The Wings of the Morning Part 37

Taung S'Ali seemed to comprehend the Englishman's emphatic motions.

Waving his hand defiantly, the Dyak turned, and, with one parting glance of mute a.s.surance, the Indian followed him.

And now there came to Jenks a great temptation. Iris touched his arm and whispered--

"What have you decided? I did not dare to speak lest he should hear my voice."

Poor girl! She was sure the Dyak could not penetrate her disguise, though she feared from the manner in which the conference broke up that it had not been satisfactory.

Jenks did not answer her. He knew that if he killed Taung S'Ali his men would be so dispirited that when the night came they would fly. There was so much at stake--Iris, wealth, love, happiness, life itself--all depended on his plighted word. Yet his savage enemy, a slayer of women, a human vampire soiled with every conceivable crime, was stalking back to safety with a certain dignified strut, calmly trusting to the white man's bond.

Oh, it was cruel! The ordeal of that ghastly moment was more trying than all that he had hitherto experienced. He gave a choking sob of relief when the silken-clad scoundrel pa.s.sed out of sight without even deigning to give another glance at the ledge or at those who silently watched him.

Iris could not guess the nature of the mortal struggle raging in the sailor's soul.

"Tell me," she repeated, "what have you done?"

"Kept faith with that swaggering ruffian," he said, with an odd feeling of thankfulness that he spoke truly.

"Why? Have you made him any promise?"

"Unhappily I permitted him to come here, so I had to let him go. He recognized you instantly."

This surprised her greatly.

"Are you sure? I saw him pointing at me, but he seemed to be in such a bad temper that I imagined that he was angry with you for exchanging a prepossessing young lady for an ill-favored youth."

Jenks with difficulty suppressed a sigh. Her words for an instant had the old piquant flavor.

Keeping a close watch on the sheltering promontory, he told her all that had taken place. Iris became very downcast when she grasped the exact state of affairs. She was almost certain when the Dyaks proposed a parley that reasonable terms would result. It horrified her beyond measure to find that she was the rock on which negotiations were wrecked. Hope died within her. The bitterness of death was in her breast.

"What an unlucky influence I have had on your existence!" she exclaimed. "If it were not for me this trouble at least would be spared you. Because I am here you are condemned. Again, because I stopped you from shooting that wretched chief and his companions they are now demanding your life as a forfeit. It is all my fault. I cannot bear it."

She was on the verge of tears. The strain had become too great for her.

After indulging in a wild dream of freedom, to be told that they must again endure the irksome confinement, the active suffering, the slow horrors of a siege in that rocky prison, almost distracted her.

Jenks was very stern and curt in his reply.

"We must make the best of a bad business," he said. "If we are in a tight place the Dyaks are not much better off, and eighteen of their number are dead or wounded. You forget, too, that Providence has sent us a most useful ally in the Mahommedan. When all is said and done, things might be far worse than they are."

Never before had his tone been so cold, his manner so abrupt, not even in the old days when he purposely endeavored to make her dislike him.

She walked along the ledge and timidly bent over him.

"Forgive me!" she whispered; "I did forget for the moment, not only the goodness of Providence, but also your self-sacrificing devotion. I am only a woman, and I don't want to die yet, but I will not live unless you too are saved."

Once already that day she had expressed this thought in other words.

Was some shadowy design flitting through her brain? Suppose they were faced with the alternatives of dying from thirst or yielding to the Dyaks. Was there another way out? Jenks shivered, though the rock was grilling him. He must divert her mind from this dreadful brooding.

"The fact is," he said with a feeble attempt at cheerfulness, "we are both hungry and consequently grumpy. Now, suppose you prepare lunch. We will feel ever so much better after we have eaten."

The girl choked back her emotion, and sadly essayed the task of providing a meal which was hateful to her. In doing so she saw her Bible, lying where she had placed it that morning, the leaves still open at the 91st Psalm. She had indeed forgotten the promise it contained--

"For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways."

A few tears fell now and made little furrows down her soiled cheeks.

But they were helpful tears, tears of resignation, not of despair.

Although the "destruction that wasteth at noonday" was trying her sorely she again felt strong and sustained.

