fireflies that made the night luminous, and my ears
to the low, musical chant that arose fitfully from among my Malay
servants on the stern.

The Sikhs were big, massive fellows, fully six feet tall, with towering
red turbans that accentuated their height fully a foot.

They were regular artillery-men from Fort Canning, and had seen
service all over India.

They had not been in Singapore long enough to become acquainted
with the Malay language or character, but they knew their duty,
and I trusted to their military training rather than to my Malay's
superior knowledge for our safety during the night.

I found out later that the cunning in Baboo's small brown finger was
worth all the precision and drill in the Sikh sergeant's great body.

I fell asleep at last, lulled by the tenderly crooned promises of
the Koran, and the drowsy, intermittent prattle of the monkeys among
the varnished leaves above. The night was intensely hot; not a breath
of air could stir within our living-cabin, and the cooling moisture
which always comes with nightfall on the equator was lapped up by the
thirsty fronds above our heads, so that I had not slept many hours
before I awoke dripping with perspiration, and faint.

There was an impression in my mind that I had been awakened by the
falling of glass.

The Sikh saluted silently as I stepped out on the deck.

It lacked some hours of daylight, and there was nothing to do but go
back to my bed, vowing never again to camp for the night along the
steaming shores of a jungle-covered stream.

I slept but indifferently; I missed the cooling swish of the punkah,
and all through my dreams the crackle and breaking of glass seemed
to mingle with the insistent buzz of the tiger-gnats.

Baboo's diminutive form kept flitting between me and the fireflies.

The first half-lights of morning were struggling down through the
green canopy above when I was brought to my feet by the discharge of
a Winchester and a long, shrill cry of fright and pain.

Before I could disentangle myself from the meshes of the mosquito net
I could see dimly a dozen naked forms drop lightly on to the deck
from the obscurity of the bank, followed in each case by a long,
piercing scream of pain.

I snatched up my revolver and rushed out on to the deck in my bare
feet.

Some one grasped me by the shoulder and shouted:--

"Jaga biak, biak, Tuan (be careful, Tuan), pirates!"

I recognized Aboo Din's voice, and I checked mys