stance between them and their late pursuers that all risk of
being overtaken was at an end.

All day they advanced inland without rest, save at the breakfast hour,
and again at mid-day to dine. Towards evening they observed that the
country through which they were passing had changed much in character
and aspect. The low and swampy region had given place to hillocks and
undulating ground, all covered with the beautiful virgin forest with its
palms and creepers and noble fruit-trees and rich vegetation,
conspicuous among which magnificent ferns of many kinds covered the
steep banks of the stream.

On rounding a point of the river the travellers came suddenly upon an
interesting group, in the midst of a most beautiful woodland scene.
Under the trees on a flat spot by the river-bank were seated round a
fire a man and a boy and a monkey. The monkey was a tame orang-utan,
youthful but large. The boy was a Dyak in light cotton drawers, with
the upper part of his body naked, brass rings on his arms, heavy
ornaments in his ears, and a bright kerchief worn as a turban on his
head. The man was a sort of nondescript in a semi-European shooting
garb, with a wide-brimmed sombrero on his head, black hair, a deeply
tanned face, a snub nose, huge beard and moustache, and immense blue
spectacles.

Something not unlike a cheer burst from the usually undemonstrative Van
der Kemp on coming in sight of the party, and he waved his hand as if in
recognition. The nondescript replied by starting to his feet, throwing
up both arms and giving vent to an absolute roar of joy.

"He seems to know you," remarked Nigel, as they made for a
landing-place.

"Yes. He is the friend I have come to rescue," replied the hermit in a
tone of quiet satisfaction. "He is a naturalist and lives with the
Rajah against whom the pirates are plotting."

"He don't look z'if he needs much rescuin'," remarked Moses with a
chuckle, as they drew to land.

The man looked in truth as if he were well able to take care of himself
in most circumstances, being of colossal bulk although somewhat short of
limb.

"Ah! mein frond! mine brodder!" he exclaimed, in fairly idiomatic
English, but with a broken pronunciation that was a mixture of Dutch,
American, and Malay. His language therefore, like himself, was
nondescript. In fact he was an American-born Dutchman, who had been
transported early in life to the Straits Settlements, had received most
of his education