“My name is Bulan,” he insisted doggedly.
Virginia Maxon thought that he must have some good reason of his own for wishing to conceal his identity. At first she wondered if he could be a fugitive from justice—the perpetrator of some horrid crime, who dared not divulge his true name even in the remote fastness of a Bornean wilderness; but a glance at his frank and noble countenance drove every vestige of the traitorous thought from her mind. Her woman’s intuition was sufficient guarantee of the nobility of his character.
“Then let me thank you, Mr. Bulan,” she said, “for the service that you have rendered a strange and helpless woman.”
He smiled.
“Just Bulan,” he said. “There is no need for Miss or Mister in the savage jungle, Virginia.”
The girl flushed at the sudden and unexpected use of her given name, and was surprised that she was not offended.
“How do you know my name?” she asked.
Bulan saw that he would get into deep water if he attempted to explain too much, and, as is ever the way, discovered that one deception had led him into another; so he determined to forestall future embarrassing queries by concocting a story immediately to explain his presence and his knowledge.
“I lived upon the island near your father’s camp,” he said. “I knew you all—by sight.”
“How long have you lived there?” asked the girl. “We thought the island uninhabited.”