He could not pierce the future, and it was useless to vex his soul with
questionings as to what might happen next week. The great certainty of
the hour was Iris--the blue-eyed, smiling divinity who had come into
his life--waiting for him down there beyond the trees, waiting to
welcome him with a sweet-voiced greeting; and he knew, with a fierce
devouring joy, that her cheek would not pale nor her lip tremble when
he announced that at least another sun must set before the expected
relief reached them.
He replaced the glasses in their case and dived into the wood, giving a
passing thought to the fact that the wind, after blowing steadily from
the south for nearly a week, had veered round to the north-east during
the night. Did the change portend a storm? Well, they were now prepared
for all such eventualities, and he had not forgotten that they
possessed, among other treasures, a box of books for rainy days. And a
rainy day with Iris for company! What gale that ever blew could offer
such compensation for enforced idleness?
The morning sped in uneventful work. Iris did not neglect her cherished
pitcher-plant. After luncheon it was her custom now to carry a dishful
of water to its apparently arid roots, and she rose to fulfil her
self-imposed task.
"Let me help you," said Jenks. "I am not very busy this afternoon."
"No, thank you. I simply won't allow you to touch that shrub. The dear
thing looks quite glad to see me. It drinks up the water as greedily as
a thirsty animal."
"Even a cabbage has a heart, Miss Deane."
She laughed merrily. "I do believe you are offering me a compliment,"
she said. "I must indeed have found favor in your eyes."
He had schooled himself to resist the opening given by this class of
retort, so he turned to make some corrections in the scale of the
sun-dial he had constructed, aided therein by daily observations with
the sextant left by the former inhabitant of the cave.
Iris had been gone perhaps five minutes when he heard a distant shriek,
twice repeated, and then there came faintly to his ears his own name,
not "Jenks," but "Robert," in the girl's voice. Something terrible had
happened. It was a cry of supreme distress. Mortal agony or
overwhelming terror alone could wring that name from her lips.
Precisely in such moments this man acted with the decision, the
unerring judgment, the instantaneous acceptance of great risk to
accomplish great results, that marked him out as a born soldier.
He rushed into the house and snatched from the rifle-rack one of the
six Lee-Metfords reposing there in apple-pie order, each with a filled
magazine attached and a cartridge already in position.
Then he ran, with long swift strides, not through the trees, where he
could see nothing, but towards the beach, whence, in forty yards, the
place where Iris probably was would become visible.
At once he saw her, struggling in the grasp of two ferocious-looking
Dyaks, one, by his garments, a person of consequence, the other a
half-naked savage, hideous and repulsive in appearance. Around them
seven men, armed with guns and parangs, were dancing with excitement.
Iris's captors were endeavoring to tie her arms, but she was a strong
and active Englishwoman, with muscles well knit by the constant labor
of recent busy days and a frame developed by years of horse-riding and
tennis-playing. The pair evidently found her a tough handful, and the
inferior Dyak, either to stop her screams--for she was shrieking
"Robert, come to me!" with all her might--or to stifle her into
submission, roughly placed his huge hand over her mouth.
These things the sailor noticed instantly. Some men, brave to rashness,
ready as he to give his life to save her, would have raced madly over
the intervening ground, scarce a furlong, and attempted a heroic combat
of one against nine.
Not so Jenks.
With the methodical exactness of the parade-ground he settled down on
one knee and leveled the rifle. At that range the Lee-Metford bullet
travels practically point-blank. Usually it is deficient in "stopping"
power, but he had provided against this little drawback by notching all
the cartridges in the six rifles after the effective manner devised by
an expert named Thomas Atkins during the Tirah campaign.
None of the Dyaks saw him. All were intent on the sensational prize
they had secured, a young and beautiful white woman so contentedly
roaming about the shores of this Fetish island. With the slow speed
advised by the Roman philosopher, the backsight and foresight of the
Lee-Metford came into line with the breast of the coarse brute
clutching the girl's face.
Then something bit him above the heart and simultaneously tore half of
his back into fragments. He fell, with a queer sob, and the others
turned to face this unexpected danger.
Iris, knowing only that she was free from that hateful grasp, wrenched
herself free from the chief's hold, and ran with all her might along
the beach, to Jenks and safety.
Again, and yet again, the rifle gave its short, sharp snarl, and two
more Dyaks collapsed on the sand. Six were left, their leader being
still unconsciously preserved from death by the figure of the flying
girl.
A fourth Dyak dropped.
The survivors, cruel savages but not cowards, unslung their guns. The
sailor, white-faced, grim, with an unpleasant gleam in his deep-set
eyes and a lower jaw protruding, noticed their preparations.
"To the left!" he shouted. "Run towards the trees!"
