Part 22 (1/2)
”You are not hurt?” he gasped, his eyes blazing into her face with an intensity that she afterwards remembered as appalling.
”No,” she whispered.
”Listen,” he continued in labored jerks. ”Try and obey me--exactly. I will carry you--to the cave. Stop there. Shoot any one you see--till I come.”
She heard him wonderingly. Was he going to leave her, now that he had her safely clasped to his breast? Impossible! Ah, she understood. Those men must have landed in a boat. He intended to attack them again. He was going to fight them single-handed, and she would not know what happened to him until it was all over. Gradually her vitality returned.
She almost smiled at the fantastic conceit that _she_ would desert _him_.
Jenks placed her on her feet at the entrance to the cave.
”You understand,” he cried, and without waiting for an answer, ran to the house for another rifle. This time, to her amazement, he darted back through Prospect Park towards the south beach. The sailor knew that the Dyaks had landed at the sandy bay Iris had christened Smugglers' Cove. They were acquainted with the pa.s.sage through the reef and came from the distant islands. Now they would endeavor to escape by the same channel. They must be prevented at all costs.
He was right. As they came out into the open he saw three men, not two, pus.h.i.+ng off a large sampan. One of them, _mirabile dictu_, was the chief. Then Jenks understood that his bullet had hit the lock of the Dyak's uplifted weapon, with the result already described. By a miracle he had escaped.
He coolly prepared to slay the three of them with the same calm purpose that distinguished the opening phase of this singularly one-sided conflict. The distance was much greater, perhaps 800 yards from the point where the boat came into view. He knelt and fired. He judged that the missile struck the craft between the trio.
”I didn't allow for the sun on the side of the foresight,” he said. ”Or perhaps I am a bit shaky after the run. In any event they can't go far.”
A hurrying step on the coral behind him caught his ear. Instantly he sprang up and faced about--to see Iris.
”They are escaping,” she said.
”No fear of that,” he replied, turning away from her.
”Where are the others?”
”Dead!”
”Do you mean that you killed nearly all those men?”
”Six of them. There were nine in all.”
He knelt again, lifting the rifle. Iris threw herself on her knees by his side. There was something awful to her in this chill and business-like declaration of a fixed purpose.
”Mr. Jenks,” she said, clasping her hands in an agony of entreaty, ”do not kill more men for my sake!”
”For my own sake, then,” he growled, annoyed at the interruption, as the sampan was afloat.
”Then I ask you for G.o.d's sake not to take another life. What you have already done was unavoidable, perhaps right. This is murder!”
He lowered his weapon and looked at her.
”If those men get away they will bring back a host to avenge their comrades--and secure you,” he added.
”It may be the will of Providence for such a thing to happen. Yet I implore you to spare them.”
He placed the rifle on the sand and raised her tenderly, for she had yielded to a paroxysm of tears. Not another word did either of them speak in that hour. The large triangular sail of the sampan was now bellying out in the south wind. A figure stood up in the stern of the boat and shook a menacing arm at the couple on the beach.