It was easy to see what had happened.  The Dyaks, having missed the Mahommedan and their water-bag, searched for him and heard the conversation at the foot of the rock.  Knowing that their presence was suspected, they went back for reinforcements, and returned by the shorter and more advantageous route along Turtle Beach.

Iris would have talked all night, but Jenks made her go to sleep, by pillowing her head against his shoulder and smoothing her tangled tresses with his hand.  The wine, too, was helpful.  In a few minutes her voice became dreamy:  soon she was sleeping like a tired child.

He managed to lay her on a comfortable pile of ragged clothing and then resumed his vigil.  Mir Jan offered to mount guard beneath, but Jenks bade him go within the cave and remain there, for the dawn would soon be upon them.

Left alone with his thoughts, he wondered what the rising sun would bring in its train.  He reviewed the events of the last twenty-four hours.  Iris and he—­Miss Deane, Mr. Jenks, to each other—­were then undiscovered in their refuge, the Dyaks were gathered around a roaring fire in the valley, and Mir Jan was keen in the hunt as the keenest among them.  Now, Iris was his affianced bride, over twenty of the enemy were killed and many wounded, and Mir Jan, a devoted adherent, was seated beside the skeleton in the gloom of the cavern.

What a topsy-turvy world it was, to be sure!  What alternations between despair and hope!  What rebound from the gates of Death to the threshold of Eden!  How untrue, after all, was the nebulous philosophy of Omar, the Tentmaker.  Surely in the happenings of the bygone day there was more than the purposeless

  “Magic Shadow-show,
      Play’d in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
     Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.”

He had, indeed, cause to be humbly thankful.  Was there not One who marked the fall of a sparrow, who clothed the lilies, who knew the needs of His creatures?  There, in the solemn temple of the night, he gave thanks for the protection vouchsafed to Iris and himself, and prayed that it might be continued.  He deplored the useless bloodshed, the horror of mangled limbs and festering bodies, that converted this fair island into a reeking slaughter-house.  Were it possible, by any personal sacrifice, to divert the untutored savages from their deadly quest, he would gladly condone their misdeeds and endeavor to assuage the torments of the wounded.

But he was utterly helpless, a pawn on that tiny chessboard where the game was being played between Civilization and Barbarism.  The fight must go on to the bitter end:  he must either vanquish or be vanquished.  There were other threads being woven into the garment of his life at that moment, but he knew not of them.  Sufficient for the day was the evil, and the good thereof.  Of both he had received full measure.