had seen entering her hold the night before; but somehow in
the past hour he had lost much of his interest in Leyden's ship. He felt
a growing desire to get away out of the river into the clean salt ocean.

The _Barang's_ crew had made great progress with their work; and Rolfe
hailed as they approached the side to say that the ship was ready to
drop down at high water. Out in midstream Bill Blunt and a boat's crew
were returning after laying out an anchor to a great coir-fiber hawser,
springy and stout, and a glance at the shores showed rapidly rising
water.

"Get a strain on the hawser and keep taking in," ordered Barry as soon
as he got on deck. "Gordon, if you want to harden up, take a handspike
and have a turn at the capstan. Where's Little, Rolfe?"

"Little?" Jerry Rolfe looked alarmed. "I haven't seen Mr. Little since
you went ashore, sir."

"I seen him a-swimmin' over by the schooner, awhile agone," remarked
Blunt, bringing the boat painter aft to make the boat fast astern. "I
thought he wuz goin' arter you, sir."

Barry suddenly renewed his interest in the _Padang_. Smothering a curse
at Little's meddlesomeness, he snatched up his glasses and focussed them
on the schooner. There was nothing to be seen out of the ordinary; but
as he looked, that indescribable hum arose from her deck, and it
intensified to a snarl. Then a flying figure appeared at the schooner's
rail, and Little leaped over and into the yellow river with a yell.

As he struck the water, a shower of missiles followed him, and throwing
clubs and short spears whizzed around his ears. He came up from his
plunge into the midst of potent death, and with something like the
cheery yell with which he had greeted the alligators, he took in a great
breath and dived again, coming up the next time halfway to the _Barang_.
So with successive plunges he approached, and after the second discharge
of missiles from the schooner, he was permitted to reach his ship in
peace. He clambered aboard, grinning sheepishly, and Barry met him with
no word of praise, congratulation, or censure, but with a wide-open
stare of fresh amazement.

"Who are they?" the skipper gasped.

"Cannibals, I think," grinned Little. "Am I all here?"

The schooner's rails were bare of heads again; but while Little was
being bombarded, all eyes had stared wonderingly at a line of tufted
headdresses surmounting faces belonging to inland savages.

"They're what I saw last night, going i