She even smiled on detecting an involuntary effort to clear her stained face. She was about to carry a biscuit and some tinned meat to the sailor when a sharp exclamation from him caused her to hasten to his side.

The Dyaks had broken cover. Running in scattered sections across the sands, they were risking such loss as the defenders might be able to inflict upon them during a brief race to the shelter and food to be obtained in the other part of the island.

Jenks did not fire at the scurrying gang. He was waiting for one man, Taung S'Ali. But that redoubtable person, having probably suggested this dash for liberty, had fully realized the enviable share of attention he would attract during the pa.s.sage. He therefore discarded his vivid attire, and, by borrowing odd garments, made himself sufficiently like unto the remainder of his crew to deceive the sailor until the rush of men was over. Among them ran the Mahommedan, who did not look up the valley but waved his hand.

When all had quieted down again Jenks understood how he had been fooled. He laughed so heartily that Iris, not knowing either the cause of his merriment or the reason of his unlooked-for clemency to the flying foe, feared the sun had affected him.

He at once quitted the post occupied during so protracted a vigil.

"Now," he cried, "we can eat in peace. I have stripped the chief of his finery. His men can twit him on being forced to shed his gorgeous plumage in order to save his life. Anyhow, they will leave us in peace until night falls, so we must make the best of a hot afternoon."

But he was mistaken. A greater danger than any yet experienced now threatened them, though Iris, after perusing that wonderful psalm, might have warned him of it had she known the purpose of those long bamboos carried by some of the savages.

For Taung S'Ali, furious and unrelenting, resolved that if he could not obtain the girl he would slay the pair of them; and he had terrible weapons in his possession--weapons that could send "silent death even to the place where they stood."

CHAPTER XIII

REALITY _V_. ROMANCE--THE CASE FOR THE DEFENDANT

Residents in tropical countries know that the heat is greatest, or certainly least bearable, between two and four o'clock in the afternoon.

At the conclusion of a not very luscious repast, Jenks suggested that they should rig up the tarpaulin in such wise as to gain protection from the sun and yet enable him to cast a watchful eye over the valley.

Iris helped to raise the great canvas sheet on the supports he had prepared. Once shut off from the devouring sun rays, the hot breeze then springing into fitful existence cooled their blistered but perspiring skin and made life somewhat tolerable.

Still adhering to his policy of combatting the first enervating attacks of thirst, the sailor sanctioned the consumption of the remaining water. As a last desperate expedient, to be resorted to only in case of sheer necessity, he uncorked a bottle of champagne and filled the tin cup. The sparkling wine, with its volume of creamy foam, looked so tempting that Iris would then and there have risked its potency were she not promptly withheld.

Jenks explained to her that when the wine became quite flat and insipid they might use it to moisten their parched lips. Even so, in their present super-heated state, the liquor was unquestionably dangerous, but he hoped it would not harm them if taken in minute quant.i.ties.

Accustomed now to implicitly accept his advice, she fought and steadily conquered the craving within her. Oddly enough, the "thawing" of their scorched bodies beneath the tarpaulin brought a certain degree of relief. They were supremely uncomfortable, but that was as naught compared with the relaxation from the torments previously borne.

For a long time--the best part of an hour, perhaps--they remained silent.

The sailor was reviewing the pros and cons of their precarious condition. It would, of course, be a matter of supreme importance were the Indian to be faithful to his promise. Here the prospect was decidedly hopeful. The man was an old _sowar_, and the ex-officer of native cavalry knew how enduring was the attachment of this poor convict to home and military service. Probably at that moment the Mahommedan was praying to the Prophet and his two nephews to aid him in rescuing the sahib and the woman whom the sahib held so dear, for the all-wise and all-powerful Sirkar is very merciful to offending natives who thus condone their former crimes.

But, howsoever willing he might be, what could one man do among so many? The Dyaks were hostile to him in race and creed, and a.s.suredly infuriated against the foreign devil who had killed or wounded, in round numbers, one-fifth of their total force. Very likely, the hapless Mussulman would lose his life that night in attempting to bring water to the foot of the rock.