably. Of course I should have warned you. Yet, sweetheart, I ran no risk. The real danger passed a week ago."

"How can that be?"

"I might have been blown to pieces whilst adjusting the heavy stone in front of the caps. I assure you I was glad to leave the place that day with a whole skin. If the stone had wobbled, or slipped, well—it was a case of determined felo-de-se."

"May I ask how many more wild adventures you undertook without my knowledge?"

"One other, of great magnitude. I fell in love with you."

"Nonsense!" she retorted. "I knew that long before you admitted it to yourself."

"Date, please?"

"Well, to begin at the very beginning, you thought I was nice on board the Sirdar. Now, didn't you?"

And they were safely embarked on a conversation of no interest to any other person in the wide world, but which provided them with the most delightful topic imaginable.

Thus the time sped until the rising moon silhouetted the cliff on the white carpet of coral-strewn sand. The black shadow-line traveled slowly closer to the base of the cliff, and Jenks, guided also by the stars, told Iris that midnight was at hand.

They knelt on the parapet of the ledge, alert to catch any unusual sound, and watching for any indication of human movement. But Rainbow Island was now still as the grave. The wounded Dyaks had seemingly been removed from hut and beach; the dead lay where they had fallen. The sea sang a lullaby to the reef, and the fresh breeze whispered among the palm fronds—that was all.

"Perhaps they have gone!" murmured Iris.

The sailor put his arm round her neck and gently pressed her lips together. Anything would serve as an excuse for that sort of thing, but he really did want absolute silence at that moment. If the Mussulman kept his compact, the hour was at hand.

An unlooked-for intruder disturbed the quietude of the scene. Their old acquaintance, the singing beetle, chortled his loud way across the park. Iris was dying—as women say—to remind Jenks of their first meeting with that blatant insect, but further talk was impossible; there was too much at stake—water they must have.

Then the light hiss of a snake rose to them from the depths. That is a sound never forgotten when once heard. It is like unto no other. Indeed, the term "hiss" is a misnomer for the quick sibilant expulsion of the breath by an alarmed or angered serpent.

Iris paid no heed to it, but Jenks, who knew there was not a reptile of the snake variety on the island, leaned over the ledge and emitted a tolerably good imitation. The native was beneath. Probably the flight of the beetle had helped his noiseless approach.

"Sahib!"

The girl started at the unexpected call from the depths.

"Yes," said Jenks quietly.

"A rope, sahib."

The sailor lowered a rope. Something was tied to it beneath. The Mahommedan apparently had little fear of being detected.

"Pull, sahib."

"Usually it is the sahib who says 'pull,' but circumstances alter cases," communed Jenks. He hauled steadily at a heavy weight—a goatskin filled with cold water. He emptied the hot and sour wine out of the tin cup, and was about to hand the thrice-welcome draught to Iris when a suspicious thought caused him to withhold it.

"Let me taste first," he said.

The Indian might have betrayed them to the Dyaks. More unlikely things had happened. What if the water were poisoned or drugged?

He placed the tin to his lips. The liquid was musty, having been in the skin nearly two days. Otherwise it seemed to be all right. With a sigh of profound relief he gave Iris the cup, and smiled at the most unladylike haste with which she emptied it.

"Drink yourself, and give me some more," she said.

"No more for you at present, madam. In a few minutes, yes."

"Oh, why not now?"

"Do not fret, dear one. You can have all you want in a little while. But to drink much now would make you very ill."

Iris waited until he could speak again.

"Why did you——" she began.

But he bent over the parapet—

"Koi hai!"[Footnote: Equivalent to "Hello, there!"]

"Sahib!"

"You have not been followed?"

"I think not, sahib. Do not talk too loud; they are foxes in cunning. You have a ladder, they say, sahib. Will not your honor descend? I have much to relate."

Iris made no protest when Jenks explained the man's request. She only stipulated that he should not leave the ladder, whilst she would remain within easy earshot. The sailor, of course, carried his revolver. He also picked up a crowbar, a most useful and silent weapon. Then he went quietly downwards. Nearing the ground, he saw the native, who salaamed deeply and was unarmed. The poor fellow seemed to be very anxious to help them.

"What is your name?" demanded the sailor.

"Mir Jan, sahib, formerly naik[Footnote: Corporal.] in the Kumaon Rissala."

"When did you leave the regiment?"

"Two years ago, sahib. I killed—"

"What was the name of your Colonel?"

"Kurnal I-shpence-sahib, a brave man, but of no account on a horse."

Jenks well remembered Colonel Spence—a fat, short-legged warrior, who rolled off his charger if the animal so much as looked sideways. Mir Jan was telling the truth.

"You are right, Mir Jan. What is Taung S'Ali doing now?"

"Cursing, sahib, for the most part. His men are frightened. He wanted them to try once more with the tubes that shoot poison, but they refused. He could not come alone, for he could not use his right hand, and he was wounded by the blowing up of the rock. You nearly killed me, too, sahib. I was there with the bazaar-born whelps. By the Prophet's beard, it was a fine stroke."

"Are they going away, then?"

"No, sahib. The dogs have been whipped so sore that they snarl for revenge. They say there is no use in firing at you, but they are resolved to kill you and the miss-sahib, or carry her off if she escapes the assault."

"What assault?"

"Protector of the poor, they are building scaling-ladders—four in all. Soon after dawn they intend to rush your position. You may slay some, they say, but you cannot slay three score. Taung S'Ali has promised a gold tauk[Footnote: A native ornament.] to every man who survives if they succeed. They have pulled down your signal on the high rocks and are using the poles for the ladders. They think you have a jadu[Footnote: A charm.] sahib, and they want to use your own work against you."

This was serious news. A combined attack might indeed be dangerous, though it had the excellent feature that if it failed the Dyaks would certainly leave the island. But his sky-sign destroyed! That was bad. Had a vessel chanced to pass, the swinging letters would surely have attracted attention. Now, even that faint hope was dispelled.

"Sahib, there is a worse thing to tell," said Mir Jan.

"Say on, then."

"Before they place the ladders against the cliff they will build a fire of green wood so that the smoke will be blown by the wind into your eyes. This will help to blind your aim. Otherwise, you never miss."

"That will assuredly be awkward, Mir Jan."

"It will, sahib. Soul of my father, if we had but half a troop with us——"

But they had not, and they were both so intent on the conversation that they were momentarily off their guard. Iris was more watchful. She fancied there was a light rustling amidst the undergrowth beneath the trees on the right. And she could hiss too, if that were the correct thing to do.

So she hissed.

Jenks swarmed half way up the ladder.

"Yes, Iris?" he said.

"I am not sure, but I imagine something moved among the bushes behind the house."

"All right, dear. I will keep a sharp look-out. Can you hear us talking?"

"Hardly. Will you be long?"

"Another minute."

He descended and told Mir Jan what the miss-sahib said. The native was about to make a search when Jenks stopped him.

"Here,"—he handed the man his revolver—"I suppose you can use this?"

Mir Jan took it without a word, and Jenks felt that the incident atoned for previous unworthy doubts of his dark friend's honesty. The Mahommedan cautiously examined the back of the house, the neighboring shrubs, and the open beach. After a brief absence he reported all safe, yet no man has ever been nearer death and escaped it than he during that reconnaissance. He, too, forgot that the Dyaks were foxes, and foxes can lie close when hounds are a trifle stale.

Mir Jan returned the revolver.

