st.

It was easy to see what had happened. The Dyaks, having missed the
Mahommedan and their water-bag, searched for him and heard the
conversation at the foot of the rock. Knowing that their presence was
suspected, they went back for reinforcements, and returned by the
shorter and more advantageous route along Turtle Beach.

Iris would have talked all night, but Jenks made her go to sleep, by
pillowing her head against his shoulder and smoothing her tangled
tresses with his hand. The wine, too, was helpful. In a few minutes her
voice became dreamy: soon she was sleeping like a tired child.

He managed to lay her on a comfortable pile of ragged clothing and then
resumed his vigil. Mir Jan offered to mount guard beneath, but Jenks
bade him go within the cave and remain there, for the dawn would soon
be upon them.

Left alone with his thoughts, he wondered what the rising sun would
bring in its train. He reviewed the events of the last twenty-four
hours. Iris and he--Miss Deane, Mr. Jenks, to each other--were then
undiscovered in their refuge, the Dyaks were gathered around a roaring
fire in the valley, and Mir Jan was keen in the hunt as the keenest
among them. Now, Iris was his affianced bride, over twenty of the enemy
were killed and many wounded, and Mir Jan, a devoted adherent, was
seated beside the skeleton in the gloom of the cavern.

What a topsy-turvy world it was, to be sure! What alternations between
despair and hope! What rebound from the gates of Death to the threshold
of Eden! How untrue, after all, was the nebulous philosophy of Omar,
the Tentmaker. Surely in the happenings of the bygone day there was
more than the purposeless

"Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go."

He had, indeed, cause to be humbly thankful. Was there not One who
marked the fall of a sparrow, who clothed the lilies, who knew the
needs of His creatures? There, in the solemn temple of the night, he
gave thanks for the protection vouchsafed to Iris and himself, and
prayed that it might be continued. He deplored the useless bloodshed,
the horror of mangled limbs and festering bodies, that converted this
fair island into a reeking slaughter-house. Were it possible, by any
personal sacrifice, to divert the untutored savages from their deadly
quest, he would gladly condone their misdeeds and endeavor to assuage
the torments of the wounded.

But he was