“Are you all right, Iris?” he called out.

“Yes, dear,” she answered.

“Well, I want you to keep yourself covered by the canvas for a little while—­especially your head and shoulders.  I am going to stop these chaps.  They have found our weak point, but I can baffle them.”

She did not ask what he proposed to do.  He heard the rustling of the tarpaulin as she pulled it.  Instantly he cast loose the rope-ladder, and, armed only with a revolver, dropped down the rock.  He was quite invisible to the enemy.  On reaching the ground he listened for a moment.  There was no sound save the occasional reports ninety yards away.  He hitched up the lower rungs of the ladder until they were six feet from the level, and then crept noiselessly, close to the rock, for some forty yards.

He halted beside a small poon-tree, and stooped to find something embedded near its roots.  At this distance he could plainly hear the muttered conversation of the Dyaks, and could see several of them prone on the sand.  The latter fact proved how fatal would be an attempt on his part to reach the well.  They must discover him instantly once he quitted the somber shadows of the cliff.  He waited, perhaps a few seconds longer than was necessary, endeavoring to pierce the dim atmosphere and learn something of their disposition.

A vigorous outburst of firing sent him back with haste.  Iris was up there alone.  He knew not what might happen.  He was now feverishly anxious to be with her again, to hear her voice, and be sure that all was well.

To his horror he found the ladder swaying gently against the rock.  Some one was using it.  He sprang forward, careless of consequence, and seized the swinging end which had fallen free again.  He had his foot on the bottom rung when Iris’s voice, close at hand and shrill with terror, shrieked—­

“Robert, where are you?”

“Here!” he shouted; the next instant she dropped into his arms.

A startled exclamation from the vicinity of the house, and some loud cries from the more distant Dyaks on the other side of Prospect Park, showed that they had been overheard.

“Up!” he whispered.  “Hold tight, and go as quickly as you can.”

“Not without you!”

“Up, for God’s sake!  I follow at your heels.”

She began to climb.  He took some article from between his teeth, a string apparently, and drew it towards him, mounting the ladder at the same time.  The end tightened.  He was then about ten feet from the ground.  Two Dyaks, yelling fiercely, rushed from the cover of the house.

“Go on,” he said to Iris.  “Don’t lose your nerve whatever happens.  I am close behind you.”

“I am quite safe,” she gasped.

Turning, and clinging on with one hand, he drew his revolver and fired at the pair beneath, who could now faintly discern them, and were almost within reach of the ladder.  The shooting made them halt.  He did not know or care if they were hit.  To frighten them was sufficient.  Several others were running across the sands to the cave, attracted by the noise and the cries of the foremost pursuers.