With the alacrity peculiar to his race, Spinkie sprang through the manhole and sat down in his particular place to superintend, perhaps to admire, the work of his human friends, whose dishevelled heads emerged simultaneously from their respective burrows.

Dawn is a period of the day when the spirit of man is calmly reflective.  Speech seemed distasteful that morning, and as each knew what had to be done, it was needless.  The silently conducted operations of the men appeared to arouse fellow-feeling in the monkey, for its careworn countenance became more and more expressive as it gazed earnestly and alternately into the faces of its comrades.  To all appearance it seemed about to speak—­but it didn’t.

Pushing out from the shore they paddled swiftly up stream, and soon put such a distance between them and their late pursuers that all risk of being overtaken was at an end.

All day they advanced inland without rest, save at the breakfast hour, and again at mid-day to dine.  Towards evening they observed that the country through which they were passing had changed much in character and aspect.  The low and swampy region had given place to hillocks and undulating ground, all covered with the beautiful virgin forest with its palms and creepers and noble fruit-trees and rich vegetation, conspicuous among which magnificent ferns of many kinds covered the steep banks of the stream.

On rounding a point of the river the travellers came suddenly upon an interesting group, in the midst of a most beautiful woodland scene.  Under the trees on a flat spot by the river-bank were seated round a fire a man and a boy and a monkey.  The monkey was a tame orang-utan, youthful but large.  The boy was a Dyak in light cotton drawers, with the upper part of his body naked, brass rings on his arms, heavy ornaments in his ears, and a bright kerchief worn as a turban on his head.  The man was a sort of nondescript in a semi-European shooting garb, with a wide-brimmed sombrero on his head, black hair, a deeply tanned face, a snub nose, huge beard and moustache, and immense blue spectacles.

Something not unlike a cheer burst from the usually undemonstrative Van der Kemp on coming in sight of the party, and he waved his hand as if in recognition.  The nondescript replied by starting to his feet, throwing up both arms and giving vent to an absolute roar of joy.

“He seems to know you,” remarked Nigel, as they made for a landing-place.

“Yes.  He is the friend I have come to rescue,” replied the hermit in a tone of quiet satisfaction.  “He is a naturalist and lives with the Rajah against whom the pirates are plotting.”

“He don’t look z’if he needs much rescuin’,” remarked Moses with a chuckle, as they drew to land.

The man looked in truth as if he were well able to take care of himself in most circumstances, being of colossal bulk although somewhat short of limb.