l through the
night, and this protracted vigil upon his feet (for he was afraid to lie
down) exhausted him. When the first spectral gray of dawn began to work
its magic through the forest, his legs were trembling so that he could
hardly stand. When the first pink rays crept in beneath the rock, he
sank down and lay for half an hour, not sleeping, but resting. Then he
got up and resumed his homeward journey, very hungry, but too desperate
with chill and homesickness to stop and eat.

He had travelled perhaps a mile, when he caught the sound of heavy,
careless footsteps, and stopped. Staring anxiously through the trees, he
saw a woodsman striding along the trail, with an axe over his shoulder.
At sight of one of those beings that stood to him for protection, and
kindly guidance, and shelter, his terror and loneliness all slipped
away. He gave a shrill, loud whinny of delight, galloped forward with
much crashing of underbrush, and snuggled a coaxing muzzle under the arm
of the astonished woodsman.

The Terror of the Sea Caves

I

It was in Singapore that big Jan Laurvik, the diver, heard about the
lost pearls.

As he was passing the head of a mean-looking alley near the waterside,
late one sweltering afternoon, he was halted by a sudden uproar of cries
and curses. The noise came from a courtyard about twenty paces up the
alley. It was a fight, evidently, and Jan's blood responded with a
sympathetic thrill. But the curses which he caught were all in Malay or
Chinese, and he curbed his natural desire to rush in and help somebody.
Though he knew both languages very well, he knew that he did not know,
and never could know, the people who spoke those languages. Interference
on the part of a stranger might be resented by both parties to the
quarrel. He shrugged his great shoulders, and walked on reluctantly.

Hardly three steps had he taken, however, when above the shrill cries a
great voice shouted.

"Take that, you damned--" it began, in English. And at that it ended,
with a kind of choking.

Jan Laurvik wheeled round in a flash and ran furiously for the door of
the courtyard, which stood half-open. He was a Norwegian, but English
was as a native tongue to him; and amid the jumble of races in the East
he counted all of European speech his brothers. An Englishman was being
killed in there. The quarrel was clearly his.

Six feet two in height, swift, and of huge strength, with yellow hair,
so light as to be a