d two more, and one for supper.

After that I had no cause to suffer, so far as food and water were
concerned. When the birds built faster than my immediate wants
required, I tore the completed nests down before the builders could
spoil them, and stored them away. The birds twittered and scolded,
but began to build again.

How long this would have lasted I do not know, but one morning when I
woke and came to the mouth of the cave to look out, I saw that in the
night a Chinese junk, with broad latteen sails, had dropped anchor
in the bay below.

The shout of joy I gave came near being my ruin, for when the
Chinese sailors heard it, and looked up to see a white faced figure
gesticulating wildly in a hole in the front of the cliff, so far above
them they thought, quite reasonably enough, that they had discovered
the door to the home of the evil one himself, and that one of his
ministers was trying to entice them to enter. Fortunately they could
not flee until the anchor was raised and the sails unfurled, and
before this was done their curiosity and common sense combined had
conquered their fear. The leader of the expedition, I learned later,
had been to Coron before, and now, lighting a few joss sticks as a
precaution, in case I did prove to be an evil spirit, he climbed
to the top of the cliff where he could talk with me. He had seen
Moro fish nets and proa masts before, and he knew the Moro nature,
so it did not take long to make him understand my story, nor much
longer for him to effect my release, for these Chinese nest-hunting
expeditions go fitted with all manner of rock scaling machinery in
the way of rope ladders, slings and baskets.

I was very kindly treated on board the junk through all the month the
party stayed there gathering nests, but when the men came to know
my story, and learned how for two weeks I had lived on nothing but
swallows' nests, worth their weight in gold, remember, they used to
look at me, some of them, in a way which made me almost wonder if
sometime when I was asleep they might not kill me, as the farmer's
wife killed the goose that laid the golden egg.

THE CONJURE MAN OF SIARGAO

When I woke that morning, the monkey was sitting on the footboard
of my bed, looking at me. Not one of those impudent beasts that do
nothing but grin and chatter, but a solemn, old-man looking animal,
with a fatherly, benevolent face.

All the same, monkeys are never to be trusted, even if you