"Sahib," he said with another salaam, "I am a disgraced man, but if you will take me up there with you, I will fight by your side until both my arms are hacked off. I am weary of these thieves. Ill chance threw me into their company: I will have no more of them. If you will not have me on the rock, give me a gun. I will hide among the trees, and I promise that some of them shall die to-night before they find me. For the honor of the regiment, sahib, do not refuse this thing. All I ask is, if your honor escapes, that you will write to Kurnal I-shpence-sahib, and tell him the last act of Mir Jan, naik in B troop."

There was an intense pathos in the man's words. He made this self-sacrificing offer with an utter absence of any motive save the old tradition of duty to the colors. Here was Anstruther-sahib, of the Belgaum Rissala, in dire peril. Very well, then, Corporal Mir Jan, late of the 19th Bengal Lancers, must dare all to save him.

Jenks was profoundly moved. He reflected how best to utilize the services of this willing volunteer without exposing him to certain death in the manner suggested. The native misinterpreted his silence.

"I am not a budmash,[Footnote: Rascal.] sahib," he exclaimed proudly. "I only killed a man because—"

"Listen, Mir Jan. You cannot well mend what you have said. The Dyaks, you are sure, will not come before morning?"

"They have carried the wounded to the boats and are making the ladders. Such was their talk when I left them."

"Will they not miss you?"

"They will miss the mussak,[Footnote: Goatskin.] sahib. It was the last full one."

"Mir Jan, do as I bid, and you shall see Delhi again, Have you ever used a Lee-Metford?"

"I have seen them, sahib; but I better understand the Mahtini."

"I will give you a rifle, with plenty of ammunition, Do you go inside the cave, there, and——"

Mir Jan was startled.

"Where the ghost is, sahib?" he said.

"Ghost! That is a tale for children. There is no ghost, only a few bones of a man murdered by these scoundrels long ago. Have you any food?"

"Some rice, sahib; sufficient for a day, or two at a pinch."

"Good! We will get water from the well. When the fighting begins at dawn, fire at every man you see from the back of the cave. On no account come out. Then they can never reach you if you keep a full magazine. Wait here!"

"I thought you were never coming," protested Iris when Jenks reached the ledge. "I have been quite creepy. I am sure there is some one down there. And, please, may I have another drink?"

The sailor had left the crowbar beneath. He secured a rifle, a spare clip, and a dozen packets of cartridges, meanwhile briefly explaining to Iris the turn taken by events so far as Mir Jan was concerned. She was naturally delighted, and forgot her fears in the excitement caused by the appearance of so useful an ally. She drank his health in a brimming beaker of water.

She heard her lover rejoin Mir Jan, and saw the two step out into the moonlight, whilst Jenks explained the action of the Lee-Metford. Fortunately Iris was now much recovered from the fatigue and privation of the earlier hours. Her senses were sharpened to a pitch little dreamed of by stay-at-home young ladies of her age, and she deemed it her province to act as sentry whilst the two men conferred. Hence, she was the first to detect, or rather to become conscious of, the stealthy crawl of several Dyaks along the bottom of the cliff from Turtle Beach. They advanced in Indian file, moving with the utmost care, and crouching in the murky shadows like so many wild beasts stalking their prey.

"Robert!" she screamed. "The Dyaks! On your left!"

But Iris was rapidly gaining some knowledge of strategy. Before she shrieked her warning she grasped a rifle. Holding it at the "Ready"—about the level of her waist—and depressing the muzzle sufficiently, she began firing down the side of the rock as fast as she could handle lever and trigger. Two of the nickel bullets struck a projection and splashed the leading savages with molten metal.

Unfortunately the Lee-Metford beneath was unloaded, being in Mir Jan's possession for purposes of instruction. Jenks whipped out his revolver.

"To the cave!" he roared, and Mir Jan's unwillingness to face a goblin could not withstand the combined impetus of the sahib's order and the onward rush of the enemy. He darted headlong for the entrance.



Jenks, shooting blindly as he, too, ran for the ladder, emptied the revolver just as his left hand clutched a rung. Three Dyaks were so close that it would be folly to attempt to climb. He threw the weapon into the face of the foremost man, effectually stopping his onward progress, for the darkness made it impossible to dodge the missile.

The sailor turned to dive into the cave and secure the rifle from Mir Jan, when his shin caught the heavy crowbar resting against the rock. The pain of the blow lent emphasis to the swing with which the implement descended upon some portion of a Dyak anatomy. Jenks never knew where he hit the second assailant, but the place cracked like an eggshell.

He had not time to recover the bar for another blow, so he gave the point in the gullet of a gentleman who was about to make a vicious sweep at him with a parang. The downfall of this worthy caused his immediate successor to stumble, and Jenks saw his opportunity. With the agility of a cat he jumped up the ladder. Once started, he had to go on. He afterwards confessed to an unpleasant sensation of pins and needles along his back during that brief acrobatic display; but he reached the ledge without further injury, save an agonizing twinge when the unprotected quick of his damaged finger was smartly rapped against the rock.

These things happened with the speed of thought. Within forty seconds of Iris's shrill cry the sailor was breast high with the ledge and calling to her—

"All right, old girl. Keep it up!"

The cheerful confidence of his words had a wonderful effect on her. Iris, like every good woman, had the maternal instinct strong within her—the instinct that inspires alike the mild-eyed Sister of Charity and the tigress fighting for her cubs. When Jenks was down below there, in imminent danger of being cut to pieces, the gentle, lovable girl, who would not willingly hurt the humblest of God's creatures, became terrible, majestic in her frenzied purpose. Robert must be saved. If a Maxim were planted on the rock she would unhesitatingly have turned the lever and sprayed the Dyaks with bullets.

But here he was close to her, unhurt and calmly jubilant, as was his way when a stiff fight went well. He was by her side now, firing and aiming too, for the Dyaks broke cover recklessly in running for shelter, and one may do fair work by moonlight, as many a hunter of wild duck can testify by the rheumatism in his bones.

She had strength enough left to place the rifle out of harm's way before she broke down and sobbed, not tearfully, but in a paroxysm of reaction. Soon all was quiet beneath, save for the labored efforts of some wounded men to get far away from that accursed rock. Jenks was able to turn to Iris. He endeavored to allay her agitation, and succeeded somewhat, for tears came, and she clung to him. It was useless to reproach him. The whole incident was unforeseen: she was herself a party to it. But what an escape!

He lifted her in his arms and carried her to a seat where the tarpaulin rested on a broken water-cask.

"You have been a very good little girl and have earned your supper," he said.

"Oh, how can you talk so callously after such an awful experience?" she expostulated brokenly.

The Jesuits, say their opponents, teach that at times a "white lie" is permissible. Surely this was an instance.

"It is a small thing to trouble about, sweetheart," he explained. "You spotted the enemy so promptly, and blazed away with such ferocity, that they never got within yards of me."

"Are you sure?"

"I vow and declare that after we have eaten something, and sampled our remaining bottle of wine, I will tell you exactly what happened."

"Why not now?"

"Because I must first see to Mir Jan. I bundled him neck and crop into the cave. I hope I did not hurt him."

"You are not going down there again?"

"No need, I trust."

He went to the side of the ledge, recovered the ladder which he had hastily hauled out of the Dyaks' reach after his climb, and cried—

"Mir Jan."

"Ah, sahib! Praised be the name of the Most High, you are alive. I was searching among the slain with a sorrowful heart."

The Mahommedan's voice came from some little distance on the left.

"The slain, you say. How many?"

"Five, sahib."

"Impossible! I fired blindly with the revolver, and only hit one man hard with the iron bar. One other dropped near the wood after I obtained a rifle."

"Then there be six, sahib, not reckoning the wounded. I have accounted for one, so the miss-sahib must have—"

"What is he saying about me?" inquired Iris, who had risen and joined her lover.

"He says you absolutely staggered the Dyaks by opening fire the moment they appeared."

"How did you come to slay one, Mir Jan?" he continued.

"A son of a black pig followed me into the cave. I waited for him in the darkness. I have just thrown his body outside."

"Shabash![Footnote: "Well done!"] Is Taung S'Ali dead, by any lucky chance?"

"No, sahib, if he be not the sixth. I will go and see."

"You may be attacked?"

"I have found a sword, sahib. You left me no cartridges."

Jenks told him that the clip and the twelve packets were lying at the foot of the rock, where Mir Jan speedily discovered them. The Mahommedan gave satisfactory assurance that he understood the mechanism of the rifle by filling and adjusting the magazine. Then he went to examine the corpse of the man who lay in the open near the quarry path.

The sailor stood in instant readiness to make a counter demonstration were the native assailed. But there was no sign of the Dyaks. Mir Jan returned with the news that the sixth victim of the brief yet fierce encounter was a renegade Malay. He was so confident that the enemy had had enough of it for the night that, after recovering Jenks's revolver, he boldly went to the well and drew himself a supply of water.

During supper, a feast graced by a quart of champagne worthy of the Carlton, Jenks told Iris so much of the story as was good for her: that is to say, he cut down the casualty list.

It was easy to see what had happened. The Dyaks, having missed the Mahommedan and their water-bag, searched for him and heard the conversation at the foot of the rock. Knowing that their presence was suspected, they went back for reinforcements, and returned by the shorter and more advantageous route along Turtle Beach.

Iris would have talked all night, but Jenks made her go to sleep, by pillowing her head against his shoulder and smoothing her tangled tresses with his hand. The wine, too, was helpful. In a few minutes her voice became dreamy: soon she was sleeping like a tired child.

He managed to lay her on a comfortable pile of ragged clothing and then resumed his vigil. Mir Jan offered to mount guard beneath, but Jenks bade him go within the cave and remain there, for the dawn would soon be upon them.

Left alone with his thoughts, he wondered what the rising sun would bring in its train. He reviewed the events of the last twenty-four hours. Iris and he—Miss Deane, Mr. Jenks, to each other—were then undiscovered in their refuge, the Dyaks were gathered around a roaring fire in the valley, and Mir Jan was keen in the hunt as the keenest among them. Now, Iris was his affianced bride, over twenty of the enemy were killed and many wounded, and Mir Jan, a devoted adherent, was seated beside the skeleton in the gloom of the cavern.

What a topsy-turvy world it was, to be sure! What alternations between despair and hope! What rebound from the gates of Death to the threshold of Eden! How untrue, after all, was the nebulous philosophy of Omar, the Tentmaker. Surely in the happenings of the bygone day there was more than the purposeless

"Magic Shadow-show, Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun, Round which we Phantom Figures come and go."

He had, indeed, cause to be humbly thankful. Was there not One who marked the fall of a sparrow, who clothed the lilies, who knew the needs of His creatures? There, in the solemn temple of the night, he gave thanks for the protection vouchsafed to Iris and himself, and prayed that it might be continued. He deplored the useless bloodshed, the horror of mangled limbs and festering bodies, that converted this fair island into a reeking slaughter-house. Were it possible, by any personal sacrifice, to divert the untutored savages from their deadly quest, he would gladly condone their misdeeds and endeavor to assuage the torments of the wounded.

But he was utterly helpless, a pawn on that tiny chessboard where the game was being played between Civilization and Barbarism. The fight must go on to the bitter end: he must either vanquish or be vanquished. There were other threads being woven into the garment of his life at that moment, but he knew not of them. Sufficient for the day was the evil, and the good thereof. Of both he had received full measure.

A period of such reflection could hardly pass without a speculative dive into the future. If Iris and he were rescued, what would happen when they went forth once more into the busy world? Not for one instant did he doubt her faith. She was true as steel, knit to him now by bonds of triple brass. But, what would Sir Arthur Deane think of his daughter's marriage to a discredited and cashiered officer? What was it that poor Mir Jan called himself?—"a disgraced man." Yes, that was it. Could that stain be removed? Mir Jan was doing it. Why not he?—by other means, for his good name rested on the word of a perjured woman. Wealth was potent, but not all-powerful. He would ask Iris to wait until he came to her unsoiled by slander, purged of this odium cast upon him unmerited.

And all this goes to show that he, a man wise beyond his fellows, had not yet learned the unwisdom of striving to lift the veil of tomorrow, behind whose mystic curtain what is to be ever jostles out of place what is hoped for.

Iris, smiling in her dreams, was assailed by no torturing doubts. Robert loved her—that was enough. Love suffices for a woman; a man asks for honor, reputation, an unblemished record.

To awake her he kissed her; he knew not, perchance it might be their last kiss on earth. Not yet dawn, there was morning in the air, for the first faint shafts of light were not visible from their eyrie owing to its position. But there was much to be done. If the Dyaks carried out the plan described by Mir Jan, he had a good many preparations to make.

The canvas awning was rolled back and the stores built into a barricade intended to shelter Iris.

"What is that for?" she asked, when she discovered its nature. He told her. She definitely refused to avail herself of any such protection.

"Robert dear," she said, "if the attack comes to our very door, so to speak, surely I must help you. Even my slight aid may stem a rush in one place whilst you are busy in another."

He explained to her that if hand-to-hand fighting were necessary he would depend more upon a crowbar than a rifle to sweep the ledge clear. She might be in the way.

"Very well. The moment you tell me to get behind that fence I will do so. Even there I can use a revolver."

That reminded him. His own pistol was unloaded. He possessed only five more cartridges of small caliber. He placed them in the weapon and gave it to her.

"Now you have eleven men's lives in your hands," he said. "Try not to miss if you must shoot."

In the dim light he could not see the spasm of pain that clouded her face. No Dyak would reach her whilst he lived. If he fell, there was another use for one of those cartridges.

The sailor had cleared the main floor of the rock and was placing his four rifles and other implements within easy reach when a hiss came from beneath.

"Mir Jan!" exclaimed Iris.

"What now?" demanded Jenks over the side.

"Sahib, they come!"

"I am prepared. Let that snake get back to his hole in the rock, lest a mongoose seize him by the head."

Mir Jan, engaged in a scouting expedition on his own account, understood that the officer-sahib's orders must be obeyed. He vanished. Soon they heard a great crackling among the bushes on the right, but Jenks knew even before he looked that the Dyaks had correctly estimated the extent of his fire zone and would keep out of it.

The first physical intimation of the enemy's design they received was a pungent but pleasant smell of burning pine, borne to them by the northerly breeze and filling the air with its aroma. The Dyaks kindled a huge fire. The heat was perceptible even on the ledge, but the minutes passed, and the dawn broadened into day without any other result being achieved.

Iris, a little drawn and pale with suspense, said with a timid giggle—

"This does not seem to be so very serious. It reminds me of my efforts to cook."

"There is more to follow, I fear, dear one. But the Dyaks are fools. They should have waited until night fell again, after wearing us out by constant vigilance all day. If they intend to employ smoke it would be far worse for us at night."

