Part 23 (1/2)
”I can quite believe it,” she retorted. ”_Your_ case is very different. _I_ knew the men would not hurt me--after the first shock of their appearance had pa.s.sed, I mean--I also knew that you would save me. But you, Mr. Jenks, had to do the fighting. You were called upon to rescue precious me. Good gracious! No wonder you were excited.”
The sailor mentally expressed his inability to grasp the complexities of feminine nature, but Iris rattled on----
”I carried my tin of water to the pitcher-plant, and was listening to the greedy roots gurgling away for dear life, when suddenly four men sprang out from among the trees and seized my arms before I could reach my revolver.”
”Thank Heaven you failed.”
”You think that if I had fired at them they would have retaliated. Yes, especially if I had hit the chief. But it was he who instantly gave some order, and I suppose it meant that they were not to hurt me. As a matter of fact, they seemed to be quite as much astonished as I was alarmed. But if they could hold my hands they could not stop my voice so readily. Oh! didn't I yell?”
”You did.”
”I suppose you could not hear me distinctly?”
”Quite distinctly.”
”Every word?”
”Yes.”
She bent to pick some leaves and bits of dry gra.s.s from her dress.
”Well, you know,” she continued rapidly, ”in such moments one cannot choose one's words. I just shouted the first thing that came into my head.”
”And I,” he said, ”picked up the first rifle I could lay hands on. Now, Miss Deane, as the affair has ended so happily, may I venture to ask you to remain in the cave until I return?”
”Oh, please--” she began.
”Really, I must insist. I would not leave you if it were not quite imperative. You _cannot_ come with me.”
Then she understood one at least of the tasks he must perform, and she meekly obeyed.
He thought it best to go along Turtle Beach to the cove, and thence follow the Dyaks' trail through the wood, as this line of advance would entail practically a complete circuit of the island. He omitted no precautions in his advance. Often he stopped and listened intently.
Whenever he doubled a point or pa.s.sed among the trees he crept back and peered along the way he had come, to see if any lurking foes were breaking shelter behind him.
The marks on the sand proved that only one sampan had been beached.
Thence he found nothing of special interest until he came upon the chief's gun, lying close to the trees on the north side. It was a very ornamental weapon, a muzzle-loader. The stock was inlaid with gold and ivory, and the piece had evidently been looted from some mandarin's junk surprised and sacked in a former foray.
The lock was smashed by the impact of the Lee-Metford bullet, but close investigation of the trigger-guard, and the discovery of certain unmistakable evidences on the beach, showed that the Dyak leader had lost two if not three fingers of his right hand.
”So he has something more than his pa.s.sion to nurse,” mused Jenks.
”That at any rate is fortunate. He will be in no mood for further enterprise for some time to come.”
He dreaded lest any of the Dyaks should be only badly wounded and likely to live. It was an actual relief to his nerves to find that the improvised Dum-dums had done their work too well to permit anxiety on that score. On the principle that a ”dead Injun is a good Injun” these Dyaks were good Dyaks.
He gathered the guns, swords and krisses of the slain, with all their uncouth belts and ornaments. In pursuance of a vaguely defined plan of future action he also divested some of the men of their coa.r.s.e garments, and collected six queer-looking hats, shaped like inverted basins. These things he placed in a heap near the pitcher-plants.
Thenceforth, for half an hour, the placid surface of the lagoon was disturbed by the black dorsal fins of many sharks.
To one of the sailor's temperament there was nothing revolting in the concluding portion of his task. He had a G.o.d-given right to live. It was his paramount duty, remitted only by death itself, to endeavor to save Iris from the indescribable fate from which no power could rescue her if ever she fell into the hands of these vindictive savages.
Therefore it was war between him and them, war to the bitter end, war with no humane mitigation of its horrors and penalties, the last dread arbitrament of man forced to adopt the methods of the tiger.