The Jesuits, say their opponents, teach that at times a “white lie” is permissible.  Surely this was an instance.

“It is a small thing to trouble about, sweetheart,” he explained.  “You spotted the enemy so promptly, and blazed away with such ferocity, that they never got within yards of me.”

“Are you sure?”

“I vow and declare that after we have eaten something, and sampled our remaining bottle of wine, I will tell you exactly what happened.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I must first see to Mir Jan.  I bundled him neck and crop into the cave.  I hope I did not hurt him.”

“You are not going down there again?”

“No need, I trust.”

He went to the side of the ledge, recovered the ladder which he had hastily hauled out of the Dyaks’ reach after his climb, and cried—­

“Mir Jan.”

“Ah, sahib!  Praised be the name of the Most High, you are alive.  I was searching among the slain with a sorrowful heart.”

The Mahommedan’s voice came from some little distance on the left.

“The slain, you say.  How many?”

“Five, sahib.”

“Impossible!  I fired blindly with the revolver, and only hit one man hard with the iron bar.  One other dropped near the wood after I obtained a rifle.”

“Then there be six, sahib, not reckoning the wounded.  I have accounted for one, so the miss-sahib must have—­”

“What is he saying about me?” inquired Iris, who had risen and joined her lover.

“He says you absolutely staggered the Dyaks by opening fire the moment they appeared.”

“How did you come to slay one, Mir Jan?” he continued.

“A son of a black pig followed me into the cave.  I waited for him in the darkness.  I have just thrown his body outside.”

“Shabash![Footnote:  “Well done!”] Is Taung S’Ali dead, by any lucky chance?”

“No, sahib, if he be not the sixth.  I will go and see.”

“You may be attacked?”

“I have found a sword, sahib.  You left me no cartridges.”

Jenks told him that the clip and the twelve packets were lying at the foot of the rock, where Mir Jan speedily discovered them.  The Mahommedan gave satisfactory assurance that he understood the mechanism of the rifle by filling and adjusting the magazine.  Then he went to examine the corpse of the man who lay in the open near the quarry path.

The sailor stood in instant readiness to make a counter demonstration were the native assailed.  But there was no sign of the Dyaks.  Mir Jan returned with the news that the sixth victim of the brief yet fierce encounter was a renegade Malay.  He was so confident that the enemy had had enough of it for the night that, after recovering Jenks’s revolver, he boldly went to the well and drew himself a supply of water.

During supper, a feast graced by a quart of champagne worthy of the Carlton, Jenks told Iris so much of the story as was good for her:  that is to say, he cut down the casualty list.