This surprised her greatly.

“Are you sure?  I saw him pointing at me, but he seemed to be in such a bad temper that I imagined that he was angry with you for exchanging a prepossessing young lady for an ill-favored youth.”

Jenks with difficulty suppressed a sigh.  Her words for an instant had the old piquant flavor.

Keeping a close watch on the sheltering promontory, he told her all that had taken place.  Iris became very downcast when she grasped the exact state of affairs.  She was almost certain when the Dyaks proposed a parley that reasonable terms would result.  It horrified her beyond measure to find that she was the rock on which negotiations were wrecked.  Hope died within her.  The bitterness of death was in her breast.

“What an unlucky influence I have had on your existence!” she exclaimed.  “If it were not for me this trouble at least would be spared you.  Because I am here you are condemned.  Again, because I stopped you from shooting that wretched chief and his companions they are now demanding your life as a forfeit.  It is all my fault.  I cannot bear it.”

She was on the verge of tears.  The strain had become too great for her.  After indulging in a wild dream of freedom, to be told that they must again endure the irksome confinement, the active suffering, the slow horrors of a siege in that rocky prison, almost distracted her.

Jenks was very stern and curt in his reply.

“We must make the best of a bad business,” he said.  “If we are in a tight place the Dyaks are not much better off, and eighteen of their number are dead or wounded.  You forget, too, that Providence has sent us a most useful ally in the Mahommedan.  When all is said and done, things might be far worse than they are.”

Never before had his tone been so cold, his manner so abrupt, not even in the old days when he purposely endeavored to make her dislike him.

She walked along the ledge and timidly bent over him.

“Forgive me!” she whispered; “I did forget for the moment, not only the goodness of Providence, but also your self-sacrificing devotion.  I am only a woman, and I don’t want to die yet, but I will not live unless you too are saved.”

Once already that day she had expressed this thought in other words.  Was some shadowy design flitting through her brain?  Suppose they were faced with the alternatives of dying from thirst or yielding to the Dyaks.  Was there another way out?  Jenks shivered, though the rock was grilling him.  He must divert her mind from this dreadful brooding.

“The fact is,” he said with a feeble attempt at cheerfulness, “we are both hungry and consequently grumpy.  Now, suppose you prepare lunch.  We will feel ever so much better after we have eaten.”

The girl choked back her emotion, and sadly essayed the task of providing a meal which was hateful to her.  In doing so she saw her Bible, lying where she had placed it that morning, the leaves still open at the 91st Psalm.  She had indeed forgotten the promise it contained—­