t would never disclose, not even to those that loved
it most. While he talked, Nina's head had been gradually sinking lower,
and her face almost touched his now. Her hair was over his eyes, her
breath was on his forehead, her arms were about his body. No two beings
could be closer to each other, yet she guessed rather than understood the
meaning of his last words that came out after a slight hesitation in a
faint murmur, dying out imperceptibly into a profound and significant
silence: "The sea, O Nina, is like a woman's heart."

She closed his lips with a sudden kiss, and answered in a steady voice--

"But to the men that have no fear, O master of my life, the sea is ever
true."

Over their heads a film of dark, thread-like clouds, looking like immense
cobwebs drifting under the stars, darkened the sky with the presage of
the coming thunderstorm. From the invisible hills the first distant
rumble of thunder came in a prolonged roll which, after tossing about
from hill to hill, lost itself in the forests of the Pantai. Dain and
Nina stood up, and the former looked at the sky uneasily.

"It is time for Babalatchi to be here," he said. "The night is more than
half gone. Our road is long, and a bullet travels quicker than the best
canoe."

"He will be here before the moon is hidden behind the clouds," said Nina.
"I heard a splash in the water," she added. "Did you hear it too?"

"Alligator," answered Dain shortly, with a careless glance towards the
creek. "The darker the night," he continued, "the shorter will be our
road, for then we could keep in the current of the main stream, but if it
is light--even no more than now--we must follow the small channels of
sleeping water, with nothing to help our paddles."

"Dain," interposed Nina, earnestly, "it was no alligator. I heard the
bushes rustling near the landing-place."

"Yes," said Dain, after listening awhile. "It cannot be Babalatchi, who
would come in a big war canoe, and openly. Those that are coming,
whoever they are, do not wish to make much noise. But you have heard,
and now I can see," he went on quickly. "It is but one man. Stand
behind me, Nina. If he is a friend he is welcome; if he is an enemy you
shall see him die."

He laid his hand on his kriss, and awaited the approach of his unexpected
visitor. The fire was burning very low, and small clouds--precursors of
the storm--crossed the face of the moon in rapid succession, and their
flyin