For a moment Bulan stood watching the retreating savages, a smile upon his lips, and then as the sudden equatorial dawn burst forth he turned to face the girl.
As Virginia Maxon saw the fine features of the giant where she had expected to find the grotesque and hideous lineaments of a monster, she gave a quick little cry of pleasure and relief.
“Thank God!” she cried fervently. “Thank God that you are a man—I thought that I was in the clutches of the hideous and soulless monster, Number Thirteen.”
The smile upon the young man’s face died. An expression of pain, and hopelessness, and sorrow swept across his features. The girl saw the change, and wondered, but how could she guess the grievous wound her words had inflicted?
15
TOO LATE
For a moment the two stood in silence; Bulan tortured by thoughts of the bitter humiliation that he must suffer when the girl should learn his identity; Virginia wondering at the sad lines that had come into the young man’s face, and at his silence.
It was the girl who first spoke. “Who are you,” she asked, “to whom I owe my safety?”
The man hesitated. To speak aught than the truth had never occurred to him during his brief existence. He scarcely knew how to lie. To him a question demanded but one manner of reply—the facts. But never before had he had to face a question where so much depended upon his answer. He tried to form the bitter, galling words; but a vision of that lovely face suddenly transformed with horror and disgust throttled the name in his throat.
“I am Bulan,” he said, at last, quietly.
“Bulan,” repeated the girl. “Bulan. Why that is a native name. You are either an Englishman or an American. What is your true name?”