uddenly transformed with horror and disgust throttled the name in
his throat.

"I am Bulan," he said, at last, quietly.

"Bulan," repeated the girl. "Bulan. Why that is a native name. You
are either an Englishman or an American. What is your true name?"

"My name is Bulan," he insisted doggedly.

Virginia Maxon thought that he must have some good reason of his own
for wishing to conceal his identity. At first she wondered if he could
be a fugitive from justice--the perpetrator of some horrid crime, who
dared not divulge his true name even in the remote fastness of a
Bornean wilderness; but a glance at his frank and noble countenance
drove every vestige of the traitorous thought from her mind. Her
woman's intuition was sufficient guarantee of the nobility of his
character.

"Then let me thank you, Mr. Bulan," she said, "for the service that you
have rendered a strange and helpless woman."

He smiled.

"Just Bulan," he said. "There is no need for Miss or Mister in the
savage jungle, Virginia."

The girl flushed at the sudden and unexpected use of her given name,
and was surprised that she was not offended.

"How do you know my name?" she asked.

Bulan saw that he would get into deep water if he attempted to explain
too much, and, as is ever the way, discovered that one deception had
led him into another; so he determined to forestall future embarrassing
queries by concocting a story immediately to explain his presence and
his knowledge.

"I lived upon the island near your father's camp," he said. "I knew
you all--by sight."

"How long have you lived there?" asked the girl. "We thought the
island uninhabited."

"All my life," replied Bulan truthfully.

"It is strange," she mused. "I cannot understand it. But the
monsters--how is it that they followed you and obeyed your commands?"

Bulan touched the bull whip that hung at his side.

"Von Horn taught them to obey this," he said.

"He used that upon them?" cried the girl in horror.

"It was the only way," said Bulan. "They were almost brainless--they
could understand nothing else, for they could not reason."

Virginia shuddered.

"Where are they now--the balance of them?" she asked.

"They are dead, poor things," he replied, sadly. "Poor, hideous,
unloved, unloving monsters--they gave up their lives for the daughter
of the man who made them the awful, repulsive creatures that they were."

"What do you mean?" cried the girl.

"I mea