Phew! A volume of murky vapor arose that nearly suffocated them by the first whiff of its noisome fumes. It curled like a black pall over the face of the rock and blotted out sea and sky. They coughed incessantly, and nearly choked, for the Dyaks had thrown wet seaweed on top of the burning pile of dry wood. Mir Jan, born in interior India, knew little about the sea or its products, and when the savages talked of seaweed he thought they meant green wood. Fortunately for him, the ascending clouds of smoke missed the cave, or infallibly he must have been stifled.

"Lie flat on the rock!" gasped Jenks. Careless of waste, he poured water over a coat and made Iris bury her mouth and nose in the wet cloth. This gave her immediate relief, and she showed her woman's wit by tying the sleeves of the garment behind her neck. Jenks nodded comprehension and followed her example, for by this means their hands were left free.

The black cloud grew more dense each few seconds. Nevertheless, owing to the slope of the ledge, and the tendency of the smoke to rise, the south side was far more tenable than the north. Quick to note this favorable circumstance, the sailor deduced a further fact from it. A barrier erected on the extreme right of the ledge would be a material gain. He sprang up, dragged the huge tarpaulin from its former location, and propped it on the handle of the pickaxe, driven by one mighty stroke deep into a crevice of the rock.

It was no mean feat of strength that he performed. He swung the heavy and cumbrous canvas into position as if it were a dust cloth. He emerged from the gloom of the driven cloud red-eyed but triumphant. Instantly the vapor on the ledge lessened, and they could breathe, even talk. Overhead and in front the smoke swept in ever-increasing density, but once again the sailor had outwitted the Dyaks' manoeuvres.

"We have won the first rubber," he whispered to Iris.

Above, beneath, beyond, they could see nothing. The air they breathed was hot and foetid. It was like being immured in a foul tunnel and almost as dark. Jenks looked over the parapet. He thought he could distinguish some vague figures on the sands, so he fired at them. A volley of answering bullets crashed into the rock on all sides. The Dyaks had laid their plans well this time. A firing squad stationed beyond the smoke area, and supplied with all the available guns, commenced and kept up a smart fusillade in the direction of the ledge in order to cover the operations of the scaling party.

Jenks realized that to expose himself was to court a serious wound and achieve no useful purpose. He fell back out of range, laid down his rifle and grabbed the crowbar. At brief intervals a deep hollow boom came up from the valley. At first it puzzled them until the sailor hit upon an explanation. Mir Jan was busy.

The end of a strong roughly made ladder swung through the smoke and banged against the ledge. Before Jenks could reach it those hoisting it into position hastily retreated. They were standing in front of the cave and the Mahommedan made play on them with a Lee-Metford at thirty feet.

Jenks, using his crowbar as a lever, toppled the ladder clean over. It fell outwards and disconcerted a section of the musketeers.

"Well done," cried Iris.

The sailor, astounded by her tone, gave her a fleeting glance. She was very pale now, but not with fear. Her eyes were slightly contracted, her nostrils quivering, her lips set tight and her chin dimpled. She had gone back thirty generations in as many seconds. Thus might one of the daughters of Boadicea have looked whilst guiding her mother's chariot against the Roman phalanx. Resting on one knee, with a revolver in each hand, she seemed no puling mate for the gallant man who fought for her.

She caught his look.

"We will beat them yet!" she cried again, and she smiled, not as a woman smiles, but with the joy of a warrior when the fray is toward.

There was no time for further speech. Three ladders were reared against the rock. They were so poised and held below that Jenks could not force them backwards. A fourth appeared, its coarse shafts looming into sight like the horns of some gigantic animal. The four covered practically the whole front of the ledge save where Mir Jan cleared a little space on the level.

The sailor was standing now, with the crowbar clenched in both hands. The firing in the valley slackened and died away. A Dyak face, grinning like a Japanese demon, appeared at the top of the ladder nearest to Iris.

"Don't fire!" shouted Jenks, and the iron bar crushed downwards. Two others pitched themselves half on to the ledge. Now both crowbar and revolver were needed. Three ladders were thus cumbered somewhat for those beneath, and Jenks sprang towards the fourth and most distant. Men were crowding it like ants. Close to his feet lay an empty water-cask. It was a crude weapon, but effective when well pitched, and the sailor had never made a better shot for a goal in the midst of a hard-fought scrimmage than he made with that tub for the head of the uppermost pirate.

Another volley came from the sands. A bullet ploughed through his hair, and sent his sou'wester flying. Again the besiegers swarmed to the attack. One way or the other, they must succeed. A man and a woman—even such a man and such a woman—could not keep at bay an infuriated horde of fifty savages fighting at close quarters and under these grievous conditions.

Jenks knew what would happen. He would be shot in the head or breast whilst repelling the scaling party. And Iris! Dear heart! She was thinking of him.

"Keep back! They can never gain the ledge!" she shrieked.

And then, above the din of the fusillade, the yells of the assailants and the bawling of the wounded, there came through the air a screaming, tearing, ripping sound which drowned all others. It traveled with incredible speed, and before the sailor could believe his ears—for he well knew what it meant—a shrapnel shell burst in front of the ledge and drenched the valley with flying lead.

Jenks was just able to drag Iris flat against the rock ere the time fuse operated and the bullets flew. He could form no theory, hazard no conjecture. All he knew was that a 12-pounder shell had flown towards them through space, scattering red ruin among the amazed scoundrels beneath. Instantly he rose again, lest perchance any of the Dyaks should have gained a foothold on the ledge.

The ladders were empty. He could hear a good deal of groaning, the footsteps of running men, and some distant shouting.

"Sahib!" yelled Mir Jan, drawn from his retreat by the commotion without.

"Yes," shouted Jenks.

The native, in a voice cracked with excitement, told him something. The sailor asked a few rapid questions to make quite sure that Mir Jan was not mistaken.

Then he threw his arms round Iris, drew her close and whispered—

"My darling, we are saved! A warship has anchored just beyond the south reef, and two boats filled with armed sailors are now pulling ashore."

And she answered proudly—

"The Dyaks could never have conquered us, Robert. We were manifestly under God's protection. Oh, my love, my love, I am so happy and thankful!"



CHAPTER XV

THE DIFFICULTY OF PLEASING EVERYBODY

The drifting smoke was still so dense that not even the floor of the valley could be discerned. Jenks dared not leave Iris at such a moment. He feared to bring her down the ladder lest another shell might be fired. But something must be done to end their suspense.

He called to Mir Jan—

"Take off your turban and hold it above your head, if you think they can see you from the warship."

"It is all right, sahib," came the cheering answer. "One boat is close inshore. I think, from the uniforms, they are English sahibs, such as I have seen at Garden Reach. The Dyaks have all gone."

Nevertheless Jenks waited. There was nothing to gain by being too precipitate. A false step now might undo the achievements of many weeks.

Mir Jan was dancing about beneath in a state of wild excitement.

"They have seen the Dyaks running to their sampans, sahib," he yelled, "and the second boat is being pulled in that direction. Yet another has just left the ship."

A translation made Iris excited, eager to go down and see these wonders.

"Better wait here, dearest," he said. "The enemy may be driven back in this direction, and I cannot expose you to further risk. The sailors will soon land, and you can then descend in perfect safety."

The boom of a cannon came from the sea. Instinctively the girl ducked for safety, though her companion smiled at her fears, for the shell would have long preceded the report, had it traveled their way.

"One of the remaining sampans has got under way," he explained, "and the warship is firing at her."

Two more guns were fired. The man-o'-war evidently meant business.

"Poor wretches!" murmured Iris. "Cannot the survivors be allowed to escape?"

"Well, we are unable to interfere. Those caught on the island will probably be taken to the mainland and hanged for their crimes, so the manner of their end is not of much consequence."

