He glanced back at Iris.  Her face was pale beneath its mask of sunbrown.  She was bent over her Bible, and Jenks did not know that she was reading the 91st Psalm.  Her lips murmured—­

“I will say unto the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him will I trust.”

The chief was listening intently to the story of the Dyak who saw the dead man totter and fall.  He gave some quick order.  Followed by a score or more of his men he walked rapidly to the foot of the cliff where they found the lifeless body.

And Iris read—­

“Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.”

Jenks stole one more hasty glance at her.  The chief and the greater number of his followers were out of sight behind the rocks.  Some of them must now be climbing to that fatal ledge.  Was this the end?

Yet the girl, unconscious of the doom impending, kept her eyes steadfastly fixed on the book.

“For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

“They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone....

“He shall call upon me, and I will answer him:  I will be with him in trouble:  I will deliver him and honour him.”

Iris did not apply the consoling words to herself.  She closed the book and bent forward sufficiently in her sheltering niche to permit her to gaze with wistful tenderness upon the man whom she hoped to see delivered and honored.  She knew he would dare all for her sake.  She could only pray and hope.  After reading those inspired verses she placed implicit trust in the promise made.  For He was good:  His was the mercy that “endureth forever.”  Enemies encompassed them with words of hatred—­fought against them without a cause—­but there was One who should “judge among the heathen” and “fill the places with dead bodies.”

Suddenly a clamor of discordant yells fell upon her ears.  Jenks rose to his knees.  The Dyaks had discovered their refuge and were about to open fire.  He offered them a target lest perchance Iris were not thoroughly screened.

“Keep close,” he said.  “They have found us.  Lead will be flying around soon.”

She flinched back into the crevice; the sailor fell prone.  Four bullets spat into the ledge, of which three pierced the tarpaulin and one flattened itself against the rock.

Then Jenks took up the tale.  So curiously constituted was this man, that although he ruthlessly shot the savage who first spied out their retreat, he was swayed only by the dictates of stern necessity.  There was a feeble chance that further bloodshed might be averted.  That chance had passed.  Very well.  The enemy must start the dreadful game about to be played.  They had thrown the gage and he answered them.  Four times did the Lee-Metford carry death, unseen, almost unfelt, across the valley.

Ere the fourth Dyak collapsed limply where he stood, others were there, firing at the little puff of smoke above the grass.  They got in a few shots, most of which sprayed at various angles off the face of the cliff.  But they waited for no more.  When the lever of the Lee-Metford was shoved home for the fifth time the opposing crest was bare of all opponents save two, and they lay motionless.