It burst in the smoke, its red blot of fire a lurid illumination in the black and gray billows from the smudge. Again a cry succeeded, this one unquestionably voicing some wretch's mortal agony in the all-concealing fume.
Without for a moment pausing, Grenville plunged swiftly through the drifting envelope, to gain the brink at the rear. He caught up a rock as he stumbled half blindly onward, and blew on the fire of his brand.
A thicker shroud of the reek revolved about him, halting him there to gasp for breath, which he stooped in the hope of finding. He dropped the stone as a useless burden. Once more he staggered onward—and blundered against a Dyak, more blinded than himself!
The creature had scaled the wall despite the bamboo framework and its cups, or wooden bells! He and Sidney were instantly locked in a fierce and deadly embrace!
A battle as silent as it was swift and ferocious was curtained there in the smoke.
That the edge was near was a knowledge equally shared, as each man wrestled in desperate violence to overcome his antagonist and hurl him down to the sea.
More by instinct than design, Grenville had paused to grip his firebrand hotly between his teeth. He had seen that the head-hunter held a knife, which was instantly turned, as the boatman writhed in Sidney's arms, in an effort to sink it to the hilt.
Grenville, however, clutched the wiry wrist with all his might, and tried to fetch it upward for a quickly planned maneuver. It slipped from his grip, and together he and the native froze more savage than before. The Dyak once more attempted a stabbing pass, and Sidney again caught the sinewy hand, in a clutch that he knew must fail.
The wrist left his impotent fingers like a snake. The whole arm writhed backward for the stroke. Sidney abruptly leaned forward, turning his head, and jabbed the red-hot firebrand against the Dyak's eye.
With a shriek of pain the fellow lurched galvanically, to stab with demoniacal might. But the blow went wide, in his agony, and when Grenville had caught the wrist in a grip that a serpent could scarcely have broken, he instantly laid hold of it with his second hand, with a motion incredibly swift. Then turning his back with the skinny brown arm across his shoulder, and abruptly stooping forward, Sidney hoisted the scoundrel free from the rocks, on his shoulders, and, moving quickly towards the cliff, ended the fight then and there.