To the girl's manifest relief there was no more firing, and Mir Jan announced that a number of sailors were actually on shore. Then her thoughts turned to a matter of concern to the feminine mind even in the gravest moments of existence. She laved her face with water and sought her discarded skirt!

Soon the steady tramp of boot-clad feet advancing at the double was heard on the shingle, and an officer's voice, speaking the crude Hindustani of the engine-room and forecastle, shouted to Mir Jan—

"Hi, you black fellow! Are there any white people here?"

Jenks sang out—

"Yes, two of us! Perched on the rock over your heads. We are coming down."

He cast loose the rope-ladder. Iris was limp and trembling.

"Steady, sweetheart," he whispered. "Don't forget the slip between the cup and the lip. Hold tight! But have no fear! I will be just beneath."

It was well he took this precaution. She was now so unnerved that an unguarded movement might have led to an accident. But the knowledge that her lover was near, the touch of his hand guiding her feet on to the rungs of the ladder, sustained her. They had almost reached the level when a loud exclamation and the crash of a heavy blow caused Jenks to halt and look downwards.

A Dyak, lying at the foot of one of the scaling ladders, and severely wounded by a shell splinter, witnessed their descent. In his left hand he grasped a parang; his right arm was bandaged. Though unable to rise, the vengeful pirate mustered his remaining strength to crawl towards the swaying ladder. It was Taung S'Ali, inspired with the hate and venom of the dying snake. Even yet he hoped to deal a mortal stroke at the man who had defied him and all his cut-throat band. He might have succeeded, as Jenks was so taken up with Iris, were it not for the watchful eyes of Mir Jan. The Mahommedan sprang at him with an oath, and gave him such a murderous whack with the butt of a rifle that the Dyak chief collapsed and breathed out his fierce spirit in a groan.

At the first glance Jenks did not recognize Taung S'Ali, owing to his change of costume. Through the thinner smoke he could see several sailors running up.

"Look out, there!" he cried. "There is a lady here. If any Dyak moves, knock him on the head!"

But, with the passing of the chief, their last peril had gone. The next instant they were standing on the firm ground, and a British naval lieutenant was saying eagerly—

"We seem to have turned up in the nick of time. Do you, by any chance, belong to the Sirdar?"

"We are the sole survivors," answered the sailor.

"You two only?"

"Yes. She struck on the north-west reef of this island during a typhoon. This lady, Miss Iris Deane, and I were flung ashore—"

"Miss Deane! Can it be possible? Let me congratulate you most heartily. Sir Arthur Deane is on board the Orient at this moment."

"The Orient!"

Iris was dazed. The uniforms, the pleasant faces of the English sailors, the strange sensation of hearing familiar words in tones other than those of the man she loved, bewildered her.

"Yes," explained the officer, with a sympathetic smile. "That's our ship, you know, in the offing there."

It was all too wonderful to be quite understood yet. She turned to Robert—

"Do you hear? They say my father is not far away. Take me to him."



"No need for that, miss," interrupted a warrant officer. "Here he is coming ashore. He wanted to come with us, but the captain would not permit it, as there seemed to be some trouble ahead."

Sure enough, even the girl's swimming eyes could distinguish the grey-bearded civilian seated beside an officer in the stern-sheets of a small gig now threading a path through the broken reef beyond Turtle Beach. In five minutes, father and daughter would meet.

Meanwhile the officer, intent on duty, addressed Jenks again.

"May I ask who you are?"

"My name is Anstruther—Robert Anstruther."

Iris, clinging to his arm, heard the reply.

So he had abandoned all pretence. He was ready to face the world at her side. She stole a loving glance at him as she cried—

"Yes, Captain Anstruther, of the Indian Staff Corps. If he will not tell you all that he has done, how he has saved my life twenty times, how he has fought single-handed against eighty men, ask me!"

The naval officer did not need to look a second time at Iris's face to lengthen the list of Captain Anstruther's achievements, by one more item. He sighed. A good sailor always does sigh when a particularly pretty girl is labeled "Engaged."

But he could be very polite.

"Captain Anstruther does not appear to have left much for us to do, Miss Deane," he said. "Indeed," turning to Robert, "is there any way in which my men will be useful?"

"I would recommend that they drag the green stuff off that fire and stop the smoke. Then, a detachment should go round the north side of the island and drive the remaining Dyaks into the hands of the party you have landed, as I understand, at the further end of the south beach. Mir Jan, the Mahommedan here, who has been a most faithful ally during part of our siege, will act as guide."

The other man cast a comprehensive glance over the rock, with its scaling ladders and dangling rope-ladder, the cave, the little groups of dead or unconscious pirates—for every wounded man who could move a limb had crawled away after the first shell burst—and drew a deep breath.

"How long were you up there?" he asked.

"Over thirty hours."

"It was a great fight!"

"Somewhat worse than it looks," said Anstruther. "This is only the end of it. Altogether, we have accounted for nearly two score of the poor devils."

"Do you think you can make them prisoners, without killing any more of them?" asked Iris.

"That depends entirely on themselves, Miss Deane. My men will not fire a shot unless they encounter resistance."

Robert looked towards the approaching boat. She would not land yet for a couple of minutes.

"By the way," he said, "will you tell me your name?"

"Playdon—Lieutenant Philip H. Playdon."

"Do you know to what nation this island belongs?"

"It is no-man's land, I think. It is marked 'uninhabited' on the chart."

"Then," said Anstruther, "I call upon you, Lieutenant Playdon, and all others here present, to witness that I, Robert Anstruther, late of the Indian Army, acting on behalf of myself and Miss Iris Deane, declare that we have taken possession of this island in the name of His Britannic Majesty the King of England, that we are the joint occupiers and owners thereof, and claim all property rights vested therein."

These formal phrases, coming at such a moment, amazed his hearers. Iris alone had an inkling of the underlying motive.

"I don't suppose any one will dispute your title," said the naval officer gravely. He unquestionably imagined that suffering and exposure had slightly disturbed the other man's senses, yet he had seldom seen any person who looked to be in more complete possession of his faculties.

"Thank you," replied Robert with equal composure, though he felt inclined to laugh at Playdon's mystification. "I only wished to secure a sufficient number of witnesses for a verbal declaration. When I have a few minutes to spare I will affix a legal notice on the wall in front of our cave."

Playdon bowed silently. There was something in the speaker's manner that puzzled him. He detailed a small guard to accompany Robert and Iris, who now walked towards the beach, and asked Mir Jan to pilot him as suggested by Anstruther.

The boat was yet many yards from shore when Iris ran forward and stretched out her arms to the man who was staring at her with wistful despair.

"Father! Father!" she cried. "Don't you know me?"

Sir Arthur Deane was looking at the two strange figures on the sands, and each moment his heart sank lower. This island held his final hope. During many weary weeks, since the day when a kindly Admiral placed the cruiser Orient at his disposal, he had scoured the China Sea, the coasts of Borneo and Java, for some tidings of the ill-fated Sirdar.

He met naught save blank nothingness, the silence of the great ocean mausoleum. Not a boat, a spar, a lifebuoy, was cast up by the waves to yield faintest trace of the lost steamer. Every naval man knew what had happened. The vessel had met with some mishap to her machinery, struck a derelict, or turned turtle, during that memorable typhoon of March 17 and 18. She had gone down with all hands. Her fate was a foregone conclusion. No ship's boat could live in that sea, even if the crew were able to launch one. It was another of ocean's tragedies, with the fifth act left to the imagination.

