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Jenks swore with an emphasis not the less earnest because it was mute, and took steady aim at the Dyak's left breast. The birds fluttered about in ever smaller circles. Then one of them dropped easily on to the lip of the rock. Instantly his bright eyes encountered those of the man, and he darted off with a scream that brought his mates after him.
Then Jenks understood that his bullet had hit the lock of the Dyak's uplifted weapon, with the result already described. By a miracle he had escaped. He coolly prepared to slay the three of them with the same calm purpose that distinguished the opening phase of this singularly one-sided conflict. The distance was much greater, perhaps 800 yards from the point where the boat came into view.
Judging from the manner of the Dyak's involuntary plunge he had been hit by a ricochet bullet, whilst the sailor's efforts were wholly confined to sinking the sampan. However, let it pass. Bullet or shark, the end was the same.
Here was something definite and solid. Then he dragged one of the wounded men out into the moonlight. Again Jenks experienced an itching desire to send a bullet through the Dyak's head; again he resisted the impulse. And so passed that which is vouchsafed by Fate to few men a second opportunity.
True enough, a man had climbed to that unhappily placed rocky table, and was shouting something to a confrère high on the cliff over their heads. As yet he had not seen them, nor even noticed the place where they were concealed. The sailor imagined, from the Dyak's gestures, that he was communicating the uselessness of further search on the western part of the island.
These "Head Feasts" are general among the aboriginal tribes throughout the island of Borneo, and are held when a new head has been added to the ghastly trophies of the Dyak's house. They are now, however, rare, as head hunting is punished by death in Sarawak, but on the occasion of an expedition by Government against a hostile tribe, head hunting is permitted to those fighting against the rebels.
Bad, however, as they are here, they were worse in a Dyak's house in Borneo where I was once staying, for there they gnawed off the tops of my waterproof boots, ate a large piece out of an old leather game-bag, besides devouring a portion of my mosquito curtain! April 28th. Last evening we had a grand consultation, which had evidently been arranged and discussed beforehand.
Perhaps he had used too fine a sight and ploughed a furrow beneath the Dyak's ear. He only heard a faint yell, but the enterprising head vanished and there were no more volunteers for that particular service. He was still peering at the place when a cry of unmitigated anguish came from Iris "Oh, come quick! Our water! The casks have burst!"
But to this generalisation there are three great exceptions. In the case of countries that are not European at all, and have never had our civic conceptions, or the old Latin scholarship. I do not pretend that the Patagonian phrase for "citizenship" at once leaps to the mind, or that a Dyak's word for "the Republic" has been familiar to me from the nursery.
They are rich in gongs, brass trays, wire, silver coins, and other articles in which a Dyak's wealth consists; and their women and children are all highly ornamented with bead necklaces, shells, and brass wire. In the morning I waited some time, but the men that were to accompany me did not make their appearance.
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