ees loaded down with parasites,
intertwined, interlaced in hopeless confusion, each trying to crush
and climb over the other in the fight for supremacy.

Where the creek empties into the Cotabato River, Piang paused; there
were suspicious-looking shadows close to the bank, and he reached
for his precious baskets.

"Work slowly, Papita," he whispered, and the trembling girl kept
the vinta just moving. From its ominous silence, the jungle crashed
into chaos.

"Le le le le iiiiiio!" shrieked the echoes.

Piang was ready.

"Le le le le iiiiiio!" he tauntingly replied.

Kneeling in the bow of the vinta, he hastily lighted a green resinous
torch and stuck it upright. It gave forth the pungent, heavy perfume
of the jungle pitch. Waiting until his enemies were almost upon him,
Piang raised one basket above his head and opened the trap. A sudden
buzz and whirl filled the air; Piang reached for the second basket and
held it in the smoke of the torch, ready to open. For a few moments,
nothing happened, but the enemy slackened their pace, and the war
cries were silenced. Finally yells of rage and pain broke from them:

"Badjanji!" they screamed. The little insects, infuriated at the
treatment they had received, fairly pounced upon the defenseless
Dyaks. No jungle pest is so dreaded as the enraged honey-bee. Its
envenomed stings are poisonous, deadly, and often cause more painful
wounds than bolos. The men fought desperately. Tauntingly Piang
laughed, swiftly he and Papita paddled, and the smoke from the torch
enveloped them in its protecting waves. Coming abreast of the war-prau,
Piang loosed the other basket of bees.

On sped the vinta, and ever nearer came the great estuary that gave
upon the Celebes Sea. The sounds of the sufferers grew fainter,
and finally Papita and Piang were again alone in the great night.

"They will return and assemble the war fleet, Papita; they will
pursue us into the ocean. If the water is rough, we cannot cross the
bay to Parang-Parang in this vinta. We must hide near the coast and
make our way homeward on foot."

Morning fairly burst upon them. Twilight in the tropics is a name only,
for the sun rises and disappears abruptly, and it is day or night
in a few moments. The early light showed the ocean in the distance,
and at the same moment sounds behind made Piang listen anxiously.

"They are coming, Papita; we must hide."

As Piang headed for the bank, he noticed a thin stream of smoke