no mistaking that great,
ungainly, shapeless figure in the stern, nor that immense, round,
benevolent face that surmounted it. Barry sent his boat out to meet the
launch, and Houten waved to his man to stop her. Then he suddenly
recognized the skipper and stood up with incredible alertness.

"Hullo, Captain Barry," he rumbled, sticking out a hand like a ham.
Barry slipped his message into it at the same instant as he grasped it,
and swiftly followed his greeting with a statement of the _Barang's_
situation. Meanwhile Houten read his message by the light of the setting
sun.

"So!" he chuckled at length. "It is goot, Captain. I have a goot report
about you, mine friendt. Come. We shall soon arrive at the big game,
yes? Take you the wheel and guide us to your ship. It is long since we
ate dinner. I am starved."

In this cool, matter-of-fact way did Cornelius Houten, the mammoth,
benevolent human spider we saw for an instant in Batavia, accept a
situation to which it had taken Jack Barry weeks to reconcile himself.

The launch slid alongside the brigantine, towing the rowboat, and Houten
was landed on deck with much pulling and hauling that only evoked
silent, shaky chuckles from his huge frame. Little met him and presented
Gordon, then choked down a curse of self-censure for his thoughtlessness
as he caught Barry's angry look. In the moment of greeting he had
forgotten his own errand to the river; forgotten that it was a
discredited Gordon he had been sent to find. But Cornelius Houten seemed
to be of a kind with Vandersee in his uncanny knowledge of things. He
simply gripped Gordon's reluctant hand and rumbled deeply, yet with a
laugh running through the rumble: "Goot, Mister Gordon. I am glad to see
you loog so well. I have heard aboudt you. It is goot. Now gif me some
food in my hand and we shall see what dose leedle native mans will do
mit us."

The darkness became black, and still the jungle gave out no sounds
beyond its own. Houten walked the deck with Barry, his great paws full
of cold food, chuckling and rumbling incessantly. His beady eyes roved
keenly around the wall of darkness, his nose sniffed the air as if he
could scent the presence of foes.

Yet nothing occurred for an hour after the light failed. The sentries
around the rails kept trying all the lines to the shore, in hope of
surprising some such method of attack. Barry and Little listened
intently in expectation of hearing some signal from the look