ntly. Rajah Hassim resumed quietly his seat
on the trunk of a fallen tree, Immada rested her hand lightly on her
brother's shoulder, and Jaffir, squatting down again, looked at the
ground with all his faculties and every muscle of his body tensely on
the alert.

"Tengga's fighters," he murmured, scornfully.

In the group somebody shouted, and was answered by shouts from afar.
There could be no thought of resistance. Hassim slipped the emerald
ring from his finger stealthily and Jaffir got hold of it by an almost
imperceptible movement. The Rajah did not even look at the trusty
messenger.

"Fail not to give it to the white man," he murmured. "Thy servant hears,
O Rajah. It's a charm of great power."

The shadows were growing to the westward. Everybody was silent, and
the shifting group of armed men seemed to have drifted closer. Immada,
drawing the end of a scarf across her face, confronted the advance
with only one eye exposed. On the flank of the armed men Sentot was
performing a slow dance but he, too, seemed to have gone dumb.

"Now go," breathed out Rajah Hassim, his gaze levelled into space
immovably.

For a second or more Jaffir did not stir, then with a sudden leap from
his squatting posture he flew through the air and struck the jungle in
a great commotion of leaves, vanishing instantly like a swimmer diving
from on high. A deep murmur of surprise arose in the armed party, a
spear was thrown, a shot was fired, three or four men dashed into the
forest, but they soon returned crestfallen with apologetic smiles; while
Jaffir, striking an old path that seemed to lead in the right direction,
ran on in solitude, raising a rustle of leaves, with a naked parang in
his hand and a cloud of flies about his head. The sun declining to the
westward threw shafts of light across his dark path. He ran at a springy
half-trot, his eyes watchful, his broad chest heaving, and carrying
the emerald ring on the forefinger of a clenched hand as though he were
afraid it should slip off, fly off, be torn from him by an invisible
force, or spirited away by some enchantment. Who could tell what
might happen? There were evil forces at work in the world, powerful
incantations, horrible apparitions. The messenger of princes and of
great men, charged with the supreme appeal of his master, was afraid
in the deepening shade of the forest. Evil presences might have been
lurking in that gloom. Still the sun had not set yet. He could see its