e awning. "Yes, and I can feel the poles and oars. Why, this
is quite a narrow ditch, only just wide enough to hold it. I've got
hold of a rope, too. It's tied up to a cocoa-nut palm; I know the thing
by the feel."

"Yes; the boat," whispered Hamet.

"All right. Then now you know where your own boat is, Ned, and when you
are tired of us all, you can jump in and say `Good-bye.'"

"Or take you with us," said Ned. "I don't want to go away from you.
Not so ungrateful as you think. Oh, don't! You needn't hug me like
that. I say: don't act like a great girl. Ah, Ham--"

Then silence. For Ned felt, as he believed, his companion fling his
arms affectionately about him, and so roughly that he bore him back. He
felt the silken baju and sarong and the hilt of the kris against him,
and then he went down heavily. Frank was evidently playing him some
foolish trick, and he had clapped a hand now over his mouth to keep him
from making a noise, and betraying their whereabouts.

Then a horrible pang of fear ran through him, for there were smothered
sounds and scuffling going on close by, leaves cracked and stalks and
twigs snapped, and directly after the hand was removed, and he opened
his mouth to cry out, but something soft was thrust in, then a cloth was
dragged over his head, his arms were bound to his body, and he felt
himself lifted up, and carried by a couple of men.

"A piece of treachery," he thought. "And we trusted Hamet so. Poor
Frank! Is he being served the same?"

He got as far as that point, and then the heat and the oppression caused
by the gag so nearly stifled him that his brain grew confused; there was
a sensation of giddiness and a singing in his ears.

"They are choking me," he thought; and he made a desperate struggle to
get his hands to his lips, and then he remembered no more till he felt a
sensation of something cool being trickled between his lips. It tasted
bitter but pleasant, and in his half-insensible state he swallowed the
grateful beverage, and swallowed again and again.

Then forgetfulness stole over him once, and he knew no more, till he
opened his eyes and saw the level rays of the sun shining through the
open doorway on to the mats that formed the side of the room.

"Going to get up, uncle?" he said, and then he stared, for a couple of
dark faces were thrust in to stare at him, and as he looked quickly
round, he could not see the guns on the walls, nor his uncle's specimens