Iris heard him and strove to obey. But her strength was failing her,
and she staggered blindly. After a few despairing efforts she lurched
feebly to her knees, and tumbled face downwards on the broken coral
that had tripped her faltering footsteps.
Jenks was watching her, watching the remaining Dyaks, from whom a
spluttering volley came, picking out his quarry with the murderous ease
of a terrier in a rat-pit. Something like a bee in a violent hurry
hummed past his ear, and a rock near his right foot was struck a
tremendous blow by an unseen agency. He liked this. It would be a
battle, not a battue.
The fifth Dyak crumpled into the distortion of death, and then their
leader took deliberate aim at the kneeling marksman who threatened to
wipe him and his band out of existence. But his deliberation, though
skilful, was too profound. The sailor fired first, and was
professionally astonished to see the gaudily attired individual tossed
violently backward for many yards, finally pitching headlong to the
earth. Had he been charged by a bull in full career he could not have
been more utterly discomfited. The incident was sensational but
inexplicable.
Yet another member of the band was prostrated ere the two as yet
unscathed thought fit to beat a retreat. This they now did with
celerity, but they dragged their chief with them. It was no part of
Jenks's programme to allow them to escape. He aimed again at the man
nearest the trees. There was a sharp click and nothing more. The
cartridge was a mis-fire. He hastily sought to eject it, and the rifle
jammed. These little accidents will happen, even in a good weapon like
the Lee-Metford.
Springing to his feet with a yell he ran forward. The flying men caught
a glimpse of him and accelerated their movements. Just as he reached
Iris they vanished among the trees.
Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he picked up the girl in his
arms. She was conscious, but breathless.
"You are not hurt?" he gasped, his eyes blazing into her face with an
intensity that she afterwards remembered as appalling.
"No," she whispered.
"Listen," he continued in labored jerks. "Try and obey me--exactly. I
will carry you--to the cave. Stop there. Shoot any one you see--till I
come."
She heard him wonderingly. Was he going to leave her, now that he had
her safely clasped to his breast? Impossible! Ah, she understood. Those
men must have landed in a boat. He intended to attack them again. He
was going to fight them single-handed, and she would not know what
happened to him until it was all over. Gradually her vitality returned.
She almost smiled at the fantastic conceit that she would desert
him.
Jenks placed her on her feet at the entrance to the cave.
"You understand," he cried, and without waiting for an answer, ran to
the house for another rifle. This time, to her amazement, he darted
back through Prospect Park towards the south beach. The sailor knew
that the Dyaks had landed at the sandy bay Iris had christened
Smugglers' Cove. They were acquainted with the passage through the reef
and came from the distant islands. Now they would endeavor to escape by
the same channel. They must be prevented at all costs.
He was right. As they came out into the open he saw three men, not two,
pushing off a large sampan. One of them, mirabile dictu, was the
chief. Then Jenks understood that his bullet had hit the lock of the
Dyak's uplifted weapon, with the result already described. By a miracle
he had escaped.
He coolly prepared to slay the three of them with the same calm purpose
that distinguished the opening phase of this singularly one-sided
conflict. The distance was much greater, perhaps 800 yards from the
point where the boat came into view. He knelt and fired. He judged that
the missile struck the craft between the trio.
"I didn't allow for the sun on the side of the foresight," he said. "Or
perhaps I am a bit shaky after the run. In any event they can't go
far."
A hurrying step on the coral behind him caught his ear. Instantly he
sprang up and faced about--to see Iris.
"They are escaping," she said.
"No fear of that," he replied, turning away from her.
"Where are the others?"
"Dead!"
"Do you mean that you killed nearly all those men?"
"Six of them. There were nine in all."
He knelt again, lifting the rifle. Iris threw herself on her knees by
his side. There was something awful to her in this chill and
business-like declaration of a fixed purpose.
"Mr. Jenks," she said, clasping her hands in an agony of entreaty, "do
not kill more men for my sake!"
"For my own sake, then," he growled, annoyed at the interruption, as
the sampan was afloat.
"Then I ask you for God's sake not to take another life. What you have
already done was unavoidable, perhaps right. This is murder!"
He lowered his weapon and looked at her.
"If those men get away they will bring back a host to avenge their
comrades--and secure you," he added.
"It may be the will of Providence for such a thing to happen. Yet I
implore you to spare them."
He placed the rifle on the sand and raised her tenderly, for she had
yielded to a paroxysm of tears. Not another word did either of them
speak in that hour. The large triangular sail of the sampan was now
bellying out in the south wind. A figure stood up in the stern of the
boat and shook a menacing arm at the couple on the beach.
It was the Malay chief, cursing them with the rude eloquence of his
barbarous tongue. And Jenks well knew what he was saying.