of the hansoms scampering along Piccadilly, the more stately pace of the private carriages crossing the Park.  Was it possible that in the world of today—­the world of telegraphs and express trains, of the newspaper and the motor car—­two inoffensive human beings could be done to death so shamefully and openly as would be the fate of Iris and himself if they fell into the hands of these savages!  It was inconceivable, intolerable!  But it was true!

And then, by an odd trick of memory, his mind reverted, not to the Yorkshire manor he learnt to love as a boy, but to a little French inland town where he once passed a summer holiday intent on improving his knowledge of the language.  Interior France is even more remote, more secluded, more provincial, than agricultural England.  There no breath of the outer world intrudes.  All is laborious, circumspect, a trifle poverty-stricken, but beautified by an Arcadian simplicity.  Yet one memorable day, when walking by the banks of a river, he came upon three men dragging from out a pool the water-soaked body of a young girl into whose fair forehead the blunt knob often seen on the back of an old-fashioned axe had been driven with cruel force.  So, even in that tiny old-world hamlet, murder and lust could stalk hand in hand.

He shuddered.  Why did such a hateful vision trouble him?  Resolutely banning the raven-winged specter, he slid back down the ledge and gently wakened Iris.  She sat up instantly and gazed at him with wondering eyes.

Fearful lest she should forget her surroundings, he placed a warning finger on his lips.

“Oh,” she said in a whisper, “are they still here?”

He told her what had happened, and suggested that they should have something to eat whilst the coast was clear beneath.  She needed no second bidding, for the long vigil of the previous night had made her very hungry, and the two breakfasted right royally on biscuit, cold fowl, ham, and good water.

In this, the inner section of their refuge, they could be seen only by a bird or by a man standing on the distant rocky shelf that formed the southern extremity of the opposite cliff, and the sailor kept a close lookout in that direction.

Iris was about to throw the remains of the feast into an empty oil-tin provided for refuse when Jenks restrained her.

“No,” he said, smilingly.  “Scraps should be the first course next time.  We must not waste an atom of food.”

“How thoughtless of me!” she exclaimed.  “Please tell me you think they will go away today.”

But the sailor flung himself flat on the ledge and grasped a Lee-Metford.

“Be still, on your life,” he said.  “Squeeze into your corner.  There is a Dyak on the opposite cliff.”

True enough, a man had climbed to that unhappily placed rocky table, and was shouting something to a confrere high on the cliff over their heads.  As yet he had not seen them, nor even noticed the place where they were concealed.  The sailor imagined, from the Dyak’s gestures, that he was communicating the uselessness of further search on the western part of the island.