"What have you done?"
"Arranged a fearsome bogey in the cave."
"But how?"
"It was not exactly a pleasant operation, but the only laws of necessity are those which must be broken."
She understood that he did not wish her to question him further. Perhaps curiosity, now that he was safe, might have vanquished her terror, and led to another demand for enlightenment, but at that instant the sound of an angry voice and the crunching of coral away to the left drove all else from her mind.
"They are coming by way of the beach, after all," whispered Jenks.
He was mistaken, in a sense. Another outburst of intermittent firing among the trees on the north of the ridge showed that some, at least, of the Dyaks were advancing by their former route. The appearance of the Dyak chief on the flat belt of shingle, with his right arm slung across his breast, accompanied by not more than half a dozen followers, showed that a few hardy spirits had dared to pass the Valley of Death with all its nameless terrors.
They advanced cautiously enough, as though dreading a surprise. The chief carried a bright parang in his left hand; the others were armed with guns, their swords being thrust through belts. Creeping forward on tip-toe, though their distant companions were making a tremendous row, they looked a murderous gang as they peered across the open space, now brilliantly illuminated by the moon.
Jenks had a sudden intuition that the right thing to do now was to shoot the whole party. He dismissed the thought at once. All his preparations were governed by the hope that the pirates might abandon their quest after hours of fruitless search. It would be most unwise, he told himself, to precipitate hostilities. Far better avoid a conflict altogether, if that were possible, than risk the immediate discovery of his inaccessible retreat.
In other words he made a grave mistake, which shows how a man may err when over-agonized by the danger of the woman he loves. The bold course was the right one. By killing the Dyak leader he would have deprived the enemy of the dominating influence in this campaign of revenge. When the main body, already much perturbed by the unseen and intangible agencies which opened fire at them in the wood, arrived in Prospect Park to find only the dead bodies of their chief and his small force, their consternation could be turned into mad panic by a vigorous bombardment from the rock.