utterly helpless, a pawn on that tiny chessboard where the
game was being played between Civilization and Barbarism. The fight
must go on to the bitter end: he must either vanquish or be vanquished.
There were other threads being woven into the garment of his life at
that moment, but he knew not of them. Sufficient for the day was the
evil, and the good thereof. Of both he had received full measure.

A period of such reflection could hardly pass without a speculative
dive into the future. If Iris and he were rescued, what would happen
when they went forth once more into the busy world? Not for one instant
did he doubt her faith. She was true as steel, knit to him now by bonds
of triple brass. But, what would Sir Arthur Deane think of his
daughter's marriage to a discredited and cashiered officer? What was it
that poor Mir Jan called himself?--"a disgraced man." Yes, that was it.
Could that stain be removed? Mir Jan was doing it. Why not he?--by
other means, for his good name rested on the word of a perjured woman.
Wealth was potent, but not all-powerful. He would ask Iris to wait
until he came to her unsoiled by slander, purged of this odium cast
upon him unmerited.

And all this goes to show that he, a man wise beyond his fellows, had
not yet learned the unwisdom of striving to lift the veil of tomorrow,
behind whose mystic curtain what is to be ever jostles out of place
what is hoped for.

Iris, smiling in her dreams, was assailed by no torturing doubts.
Robert loved her--that was enough. Love suffices for a woman; a man
asks for honor, reputation, an unblemished record.

To awake her he kissed her; he knew not, perchance it might be their
last kiss on earth. Not yet dawn, there was morning in the air, for the
first faint shafts of light were not visible from their eyrie owing to
its position. But there was much to be done. If the Dyaks carried out
the plan described by Mir Jan, he had a good many preparations to make.

The canvas awning was rolled back and the stores built into a barricade
intended to shelter Iris.

"What is that for?" she asked, when she discovered its nature. He told
her. She definitely refused to avail herself of any such protection.

"Robert dear," she said, "if the attack comes to our very door, so to
speak, surely I must help you. Even my slight aid may stem a rush in
one place whilst you are busy in another."

He explained to her that if hand-to-hand fighting were necessary he
would