To examine every sand patch and tree-covered shoal in the China Sea was an impossible task. All the Orient could do was to visit the principal islands and institute inquiries among the fishermen and small traders. At last, the previous night, a Malay, tempted by hope of reward, boarded the vessel when lying at anchor off the large island away to the south, and told the captain a wondrous tale of a devil-haunted place inhabited by two white spirits, a male and a female, whither a local pirate named Taung S'Ali had gone by chance with his men and suffered great loss. But Taung S'Ali was bewitched by the female spirit, and had returned there, with a great force, swearing to capture her or perish. The spirits, the Malay said, had dwelt upon the island for many years. His father and grandfather knew the place and feared it. Taung S'Ali would never be seen again.

This queer yarn was the first indication they received of the whereabouts of any persons who might possibly be shipwrecked Europeans, though not survivors from the Sirdar. Anyhow, the tiny dot lay in the vessel's northward track, so a course was set to arrive off the island soon after dawn.

Events on shore, as seen by the officer on watch, told their own tale. Wherever Dyaks are fighting there is mischief on foot, so the Orient took a hand in the proceedings.

But Sir Arthur Deane, after an agonized scrutiny of the weird-looking persons escorted by the sailors to the water's edge, sadly acknowledged that neither of these could be the daughter whom he sought. He bowed his head in humble resignation, and he thought he was the victim of a cruel hallucination when Iris's tremulous accents reached his ears—

"Father, father! Don't you know me?"

He stood up, amazed and trembling.

"Yes, father dear. It is I, your own little girl given back to you. Oh dear! Oh dear! I cannot see you for my tears."

They had some difficulty to keep him in the boat, and the man pulling stroke smashed a stout oar with the next wrench.

And so they met at last, and the sailors left them alone, to crowd round Anstruther and ply him with a hundred questions. Although he fell in with their humor, and gradually pieced together the stirring story which was supplemented each instant by the arrival of disconsolate Dyaks and the comments of the men who returned from cave and beach, his soul was filled with the sight of Iris and her father, and the happy, inconsequent demands with which each sought to ascertain and relieve the extent of the other's anxiety.

Then Iris called to him—

"Robert, I want you."

The use of his Christian name created something akin to a sensation. Sir Arthur Deane was startled, even in his immeasurable delight at finding his child uninjured—the picture of rude health and happiness.

Anstruther advanced.

"This is my father," she cried, shrill with joy. "And, father darling, this is Captain Robert Anstruther, to whom alone, under God's will, I owe my life, many, many times since the moment the Sirdar was lost."

It was no time for questioning. Sir Arthur Deane took off his hat and held out his hand—

"Captain Anstruther," he said, "as I owe you my daughter's life, I owe you that which I can never repay. And I owe you my own life, too, for I could not have survived the knowledge that she was dead."

Robert took the proffered hand—

"I think, Sir Arthur, that, of the two, I am the more deeply indebted. There are some privileges whose value cannot be measured, and among them the privilege of restoring your daughter to your arms takes the highest place."

Then, being much more self-possessed than the older man, who was naturally in a state of agitation that was almost painful, he turned to Iris.

"I think," he said, "that your father should take you on board the Orient, Iris. There you may, perhaps, find some suitable clothing, eat something, and recover from the exciting events of the morning. Afterwards, you must bring Sir Arthur ashore again, and we will guide him over the island. I am sure you will find much to tell him meanwhile."

The baronet could not fail to note the manner in which these two addressed each other, the fearless love which leaped from eye to eye, the calm acceptance of a relationship not be questioned or gainsaid. Robert and Iris, without spoken word on the subject, had tactily agreed to avoid the slightest semblance of subterfuge as unworthy alike of their achievements and their love. Yet what could Sir Arthur Deane do? To frame a suitable protest at such a moment was not to be dreamed of. As yet he was too shaken to collect his thoughts. Anstruther's proposal, however, helped him to blurt out what he intuitively felt to be a disagreeable fact. Yet something must be said, for his brain reeled.

"Your suggestion is admirable," he cried, striving desperately to affect a careless complaisance. "The ship's stores may provide Iris with some sort of rig-out, and an old friend of hers is on board at this moment, little expecting her presence. Lord Ventnor has accompanied me in my search. He will, of course, be delighted—"

Anstruther flushed a deep bronze, but Iris broke in—

"Father, why did he come with you?"

Sir Arthur, driven into this sudden squall of explanation, became dignified.

"Well, you see, my dear, under the circumstances, he felt an anxiety almost commensurate with my own."

"But why, why?"

Iris was quite calm. With Robert near, she was courageous. Even the perturbed baronet experienced a new sensation as his troubled glance fell before her searching eyes. His daughter had left him a joyous, heedless girl. He found her a woman, strong, self-reliant, purposeful. Yet he kept on, choosing the most straightforward means as the only honorable way of clearing a course so beset with unsuspected obstacles.

"It is only reasonable, Iris, that your affianced husband should suffer an agony of apprehension on your account, and do all that was possible to effect your rescue."

"My—affianced—husband?"

"Well, my dear girl, perhaps that is hardly the correct phrase from your point of view. Yet you cannot fail to remember that Lord Ventnor—"

"Father, dear," said Iris solemnly, but in a voice free from all uncertainty, "my affianced husband stands here! We plighted our troth at the very gate of death. It was ratified in the presence of God, and has been blessed by Him. I have made no compact with Lord Ventnor. He is a base and unworthy man. Did you but know the truth concerning him you would not mention his name in the same breath with mine. Would he, Robert?"

Never was man so perplexed as the unfortunate shipowner. In the instant that his beloved daughter was restored to him out of the very depths of the sea, he was asked either to undertake the role of a disappointed and unforgiving parent, or sanction her marriage to a truculent-looking person of most forbidding if otherwise manly appearance, who had certainly saved her from death in ways not presently clear to him, but who could not be regarded as a suitable son-in-law solely on that account.

What could he do, what could he say, to make the position less intolerable?

Anstruther, quicker than Iris to appreciate Sir Arthur Deane's dilemma, gallantly helped him. He placed a loving hand on the girl's shoulder.

"Be advised by me, Sir Arthur, and you too, Iris," he said. "This is no hour for such explanations. Leave me to deal with Lord Ventnor. I am content to trust the ultimate verdict to you, Sir Arthur. You will learn in due course all that has happened. Go on board, Iris. Meet Lord Ventnor as you would meet any other friend. You will not marry him, I know. I can trust you." He said this with a smile that robbed the words of serious purport. "Believe me, you two can find plenty to occupy your minds today without troubling yourselves about Lord Ventnor."

"I am very much obliged to you," murmured the baronet, who, notwithstanding his worry, was far too experienced a man of the world not to acknowledge the good sense of this advice, no matter how ruffianly might be the guise of the strange person who gave it.

"That is settled, then," said Robert, laughing good-naturedly, for he well knew what a weird spectacle he must present to the bewildered old gentleman.

Even Sir Arthur Deane was fascinated by the ragged and hairy giant who carried himself so masterfully and helped everybody over the stile at the right moment He tried to develop the change in the conversation.

"By the way," he said, "how came you to be on the Sirdar? I have a list of all the passengers and crew, and your name does not appear therein."

"Oh, that is easily accounted for. I shipped as a steward, in the name of Robert Jenks."

"Robert Jenks! A steward!"

This was worse than ever. The unhappy shipowner thought the sky must have fallen.

"Yes. That forms some part of the promised explanation."

