by one
swift decision. The guides suddenly ran back, chattered volubly and
murmuringly together, then stepped aside, waved Rolfe forward with a
warning of caution, and joined their fellows who had been carrying
their guns for them.

Rolfe parted the thicket, peered through, swore fiercely under his
breath and didn't apologize for it. He beckoned Blunt, and that dour old
salt squinted at the sight that had staggered the mate. Natalie stepped
softly beside them and gazed over their stooping backs, to swiftly step
back with a choking sob of horror.

"Navy party all right!" gritted Rolfe, squirming in every inch of his
skin with the tremendous responsibility confronting him. None knew
better than he what the consequences must be of attacking a party of
Government sailors. But the sight he saw--the sounds he heard!

He looked out across a wide circle of sward, dotted with hummocks of
brown earth. The trees surrounding it held fruit of Nero's kind. To each
trunk a writhing, moaning _Barang_ seaman was lashed, his face and body
smeared with sticky stuff that was alive with crawling ants. A man
squirmed and whimpered within five feet of Jerry Rolfe's eyes; the havoc
of those busy insects was only too horribly apparent.

And on two of the brown hummocks, spread-eagled with vine ropes that cut
deep into wrists and ankles, lay Barry and Little, grimly silent as to
complaint, but with the haze of gnawing terror in their eyes. Their
bodies swarmed with scurrying life; the heat had melted the native sugar
on their naked skin until it had run in sticky rivulets to every part
of their tortured bodies. Under the heaving multitude at Barry's throat,
blood was trickling; an awful hint of a frightful end not far away.

Lounging at their ease, smoking or eating, lay a party of men in naval
uniforms, three of them white men, the rest native Celebes. They chatted
and laughed together with callous indifference for their captives'
agonies; and at these white men--officers, by their dress--Rolfe found
Bill Blunt glaring with eyes that were puzzled at first, then blazing
with fury.

"Mr. Rolfe, pile into 'em!" the old salt growled hoarsely. "Give 'em
hell an' blazes. Them ain't no more Dutch Navy men than you be! Gawd!
Ain't I manned gangway fer th' Hollanders offen enough to know 'em? Them
swine is fakers!"

Old Bill moistened his palm again, charged his rifle under his coat, and
got on his toes waiting for the mate's word. Rolfe needed