no cowardice to retreat," cried the major, "when your superior
officer gives the word."

"You're not my superior officer," said Mark between his teeth. "What
would my father say?"

"That you obeyed orders."

"He wouldn't," growled Mark. "He'd call me a contemptible cur. So I
should be if I went. How could I face Mrs O'Halloran and Miss Mary
again?"

The major seemed to choke a little, and he gave quite a gasp, whilst
certainly his eyes were suffused with tears as he cocked his gun and
turned upon Mark.

"I order you to go, sir," he said. "Run for it while there's time."

"I won't," cried Mark fiercely. "I'm going to stop and load the guns."

The major gave a long expiration, as if he had been retaining his
breath, but said nothing, only laid his gun-barrel ready on the natural
breastwork of rock before him, waved Mark a little way back into
shelter, and then stood ready as the beat of feet on the sand was
plainly heard, accompanied by a hoarse panting as of some one who had
been running till quite breathless.

Then from just round behind some intervening branches which grew out
broadly by the projecting rocks there came another hoarse yell.

"Yah!"

There was a pause, and from the distance an answering cry.

Then a terrible silence. The steps had ceased, but the hoarse panting
continued, and for the moment Mark was in hopes that their concealment
might prove effectual, and the savages pass on, and to aid this he bent
down softly to make a threatening gesture at Jacko, and to hold Bruff's
muzzle tightly closed as the pair lay on the birds, among whose feathers
Jack's fingers were already busy.

The major had evidently caught the idea, and he too drew back, when once
more came the terrible yell, and the keen point and half a dozen feet of
the lance dropped into sight, while through the leaves which partially
concealed him they could make out a portion of the figure of the savage.

The silence now was terrible, and Mark held his breath, hardly daring to
breathe, in dread lest the major should fire, for he could have laid the
man lifeless without raising the gun to his shoulder.

Then all at once, in the midst of the hot stillness of that tropic land,
with the blue sea lying calm beyond, the sparkling creamy foam where the
ocean pulsated on the coral-reef, there came a hideous screech and the
swift beat of wings.

Startling enough, but only the cry of a passing parrot, and the sound
had hardly die