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

A few tears fell now and made little furrows down her soiled cheeks.  But they were helpful tears, tears of resignation, not of despair.  Although the “destruction that wasteth at noonday” was trying her sorely she again felt strong and sustained.

She even smiled on detecting an involuntary effort to clear her stained face.  She was about to carry a biscuit and some tinned meat to the sailor when a sharp exclamation from him caused her to hasten to his side.

The Dyaks had broken cover.  Running in scattered sections across the sands, they were risking such loss as the defenders might be able to inflict upon them during a brief race to the shelter and food to be obtained in the other part of the island.

Jenks did not fire at the scurrying gang.  He was waiting for one man, Taung S’Ali.  But that redoubtable person, having probably suggested this dash for liberty, had fully realized the enviable share of attention he would attract during the passage.  He therefore discarded his vivid attire, and, by borrowing odd garments, made himself sufficiently like unto the remainder of his crew to deceive the sailor until the rush of men was over.  Among them ran the Mahommedan, who did not look up the valley but waved his hand.

When all had quieted down again Jenks understood how he had been fooled.  He laughed so heartily that Iris, not knowing either the cause of his merriment or the reason of his unlooked-for clemency to the flying foe, feared the sun had affected him.

He at once quitted the post occupied during so protracted a vigil.

“Now,” he cried, “we can eat in peace.  I have stripped the chief of his finery.  His men can twit him on being forced to shed his gorgeous plumage in order to save his life.  Anyhow, they will leave us in peace until night falls, so we must make the best of a hot afternoon.”

But he was mistaken.  A greater danger than any yet experienced now threatened them, though Iris, after perusing that wonderful psalm, might have warned him of it had she known the purpose of those long bamboos carried by some of the savages.

For Taung S’Ali, furious and unrelenting, resolved that if he could not obtain the girl he would slay the pair of them; and he had terrible weapons in his possession—­weapons that could send “silent death even to the place where they stood.”

CHAPTER XIII

REALITY V.  ROMANCE—­THE CASE FOR THE DEFENDANT

Residents in tropical countries know that the heat is greatest, or certainly least bearable, between two and four o’clock in the afternoon.

At the conclusion of a not very luscious repast, Jenks suggested that they should rig up the tarpaulin in such wise as to gain protection from the sun and yet enable him to cast a watchful eye over the valley.  Iris helped to raise the great canvas sheet on the supports he had prepared.  Once shut off from the devouring sun rays, the hot breeze then springing into fitful existence cooled their blistered but perspiring skin and made life somewhat tolerable.