nd the nails protruded like
fangs.

A rusted pocket-knife lay there, and on the left breast of the skeleton
rested a round piece of tin, the top of a canister, which might have
reposed in a coat pocket. Jenks picked it up. Some curious marks and
figures were punched into its surface. After a hasty glance he put it
aside for more leisurely examination.

No weapon was visible. He could form no estimate as to the cause of the
death of this poor unknown, nor the time since the tragedy had
occurred.

Jenks must have stood many minutes before he perceived that the
skeleton was headless. At first he imagined that in rummaging about
with the stick he had disturbed the skull. But the most minute search
demonstrated that it had gone, had been taken away, in fact, for the
plants which so effectually screened the lighter bones would not permit
the skull to vanish.

Then the frown on the sailor's face became threatening, thunderous. He
recollected the rusty kriss. Indistinct memories of strange tales of
the China Sea crowded unbidden to his brain.

"Dyaks!" he growled fiercely. "A ship's officer, an Englishman
probably, murdered by head-hunting Dyak pirates!"

If they came once they would come again.

Five hundred yards away Iris Deane was sleeping. He ought not to have
left her alone. And then, with the devilish ingenuity of coincidence, a
revolver shot awoke the echoes, and sent all manner of wildfowl
hurtling through the trees with clamorous outcry.

Panting and wild-eyed, Jenks was at the girl's side in an inconceivably
short space of time. She was not beneath the shelter of the grove, but
on the sands, gazing, pallid in cheek and lip, at the group of rocks on
the edge of the lagoon.

"What is the matter?" he gasped.

"Oh, I don't know," she wailed brokenly. "I had a dream, such a
horrible dream. You were struggling with some awful thing down there."
She pointed to the rocks.

"I was not near the place," he said laboriously. It cost him an effort
to breathe. His broad chest expanded inches with each respiration.

"Yes, yes, I understand. But I awoke and ran to save you. When I got
here I saw something, a thing with waving arms, and fired. It vanished,
and then you came."

The sailor walked slowly to the rocks. A fresh chip out of the stone
showed where the bullet struck. One huge boulder was wet, as if water
had been splashed over it. He halted and looked intently into the
water. Not a fish was to be seen, but