--the creatures
scattered to escape the fury of the lash and a moment later he had them
at his mercy. About the campong lay four who had felt the full force
of his heavy fist, while not one but bore some mark of the battle.

Not a moment did he give them to recuperate after he had scattered them
before he rounded them up once more near the outer gate--but now they
were docile and submissive. In pairs he ordered them to lift their
unconscious comrades to their shoulders and bear them into the jungle,
for Number Thirteen was setting out into the world with his grim tribe
in search of his lady love.

Once well within the jungle they halted to eat of the more familiar
fruit which had always formed the greater bulk of their sustenance.
Thus refreshed, they set out once more after the leader who wandered
aimlessly beneath the shade of the tall jungle trees amidst the
gorgeous tropic blooms and gay, songless birds--and of the twelve only
the leader saw the beauties that surrounded them or felt the strange,
mysterious influence of the untracked world they trod. Chance took
them toward the west until presently they emerged upon the harbor's
edge, where from the matted jungle they overlooked for the first time
the waters of the little bay and the broader expanse of strait beyond,
until their eyes rested at last upon the blurred lines of distant
Borneo.

From other vantage points at the jungle's border two other watchers
looked out upon the scene. One was the lascar whom von Horn had sent
down to the Ithaca the night before but who had reached the harbor
after she sailed. The other was von Horn himself. And both were
looking out upon the dismantled wreck of the Ithaca where it lay in the
sand near the harbor's southern edge.

Neither ventured forth from his place of concealment, for beyond the
Ithaca ten prahus were pulling gracefully into the quiet waters of the
basin.

Rajah Muda Saffir, caught by the hurricane the preceding night as he
had been about to beat across to Borneo, had scurried for shelter
within one of the many tiny coves which indent the island's entire
coast. It happened that his haven of refuge was but a short distance
south of the harbor in which he knew the Ithaca to be moored, and in
the morning he decided to pay that vessel a visit in the hope that he
might learn something of advantage about the girl from one of her
lascar crew.

The wily Malay had long refrained from pillaging the Ithaca for f