ters, was the third--the three
ideas following each other with the rapidity of a lightning flash. To
these succeeded a fourth--the Malays! So long a time had elapsed since
poor Blyth had arrived with his alarming intelligence respecting the
propinquity of these rascals and his disquieting suggestions as to a
possible visit from them, that, though an anxious watch had been for
some time maintained, the uninterrupted absence of any alarming
indications had at length resulted in so complete a relaxation of
vigilance that even the very existence of these pests of the Eastern
seas had been forgotten. What if the wretches were upon them now? It
seemed only too probable. As these thoughts darted through Henderson's
brain, and with them the frightful suggestion that those three--the
unarmed man and the two helpless children, one of them _his_--might at
that moment be beset by a cruel and bloodthirsty foe, a cold shudder
went through his frame, and, hurriedly speaking to his companions a few
words which he intended should be reassuring, but which his manner
rendered quite the reverse, he dashed down the inner stairway to the
court-yard, and seizing Gaunt's repeating rifle, which he knew to be
loaded, and directing Manners and Nicholls--who had rushed out of their
room at the sound of the firing--to arm themselves and follow him, he
rushed up to the roof again, and descending to the ground by the outer
ladder, hurried away off in the direction of the creek. He had not
advanced in this direction much beyond a hundred yards, along the
pathway through the bush, when a child's screams--little Lucille's--
smote upon his distracted ear, and, darting forward in a very frenzy of
apprehension, as he sprang round a bend in the path the poor child, her
head uncovered and her long fair hair streaming behind her, her sweet
eyes wild with terror, and her little hands outstretched, rushed up to
him and with an inarticulate cry of joy sank exhausted and almost
lifeless at his feet. Behind her, not a dozen yards distant, followed a
fierce-looking Malay, his parted lips revealing the white teeth clenched
in the eagerness of pursuit, his cruel black eyes gleaming with the
ferocious joy of anticipated success, and with a murderous-looking
creese with a long wavy blade uplifted in readiness to strike the moment
he should have brought the poor innocent little victim within reach of
his lean muscular arm.

To spring over the prostrate form of hi