“He was making for a thick patch of jungle between us and the sea, and though I had run at least a mile out of the way I soon began to overhaul him.  But long before I reached the clump he had found an opening in it and dived out of sight, and I overtook him only when the growth thinned suddenly by the edge of a crater, plunging down to a lake so exactly like Sinquan that I had to look about me and take my bearings before making sure that this was another, and one I had never yet seen.

“I caught him by the arm, and we peered down the slope together.  At the foot of it, and by the edge of the lake, there ran a strip of white beach; and there, and almost directly below us, were gathered the Berbalangs.

“They were moving and pushing into place in a sort of circle around a small bundle which at first sight I took for a heap of clothes.  At that distance they seemed harmless enough, and, barring the strangeness of the spot, might have been an ordinary party of islanders forming up for a dance.  But when, all of a sudden, the ring came to a standstill, and a figure stepped out of it towards the bundle in the centre, my wits came back to me, and I flung up both arms, shouting ‘Aoodya!  Aoodya!’

“She must have made three paces in the time my voice took to reach her.  She was close to the child.  Then she halted and stood for a moment gazing up at me.  I saw something bright drop from her.  And with that she stooped, caught up the child, and was racing up the slope towards us.

“‘Steady!’ muttered Hamid, as a man broke from the circle, plucked up the knife from the sand and rushed after her.  ‘Steady!’ he said again.

“Aoodya had a start of twenty yards or more, and in the first half-minute she actually managed to better it.  Hamid, beside me, rubbed a bullet quickly on the rind of one of his lime-fruits and rammed it home.  He took an eternal time about it; and below, now, the man was gaining.  Unluckily their courses brought them into line, and twice the old man cursed softly and lowered his piece.

“Flesh and blood could not stand this.  I let out a groan and sprang down the cliff.  It was madness, and at the third step all foothold slipped from under me; but my clutch was tight on a fistful of creepers, and their tendrils were tough as a ship’s rope.  So down I went, now touching earth, now fending off from the rock with my feet, now missing hold and sprawling into a mass of leaves and roots, among which I clutched wildly and checked myself by the first thing handy—­until, with the crack of Hamid’s musket above, the vine, or whatever it was to which I clung for the moment, gave way as if shorn by the bullet, and I pitched a full twenty feet with a rush of loose earth and dust.