r any
severe loss, and that one of their boats should be captured was beyond
belief. But this was precisely what had happened, and the second boat,
seeing the direction taken by the enemy, had turned down stream the
more surely to escape them.

So it was that while Rajah Muda Saffir moved leisurely up the river
toward his distant stronghold waiting for the other boats of his fleet
to overtake him, Barunda, the headman, guided the white enemy swiftly
after him. Barunda had discovered that it was the girl alone this
white man wanted. Evidently he either knew nothing of the treasure
chest lying in the bottom of Muda Saffir's boat, or, knowing, was
indifferent. In either event Barunda thought that he saw a chance to
possess himself of the rich contents of the heavy box, and so served
his new master with much greater enthusiasm than he had the old.

Beneath the paddles of the natives and the five remaining members of
his pack Bulan sped up the dark river after the single prahu with its
priceless freight. Already six of the creatures of Professor Maxon's
experiments had given up their lives in the service of his daughter,
and the remaining six were pushing forward through the inky blackness
of the jungle night into the untracked heart of savage Borneo to rescue
her from her abductors though they sacrificed their own lives in the
endeavor.

Far ahead of them in the bottom of the great prahu crouched the girl
they sought. Her thoughts were of the man she felt intuitively to
possess the strength, endurance and ability to overcome every obstacle
and reach her at last. Would he come in time? Ah, that was the
question. The mystery of the stranger appealed to her. A thousand
times she had attempted to solve the question of his first appearance
on the island at the very moment that his mighty muscles were needed to
rescue her from the horrible creature of her father's creation. Then
there was his unaccountable disappearance for weeks; there was von
Horn's strange reticence and seeming ignorance as to the circumstances
which brought the young man to the island, or his equally unaccountable
disappearance after having rescued her from Number One. And now, when
she suddenly found herself in need of protection, here was the same
young man turning up in a most miraculous fashion, and at the head of
the terrible creatures of the inner campong.

The riddle was too deep for her--she could not solve it; and then her
thoughts w