The Wings of the Morning Part 23

"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.

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

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

The very fury of the external turmoil acted as a lullaby to the girl.

She was soon asleep, and the sailor was left to his thoughts.

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

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

This, he felt certain, would take place at night. The Dyaks would land in force, rush the cave and hut, and overpower him by sheer numbers.

The fight, if fight there was, would be sharp, but decisive. Perhaps, if he received some warning, Iris and he might retreat in the darkness to the cover of the trees. A last stand could be made among the boulders on Summit Rock. But of what avail to purchase their freedom until daylight? And then----

If ever man wrestled with desperate problem, Jenks wrought that night.

He smoked and pondered until the storm pa.s.sed, and, with the changefulness of a poet's muse, a full moon flooded the island in glorious radiance. He rose, opened the door, and stood without, listening for a little while to the roaring of the surf and the crash of the broken coral swept from reef and sh.o.r.e by the backwash.

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

Pleased with the conceit, he looked steadily at the brilliant luminary for some time. Then his eyes were attracted by the strong lights thrown upon the rugged face of the precipice into which the cavern burrowed.

Unconsciously relieving his tired senses, he was idly wondering what trick of color Turner would have adopted to convey those sharp yet weirdly beautiful contrasts, when suddenly he uttered a startled exclamation.

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

The feature which so earnestly claimed his attention was a deep ledge, directly over the mouth of the cave, but some forty feet from the ground. Behind it the wall of rock sloped darkly inwards, suggesting a recess extending by haphazard computation at least a couple of yards.

It occurred to him that perhaps the fault in the interior of the tunnel had its outcrop here, and the deodorizing influences of rain and sun had extended the weak point thus exposed in the bold panoply of stone.

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

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

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

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

"Yes; but why did you arouse them?"

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

"Please be serious."

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

"But why do you keep on climbing?"

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

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