"One move and I shoot," Peter Gross cried.
The brown wave stopped for a moment, but it was only a moment, Peter Gross realized, for life was cheap in Borneo, even a Rajah's life. He looked wildly about—then the tumult stilled as suddenly as though every man in the hall had been simultaneously stricken with paralysis.
Gross's impressions of the next few moments were rather vague. He dimly realized that some one had come between him and the raging mob. That some one was waving the natives back. It was a woman. He intuitively sensed her identity before he perceived her face—it was Koyala.
The brown wave receded sullenly, like the North sea backing from the dikes of Holland. Peter Gross replaced his pistol in its holster and released Wobanguli—Koyala was speaking. In the morgue-like silence her silvery voice rang with startling clearness.
"Are you mad, my children of Bulungan?" she asked sorrowfully. "Have you lost your senses? Would the taking of this one white life compensate for the misery you would bring on our people?"
She paused an instant. Every eye was riveted upon her. Her own glorious orbs turned heavenward, a mystic light shone in them, and she raised her arms as if in invocation.
"Hear me, my children," she chanted in weird, Druidical tones. "Into the north flew the Argus Pheasant, into the north, through jungle and swamp and canebrake, by night and by day, for the Hanu Token were her guides and the great god Djath and his servants, the spirits of the Gunong Agong called her. She passed through the country of the sea Dyaks, and she saw no peace; she passed through the country of the hill Dyaks, and she saw no peace. Up, up she went, up the mountain of the flaming fires, up to the very edge of the pit where the great god Djath lives in the flames that never die. There she saw Djath, there she heard his voice, there she received the message that he bade her bring to his children, his children of Bulungan. Here is the message, chiefs of my people, listen and obey."
Every Dyak groveled on the ground and even the Malay Mahometans crooked their knees and bowed their heads almost to the earth. Swaying from side to side, Koyala began to croon:
"Hear my words, O princes of Bulungan, hear my words I send you by the Bintang Burung. Lo, a white man has come among you, and his face is fair and his words are good and his heart feels what his lips speak. Lo, I have placed him among you to see if in truth there is goodness and honesty in the heart of a white man. If his deeds be as good as his words, then will you keep him, and guard him, and honor him, but if his heart turns false and his lips speak deceitfully, then bring him to me that he may burn in the eternal fires that dwell with me. Lo, that ye may know him, I have given him a servant whose head I have touched with fire from the smoking mountain."
At that moment Paddy, hatless and disheveled, plunged through the crowd toward Peter Gross. A ray of sunlight coming through the roof fell on his head. His auburn hair gleamed like a burst of flame. Koyala pointed at him and cried dramatically: