"Did I not myself see him leading his eleven monsters as easily as a captain commands his company? The fellow is brighter than we have imagined.He has learned much from us both, he has reasoned, and he has shrewdly guessed many things that he could not have known through experience.""But his object?" asked the professor.
"That is simple," returned von Horn."You have held out hopes to him that soon he should come to live under your roof with Virginia.The creature has been madly infatuated with her ever since the day he took her from Number One, and you have encouraged his infatuation until yesterday.Then you regained your sanity and put him in his rightful place.What is the result?
Denied the easy prey he expected he immediately decided to take it by force, and with that end in view, and taking advantage of the series of remarkable circumstances which played into his hands, he liberated his fellows, and with them hastened to the beach in search of Virginia and in hopes of being able to fly with her upon the Ithaca.There he met the Malay pirates, and together they formed an alliance under terms of which Number Thirteen is to have the girl, and the pirates the chest in return for transporting him and his crew to Borneo.
Why it is all perfectly simple and logical, Professor Maxon;do you not see it now?"
"You may be right, doctor," answered the old man.
"But it is idle to conjecture.Tomorrow we can be up and doing, so let us get what sleep we can tonight.
We shall need all our energies if we are to save my poor, dear girl, from the clutches of that horrid, soulless thing."At the very moment that he spoke the object of his contumely was entering the dark mouth of a broad river that flowed from out of the heart of savage Borneo.
In the prahu with him his eleven hideous companions now bent to their paddles with slightly increased efficiency.
Before them the leader saw a fire blazing upon a tiny island in the center of the stream.Toward this they turned their silent way.Grimly the war prahu with its frightful freight nosed closer to the bank.
At last Number Thirteen made out the figures of men about the fire, and as they came still closer he was sure that they were members of the very party he had been pursuing across the broad waters for hours.
The prahus were drawn up upon the bank and the warriors were preparing to eat.
Just as the young giants' prahu came within the circle of firelight a swarthy Malay approached the fire, dragging a white girl roughly by the arm.No more was needed to convince Number Thirteen of the identity of the party.With a low command to his fellows he urged them to redoubled speed.At the same instant a Dyak warrior caught sight of the approaching boat as it sped into the full glare of the light.
At sight of the occupants the head hunters scattered for their own prahus.The frightful aspect of the enemy turned their savage hearts to water, leaving no fight in their ordinarily warlike souls.
So quickly they moved that as the pursuing prahu touched the bank all the nearer boats had been launched, and the remaining pirates were scurrying across the little island for those which lay upon the opposite side.Among these was the Malay who guarded the girl, but he had not been quick enough to prevent Virginia Maxon recognizing the stalwart figure standing in the bow of the oncoming craft.
As he dragged her away toward the prahu of Muda Saffir she cried out to the strange white man who seemed her self-appointed protector.
"Help! Help!" she called."This way! Across the island!"And then the brown hand of her jailer closed over her mouth.
Like a tigress she fought to free herself, or to detain her captor until the rescue party should catch up with them, but the scoundrel was muscled like a bull, and when the girl held back he lifted her across his shoulder and broke into a run.
Rajah Muda Saffir had no stomach for a fight himself, but he was loathe to lose the prize he had but just won, and seeing that his men were panic-stricken he saw no alternative but to rally them for a brief stand that would give the little moment required to slip away in his own prahu with the girl.
Calling aloud for those around him to come to his support he halted fifty yards from his boat just as Number Thirteen with his fierce, brainless horde swept up from the opposite side of the island in the wake of him who bore Virginia Maxon.The old rajah succeeded in gathering some fifty warriors about him from the crews of the two boats which lay near his.His own men he hastened to their posts in his prahu that they might be ready to pull swiftly away the moment that he and the captive were aboard.
The Dyak warriors presented an awe inspiring spectacle in the fitful light of the nearby camp fire.
The ferocity of their fierce faces was accentuated by the upturned, bristling tiger cat's teeth which protruded from every ear; while the long feathers of the Argus pheasant waving from their war-caps, the brilliant colors of their war-coats trimmed with the black and white feathers of the hornbill, and the strange devices upon their gaudy shields but added to the savagery of their appearance as they danced and howled, menacing and intimidating, in the path of the charging foe.
A single backward glance was all that Virginia Maxon found it possible to throw in the direction of the rescue party, and in that she saw a sight that lived forever in her memory.At the head of his hideous, misshapen pack sprang the stalwart young giant straight into the heart of the flashing parangs of the howling savages.To right and left fell the mighty bull whip cutting down men with all the force and dispatch of a steel saber.
The Dyaks, encouraged by the presence of Muda Saffir in their rear, held their ground; and the infuriated, brainless things that followed the wielder of the bull whip threw themselves upon the head hunters with beating hands and rending fangs.
Number Ten wrested a parang from an adversary, and acting upon his example the other creatures were not long in arming themselves in a similar manner.
