a jerk as a signal the whole was
drawn up out of sight. Then, binding my feet again, they laid me on
the hard rock near the mouth of the cave, and climbed nimbly back as
they had come. The rope ladder was drawn up, and I was left alone.

I was to be left there to starve. That was what the chief's "eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth" had meant.

From where they had left me I could see the proas at anchor, and see
the rocky point on which we had landed. That night they built a fire
on the rocks where I could see it; and feasted there with songs and
dancing. Whenever the wind freshened, the smell of the broiling fish
came up to where I was, and I understood then why it was that I had
not been fed that day as usual on the deck of the war-proa. I began to
realise something of the depths of cruelty of the Moro nature. "Began,"
I say, for I found out later that even then I did not measure it all.

In the morning the proas were still at anchor, and during the day and
night there was more feasting. Sometime that day I freed my hands. I
found that the thongs had been nearly cut. Evidently the men who
left me had meant that I should free myself. It was easy then to
untie the rope which bound my ankles, but weak as I was from hunger,
and cramped from being so long bound, it was some time before I could
bear my weight upon my feet. When I could it was the morning of the
second day of my imprisonment and the third that I had been without
food. The men below were sleeping after their carouse, stretched out
on the decks of the proas. A sentinel on the rocky point poked the
smouldering embers of the fire and raking out some overdone fragments
of fish made a breakfast from them and pitched the bones into the
sea. Only those who have lived three days without food can understand
how delicious even those cast-off fish bones looked to me. I walked
away from the mouth of the cave to be where I could not see the man
eat. The daylight enabled me to explore the interior of the cave
more thoroughly than I had been able to do before. From a crevice,
far within, a tiny thread of water trickled down the rock. It was too
thin to be called a stream, and was dried up entirely by the air before
it reached the mouth of the cave, but I found that I could press my
hand against the rock and after a long time gather water enough to
moisten my lips and throat. For even that I was thankful. At least
I should not die of thirst.

Still farther in the cav