s for you, you cannot help yourself. You must
do as I tell you. I never knew of a case where the question of Woman's
Rights was so promptly settled."

His vitality was infectious. Iris smiled again. Her sensitive highly
strung nerves permitted these sharp alternations between despondency
and hope.

"You must remember," he went on, "that the Dyak score is twenty-one to
the bad, whilst our loss stands at love. Dear me, that cannot be right.
Love is surely not a loss."

"A cynic might describe it as a negative gain."

"Oh, a cynic is no authority. He knows nothing whatever about the
subject."

"My father used to say, when he was in Parliament, that people who knew
least oft-times spoke best. Some men get overweighted with facts."

They chatted in lighter vein with such pendulum swing back to
nonchalance that none would have deemed it possible for these two to
have already determined the momentous issue of the pending struggle
should it go against them. There is, glory be, in the Anglo-Saxon race
the splendid faculty of meeting death with calm defiance, almost with
contempt. Moments of panic, agonizing memories of bygone days, visions
of dear faces never to be seen again, may temporarily dethrone this
proud fortitude. But the tremors pass, the gibbering specters of fear
and lamentation are thrust aside, and the sons and daughters of Great
Britain answer the last roll-call with undaunted heroism. They know how
to die.

And so the sun sank to rest in the sea, and the star, pierced the
deepening blue of the celestial arch, whilst the man and the woman
awaited patiently the verdict of the fates.

Before the light failed, Jenks gathered all the poisoned arrows and
ground their vemoned points to powder beneath his heel. Gladly would
Iris and he have dispensed with the friendly protection of the
tarpaulin when the cool evening breeze came from the south. But such a
thing might not be even considered. Several hours of darkness must
elapse before the moon rose, and during that period, were their foes so
minded, they would be absolutely at the mercy of the sumpitan shafts if
not covered by their impenetrable buckler.

The sailor looked long and earnestly at the well. Their own bucket,
improvised out of a dish-cover and a rope, lay close to the brink. A
stealthy crawl across the sandy valley, half a minute of grave danger,
and he would be up the ladder again with enough water to serve their
imperative needs for days to com