of the lake.
A jungle tree leaned out here, with a clear drop of a hundred feet.
As I closed on my man, he swerved and began to clamber out along the
trunk; and over his shoulder I saw Aoodya, with the babe in the crick of
her arm, upon a bough which swayed and sank beneath her.

"I clutched at his ankle. He reached back with a hiss of his breath and
jabbed his knife down on my left hand, cutting across the two middle
fingers and pinning me through the small bones to the trunk. I tell
you, sir, I scarcely felt it. My right went down to my waist and pulled
out the _kris_ there. He was the man I had caught within the verandah
three days before; these were the same eyes shining, like a cat's, back
into mine, and what I had promised him then I gave him now. But it was
Hamid who killed him. For as my _kris_ went into the flank of him,
above the hip, Hamid's second shot cut down through his neck. His face
at the moment rested sideways against the branch, and I suppose the
bullet passed through to the bough and cost me Aoodya. For as the
Berbalang fell, the bough seemed to rip away from where his cheek had
rested, and Aoodya, with my child in her arms, swung back under my feet
and dropped like a stone into the lake.

"I can't tell you, sir, how long I lay stretched out along that trunk,
with the Berbalang's knife still pinned through my hand. I was staring
down into the water. Aoodya and my child never rose again; but the
Berbalang came to the surface at once and floated, bobbing for a while
on the ripple, his head thrown back, his brown chest shining up at me,
and the blood spreading on the water around it.

"It was Hamid who unpinned me and led me away. He had made shift to
climb down, and while binding up my wounded hand pointed towards the
beach. It was empty. The crowd of Berbalangs had disappeared.

"He found the track which Aoodya had missed, and as he led me up and out
of the crater I heard him talking--talking. I suppose he was trying to
comfort me--he was a good fellow; but at the top I turned on him, and
'Master,' I said, 'you have tried to do me much kindness, but to-day I
have bought my quittance.' With that I left him standing and walked
straight over the brow of the hill. I never looked behind me until I
reached the Spaniards' compound, and called out at the gate to be let
pass.

"Captain Marquinez was lying in a hammock in the cool of his verandah
when the gate-keeper took me to him. He w