Yet another member of the band was prostrated ere the two as yet unscathed thought fit to beat a retreat.  This they now did with celerity, but they dragged their chief with them.  It was no part of Jenks’s programme to allow them to escape.  He aimed again at the man nearest the trees.  There was a sharp click and nothing more.  The cartridge was a mis-fire.  He hastily sought to eject it, and the rifle jammed.  These little accidents will happen, even in a good weapon like the Lee-Metford.

Springing to his feet with a yell he ran forward.  The flying men caught a glimpse of him and accelerated their movements.  Just as he reached Iris they vanished among the trees.

Slinging the rifle over his shoulder, he picked up the girl in his arms.  She was conscious, but breathless.

“You are not hurt?” he gasped, his eyes blazing into her face with an intensity that she afterwards remembered as appalling.

“No,” she whispered.

“Listen,” he continued in labored jerks.  “Try and obey me—­exactly.  I will carry you—­to the cave.  Stop there.  Shoot any one you see—­till I come.”

She heard him wonderingly.  Was he going to leave her, now that he had her safely clasped to his breast?  Impossible!  Ah, she understood.  Those men must have landed in a boat.  He intended to attack them again.  He was going to fight them single-handed, and she would not know what happened to him until it was all over.  Gradually her vitality returned.  She almost smiled at the fantastic conceit that she would desert him.

Jenks placed her on her feet at the entrance to the cave.

“You understand,” he cried, and without waiting for an answer, ran to the house for another rifle.  This time, to her amazement, he darted back through Prospect Park towards the south beach.  The sailor knew that the Dyaks had landed at the sandy bay Iris had christened Smugglers’ Cove.  They were acquainted with the passage through the reef and came from the distant islands.  Now they would endeavor to escape by the same channel.  They must be prevented at all costs.

He was right.  As they came out into the open he saw three men, not two, pushing off a large sampan.  One of them, mirabile dictu, was the chief.  Then Jenks understood that his bullet had hit the lock of the Dyak’s uplifted weapon, with the result already described.  By a miracle he had escaped.

He coolly prepared to slay the three of them with the same calm purpose that distinguished the opening phase of this singularly one-sided conflict.  The distance was much greater, perhaps 800 yards from the point where the boat came into view.  He knelt and fired.  He judged that the missile struck the craft between the trio.

“I didn’t allow for the sun on the side of the foresight,” he said.  “Or perhaps I am a bit shaky after the run.  In any event they can’t go far.”

A hurrying step on the coral behind him caught his ear.  Instantly he sprang up and faced about—­to see Iris.