t I took for a heap of clothes. At that
distance they seemed harmless enough, and, barring the strangeness of
the spot, might have been an ordinary party of islanders forming up for
a dance. But when, all of a sudden, the ring came to a standstill, and
a figure stepped out of it towards the bundle in the centre, my wits
came back to me, and I flung up both arms, shouting 'Aoodya! Aoodya!'

"She must have made three paces in the time my voice took to reach her.
She was close to the child. Then she halted and stood for a moment
gazing up at me. I saw something bright drop from her. And with that
she stooped, caught up the child, and was racing up the slope towards
us.

"'Steady!' muttered Hamid, as a man broke from the circle, plucked up
the knife from the sand and rushed after her. 'Steady!' he said again.

"Aoodya had a start of twenty yards or more, and in the first
half-minute she actually managed to better it. Hamid, beside me, rubbed
a bullet quickly on the rind of one of his lime-fruits and rammed it
home. He took an eternal time about it; and below, now, the man was
gaining. Unluckily their courses brought them into line, and twice the
old man cursed softly and lowered his piece.

"Flesh and blood could not stand this. I let out a groan and sprang
down the cliff. It was madness, and at the third step all foothold
slipped from under me; but my clutch was tight on a fistful of creepers,
and their tendrils were tough as a ship's rope. So down I went, now
touching earth, now fending off from the rock with my feet, now missing
hold and sprawling into a mass of leaves and roots, among which I
clutched wildly and checked myself by the first thing handy--until, with
the crack of Hamid's musket above, the vine, or whatever it was to which
I clung for the moment, gave way as if shorn by the bullet, and I
pitched a full twenty feet with a rush of loose earth and dust.

"I fell almost at the heels of Aoodya's enemy, upon a ledge along which
he was swiftly running her down. Hamid's bullet had missed him, and
before I could make the third in the chase he was forty yards ahead.
I saw his bare shoulders parting the creepers--threading their way in
and out like a bobbin, and jogging as the pace fell slower; for now we
were all three in difficulties. Perhaps Aoodya had missed the track; at
any rate the ledge we were now following grew shallower as it curved
over the corner of the beach and ran sheer over the water