Iris rapidly gathered the drift of her lover's wishes. "Come, father," she cried merrily. "I am aching to see what the ship's stores, which you and Robert pin your faith to, can do for me in the shape of garments. I have the utmost belief in the British navy, and even a skeptic should be convinced of its infallibility if H.M.S. Orient is able to provide a lady's outfit."

Sir Arthur Deane gladly availed himself of the proffered compromise. He assisted Iris into the boat, though that active young person was far better able to support him, and a word to the officer in command sent the gig flying back to the ship. Anstruther, during a momentary delay, made a small request on his own account. Lieutenant Playdon, nearly as big a man as Robert, despatched a note to his servant, and the gig speedily returned with a complete assortment of clothing and linen. The man also brought a dressing case, with the result that a dip in the bath, and ten minutes in the hands of an expert valet, made Anstruther a new man.

Acting under his advice, the bodies of the dead were thrown into the lagoon, the wounded were collected in the hut to be attended to by the ship's surgeon, and the prisoners were paraded in front of Mir Jan, who identified every man, and found, by counting heads, that none was missing.

Robert did not forget to write out a formal notice and fasten it to the rock. This proceeding further mystified the officers of the Orient, who had gradually formed a connected idea of the great fight made by the shipwrecked pair, though Anstruther squirmed inwardly when he thought of the manner in which Iris would picture the scene. As it was, he had the first innings, and he did not fail to use the opportunity. In the few terse words which the militant Briton best understands, he described the girl's fortitude, her unflagging cheerfulness, her uncomplaining readiness to do and dare.

Little was said by his auditors, save to interpolate an occasional question as to why such and such a thing was necessary, or how some particular drawback had been surmounted. Standing near the well, it was not necessary to move to explain to them the chief features of the island, and point out the measures he had adopted.

When he ended, the first lieutenant, who commanded the boats sent in pursuit of the flying Dyaks—the Orient sank both sampans as soon as they were launched—summed up the general verdict—

"You do not need our admiration, Captain Anstruther. Each man of us envies you from the bottom of his soul."

"I do, I know—from the very bilge," exclaimed a stout midshipman, one of those who had seen Iris.

Robert waited until the laugh died away.

"There is an error about my rank," he said. "I did once hold a commission in the Indian army, but I was court-marshaled and cashiered in Hong Kong six months ago. I was unjustly convicted on a grave charge, and I hope some day to clear myself. Meanwhile I am a mere civilian. It was only Miss Deane's generous sympathy which led her to mention my former rank, Mr. Playdon."

Had another of the Orient's 12-pounder shells suddenly burst in the midst of the group of officers, it would have created less dismay than this unexpected avowal. Court-martialed! Cashiered! None but a service man can grasp the awful significance of those words to the commissioned ranks of the army and navy.

Anstruther well knew what he was doing. Somehow, he found nothing hard in the performance of these penances now. Of course, the ugly truth must be revealed the moment Lord Ventnor heard his name. It was not fair to the good fellows crowding around him, and offering every attention that the frank hospitality of the British sailor could suggest, to permit them to adopt the tone of friendly equality which rigid discipline, if nothing else, would not allow them to maintain.

The first lieutenant, by reason of his rank, was compelled to say something—

"That is a devilish bad job, Mr. Anstruther," he blurted out.

"Well, you know, I had to tell you."

He smiled unaffectedly at the wondering circle. He, too, was an officer, and appreciated their sentiments. They were unfeignedly sorry for him, a man so brave and modest, such a splendid type of the soldier and gentleman, yet, by their common law, an outcast. Nor could they wholly understand his demeanor. There was a noble dignity in his candor, a conscious innocence that disdained to shield itself under a partial truth. He spoke, not as a wrong-doer, but as one who addresses those who have been and will be once more his peers.

The first lieutenant again phrased the thoughts of his juniors—

"I, and every other man in the ship, cannot help but sympathize with you. But whatever may be your record—if you were an escaped convict, Mr. Anstruther—no one could withhold from you the praise deserved for your magnificent stand against overwhelming odds. Our duty is plain. We will bring you to Singapore, where the others will no doubt wish to go immediately. I will tell the Captain what you have been good enough to acquaint us with. Meanwhile we will give you every assistance, and—er—attention in our power."

A murmur of approbation ran through the little circle. Robert's face paled somewhat. What first-rate chaps they were, to be sure!

"I can only thank you," he said unsteadily. "Your kindness is more trying than adversity."

A rustle of silk, the intrusion into the intent knot of men of a young lady in a Paris gown, a Paris hat, carrying a Trouville parasol, and most exquisitely gloved and booted, made every one gasp.

"Oh, Robert dear, how could you? I actually didn't know you!"

Thus Iris, bewitchingly attired, and gazing now with provoking admiration at Robert, who certainly offered almost as great a contrast to his former state as did the girl herself. He returned her look with interest.

"Would any man believe," he laughed, "that clothes would do so much for a woman?"

"What a left-handed compliment! But come, dearest, Captain Fitzroy and Lord Ventnor have come ashore with father and me. They want us to show them everything! You will excuse him, won't you?" she added, with a seraphic smile to the others.

They walked off together.

"Jimmy!" gasped the fat midshipman to a lanky youth. "She's got on your togs!"

Meaning that Iris had ransacked the Orient's theatrical wardrobe, and pounced on the swell outfit of the principal female impersonator in the ship's company.

Lieutenant Playdon bit the chin strap of his pith helmet, for the landing party wore the regulation uniform for service ashore in the tropics. He muttered to his chief—

"Damme if I've got the hang of this business yet."

"Neither have I. Anstruther looks a decent sort of fellow, and the girl is a stunner. Yet, d'ye know, Playdon, right through the cruise I've always understood that she was the fiancee of that cad, Ventnor."

"Anstruther appears to have arranged matters differently. Wonder what pa will say when that Johnnie owns up about the court-martial."

"Give it up, which is more than the girl will do, or I'm much mistaken. Funny thing, you know, but I've a sort of hazy recollection of Anstruther's name being mixed up with that of a Colonel's wife at Hong Kong. Fancy Ventnor was in it too, as a witness. Stand by, and we'll see something before we unload at Singapore."



CHAPTER XVI

BARGAINS, GREAT AND SMALL

Lord Ventnor was no fool. Whilst Iris was transforming herself from a semi-savage condition into a semblance of an ultra chic Parisienne—the Orient's dramatic costumier went in for strong stage effects in feminine attire—Sir Arthur Deane told the Earl something of the state of affairs on the island.

His lordship—a handsome, saturnine man, cool, insolently polite, and plentifully endowed with the judgmatical daring that is the necessary equipment of a society libertine—counseled patience, toleration, even silent recognition of Anstruther's undoubted claims for services rendered.

"She is an enthusiastic, high-spirited girl," he urged upon his surprised hearer, who expected a very different expression of opinion. "This fellow Anstruther is a plausible sort of rascal, a good man in a tight place too—just the sort of fire-eating blackguard who would fill the heroic bill where a fight is concerned. Damn him, he licked me twice."

Further amazement for the shipowner.

"Yes, it's quite true. I interfered with his little games, and he gave me the usual reward of the devil's apothecary. Leave Iris alone. At present she is strung up to an intense pitch of gratitude, having barely escaped a terrible fate. Let her come back to the normal. Anstruther's shady record must gradually leak out. That will disgust her. In a week she will appeal to you to buy him off. He is hard up—cut off by his people and that sort of thing. There you probably have the measure of his scheming. He knows quite well that he can never marry your daughter. It is all a matter of price."

