He replaced the glasses in their case and dived into the wood, giving a passing thought to the fact that the wind, after blowing steadily from the south for nearly a week, had veered round to the north-east during the night.  Did the change portend a storm?  Well, they were now prepared for all such eventualities, and he had not forgotten that they possessed, among other treasures, a box of books for rainy days.  And a rainy day with Iris for company!  What gale that ever blew could offer such compensation for enforced idleness?

The morning sped in uneventful work.  Iris did not neglect her cherished pitcher-plant.  After luncheon it was her custom now to carry a dishful of water to its apparently arid roots, and she rose to fulfil her self-imposed task.

“Let me help you,” said Jenks.  “I am not very busy this afternoon.”

“No, thank you.  I simply won’t allow you to touch that shrub.  The dear thing looks quite glad to see me.  It drinks up the water as greedily as a thirsty animal.”

“Even a cabbage has a heart, Miss Deane.”

She laughed merrily.  “I do believe you are offering me a compliment,” she said.  “I must indeed have found favor in your eyes.”

He had schooled himself to resist the opening given by this class of retort, so he turned to make some corrections in the scale of the sun-dial he had constructed, aided therein by daily observations with the sextant left by the former inhabitant of the cave.

Iris had been gone perhaps five minutes when he heard a distant shriek, twice repeated, and then there came faintly to his ears his own name, not “Jenks,” but “Robert,” in the girl’s voice.  Something terrible had happened.  It was a cry of supreme distress.  Mortal agony or overwhelming terror alone could wring that name from her lips.  Precisely in such moments this man acted with the decision, the unerring judgment, the instantaneous acceptance of great risk to accomplish great results, that marked him out as a born soldier.

He rushed into the house and snatched from the rifle-rack one of the six Lee-Metfords reposing there in apple-pie order, each with a filled magazine attached and a cartridge already in position.

Then he ran, with long swift strides, not through the trees, where he could see nothing, but towards the beach, whence, in forty yards, the place where Iris probably was would become visible.

At once he saw her, struggling in the grasp of two ferocious-looking Dyaks, one, by his garments, a person of consequence, the other a half-naked savage, hideous and repulsive in appearance.  Around them seven men, armed with guns and parangs, were dancing with excitement.

Iris’s captors were endeavoring to tie her arms, but she was a strong and active Englishwoman, with muscles well knit by the constant labor of recent busy days and a frame developed by years of horse-riding and tennis-playing.  The pair evidently found her a tough handful, and the inferior Dyak, either to stop her screams—­for she was shrieking “Robert, come to me!” with all her might—­or to stifle her into submission, roughly placed his huge hand over her mouth.