he gazed after the boat in the midst of
that weird darkness, which made the event ten times more terrible than
if it had been by day.

Just as his heart sank with dread, and he in fancy saw the dead body
seized by one or other of the terrible reptiles that swarmed in the
river, wondering the while which of the poor men it was, and why they
had heard no alarm at the island, Dick's hoarse voice was heard some
distance astern, exclaiming in triumph--

"I've got him, my lads! Give way!"

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

HOW ALI MADE HIS PLANS.

There is a strange kind of stoicism about a Mohammedan that seems to
give him an abundance of calmness when he comes face to face with death.
He is a fatalist, and quietly says to himself what is to be will be,
and he resigns himself to his fate.

The young chief Ali was imbued with all the doctrines of his people; but
at the same time he had mixed so with the English that he had learned to
look upon life as of too much value to be given up without a desperate
struggle. One of his compatriots would have made a fight for his life,
and when he had seen all go against him he would have given up without a
murmur and looked his slayers indifferently in the face. Ali, however,
did not intend to give up without another effort, and though he seemed
indifferent, a terrible struggle was going on within his breast.
Thoughts of his father, of his new friends, of the bright sunshine of
youth, and the future that had been so full of hope, and in which he had
meant to do so much to improve his country--all rose before his
wandering eyes, and he had meant to seize the first opportunity to
escape.

The approach of the kris-armed Malay, though, had been so sudden that
all his calculations had been upset, and he had had no time to design a
means of escape. He was tightly bound, held by two others, and this man
was evidently under orders from the sultan to slay him.

It was useless to struggle, he knew--just as vain to waste his strength,
and rob himself of his calmness; so that he felt bound to call up all
his fortitude, and with it the fatalistic theories of his race, so that
he might die as behoved the son of a great chief.

He drew himself up then, and stood gazing at the man with the kris as
calm and motionless as if he had been made of bronze, and awaited the
deadly stroke.

This, however, did not come; for in place of delivering a deadly thrust,
the Malay roughly seized him by the shou