Sir Arthur willingly allowed himself to be persuaded. At the back of his head there was an uneasy consciousness that it was not "all a matter of price." If it were he would never trust a man's face again. But Ventnor's well-balanced arguments swayed him. The course indicated was the only decent one. It was humanly impossible for a man to chide his daughter and flout her rescuer within an hour of finding them.

Lord Ventnor played his cards with a deeper design. He bowed to the inevitable. Iris said she loved his rival. Very well. To attempt to dissuade her was to throw her more closely into that rival's arms. The right course was to appear resigned, saddened, compelled against his will to reveal the distressing truth. Further, he counted on Anstruther's quick temper as an active agent. Such a man would be the first to rebel against an assumption of pitying tolerance. He would bring bitter charges of conspiracy, of unbelievable compact to secure his ruin. All this must recoil on his own head when the facts were laid bare. Not even the hero of the island could prevail against the terrible indictment of the court-martial. Finally, at Singapore, three days distant, Colonel Costobell and his wife were staying. Lord Ventnor, alone of those on board, knew this. Indeed, he accompanied Sir Arthur Deane largely in order to break off a somewhat trying entanglement. He smiled complacently as he thought of the effect on Iris of Mrs. Costobell's indignant remonstrances when the baronet asked that injured lady to tell the girl all that had happened at Hong Kong.

In a word, Lord Ventnor was most profoundly annoyed, and he cursed Anstruther from the depths of his heart. But he could see a way out. The more desperate the emergency the more need to display finesse. Above all, he must avoid an immediate rupture.

He came ashore with Iris and her father; the captain of the Orient also joined the party. The three men watched Robert and the girl walking towards them from the group of officers.

"Anstruther is a smart-looking fellow," commented Captain Fitzroy. "Who is he?"

Truth to tell, the gallant commander of the Orient was secretly amazed by the metamorphosis effected in Robert's appearance since he scrutinized him through his glasses. Iris, too, unaccustomed to the constraint of high-heeled shoes, clung to the nondescript's arm in a manner that shook the sailor's faith in Lord Ventnor's pretensions as her favored suitor.

Poor Sir Arthur said not a word, but his lordship was quite at ease—

"From his name, and from what Deane tells me, I believe he is an ex-officer of the Indian Army."

"Ah. He has left the service?"

"Yes. I met him last in Hong Kong."

"Then you know him?"

"Quite well, if he is the man I imagine."

"That is really very nice of Ventnor," thought the shipowner. "The last thing I should credit him with would be a forgiving disposition."

Meanwhile Anstruther was reading Iris a little lecture. "Sweet one," he explained to her, "do not allude to me by my former rank. I am not entitled to it. Some day, please God, it will be restored to me. At present I am a plain civilian."

"I think you very handsome."

"Don't tease, there's a good girl. It is not fair with all these people looking."

"But really, Robert, only since you scraped off the upper crust have I been able to recognize you again. I remember now that I thought you were a most distinguished looking steward."

"Well, I am helpless. I cannot even squeeze you. By the way, Iris, during the next few days say nothing about our mine."

"Oh, why not?"

"Just a personal whim. It will please me."

"If it pleases you, Robert, I am satisfied."

He pressed her arm by way of answer. They were too near to the waiting trio for other comment.

"Captain Fitzroy," cried Iris, "let me introduce Mr. Anstruther to you. Lord Ventnor, you have met Mr. Anstruther before."

The sailor shook hands. Lord Ventnor smiled affably.

"Your enforced residence on the island seems to have agreed with you," he said.

"Admirably. Life here had its drawbacks, but we fought our enemies in the open. Didn't we, Iris?"

"Yes, dear. The poor Dyaks were not sufficiently modernized to attack us with false testimony."

His lordship's sallow face wrinkled somewhat. So Iris knew of the court-martial, nor was she afraid to proclaim to all the world that this man was her lover. As for Captain Fitzroy, his bushy eyebrows disappeared into his peaked cap when he heard the manner of their speech.

Nevertheless Ventnor smiled again.

"Even the Dyaks respected Miss Deane," he said.

But Anstruther, sorry for the manifest uneasiness of the shipowner, repressed the retort on his lips, and forthwith suggested that they should walk to the north beach in the first instance, that being the scene of the wreck.

During the next hour he became auditor rather than narrator. It was Iris who told of his wild fight against wind and waves, Iris who showed them where he fought with the devil-fish, Iris who expatiated on the long days of ceaseless toil, his dauntless courage in the face of every difficulty, the way in which he rescued her from the clutch of the savages, the skill of his preparations against the anticipated attack, and the last great achievement of all, when, time after time, he foiled the Dyaks' best-laid plans, and flung them off, crippled and disheartened, during the many phases of the thirty hours' battle.

She had an attentive audience. Most of the Orient's officers quietly came up and followed the girl's glowing recital with breathless interest. Robert vainly endeavored more than once to laugh away her thrilling eulogy. But she would have none of it. Her heart was in her words. He deserved this tribute of praise, unstinted, unmeasured, abundant in its simple truth, yet sounding like a legend spun by some romantic poet, were not the grim evidences of its accuracy visible on every hand.

She was so volubly clear, so precise in fact, so subtle in her clever delineations of humorous or tragic events, that her father was astounded, and even Anstruther silently admitted that a man might live until he equaled the years of a Biblical patriarch without discovering all the resources of a woman.

There were tears in her eyes when she ended; but they were tears of thankful happiness, and Lord Ventnor, a silent listener who missed neither word nor look, felt a deeper chill in his cold heart as he realized that this woman's love could never be his. The knowledge excited his passion the more. His hatred of Anstruther now became a mania, an insensate resolve to mortally stab this meddler who always stood in his path.

Robert hoped that his present ordeal was over. It had only begun. He was called on to answer questions without number. Why had the tunnel been made? What was the mystery of the Valley of Death? How did he manage to guess the dimensions of the sun-dial? How came he to acquire such an amazing stock of out-of-the-way knowledge of the edible properties of roots and trees? How? Why? Where? When? They never would be satisfied, for not even the British navypoking its nose into the recesses of the world—often comes across such an amazing story as the adventures of this couple on Rainbow Island.

He readily explained the creation of quarry and cave by telling them of the vein of antimony embedded in the rock near the fault. Antimony is one of the substances that covers a multitude of doubts. No one, not excepting the doctors who use it, knows much about it, and in Chinese medicine it might be a chief factor of exceeding nastiness.

Inside the cavern, the existence of the partially completed shaft to the ledge accounted for recent disturbances on the face of the rock, and new-comers could not, of course, distinguish the bones of poor "J.S." as being the remains of a European.

Anstruther was satisfied that none of them hazarded the remotest guess as to the value of the gaunt rock they were staring at, and chance helped him to baffle further inquiry.

A trumpeter on board the Orient was blowing his lungs out to summon them to luncheon, when Captain Fitzroy put a final query.

"I can quite understand," he said to Robert, "that you have an affection for this weird place."

"I should think so indeed," muttered the stout midshipman, glancing at Iris.

"But I am curious to know," continued the commander, "why you lay claim to the island? You can hardly intend to return here."

He pointed to Robert's placard stuck on the rock.

Anstruther paused before he answered. He felt that Lord Ventnor's dark eyes were fixed on him. Everybody was more or less desirous to have this point cleared up. He looked the questioner squarely in the face.

"In some parts of the world," he said, "there are sunken reefs, unknown, uncharted, on which many a vessel has been lost without any contributory fault on the part of her officers?"