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They bore a huge chest among them which they deposited within a few paces of where Bulan lay. Then they commenced to dig in the soft earth with their spears and parangs until they had excavated a shallow pit.
There was only the sick old man, a Chinaman and von Horn to prevent it, and the chances were that they all were asleep. So he explained to the chief the plan that had so suddenly sprung to his wicked mind. "Three men with parangs may easily quiet the old man, his assistant and the Chinaman," he said, "and then we can take the girl along with us."
Following the example of their leader the five creatures at his back leaped upon the nearest warriors, and though they wielded their parangs awkwardly the superhuman strength back of their cuts and thrusts sent the already blood stained blades through many a brown body.
The country now was becoming rougher and more open. The flight seemed to be leading into a range of low hills, where the jungle grew less dense, and the way rocky and rugged. They had entered a narrow canyon when Number Twelve went down beneath a half dozen parangs. Again the girl saw a bloody head swung on high and heard the fierce, wild chorus of exulting victory.
After crossing a level plateau we once more found ourselves in a forest so dense that our men had to use their parangs again. The heat of the jungle was intense, and we suffered severely from the stings of a fly that is not unlike a cicada in shape. From the jungle we emerged into an immense stone field, padang-batu, the Malays called it.
They were a sickening sight, and all the horrors of head-hunting were brought before me with vivid and startling reality far more than could have been done by any writer, and I pictured those same heads full of life only a few days before, and then suddenly a rush from the outside amid the unprepared Punans in their rude huts in the depths of the forest, a woman's scream of terror, followed by the sickening sound of hacking blows from the sharp Dayak "parangs," and the Dayak war-cry, "Hoo-hah! hoo-hah!" ringing through the night air, as every single Punan man, woman and child, who has not had time to escape, is cut down in cold blood.
The head hunters had been engaged in collecting camphor crystals when their quick ears caught the noisy passage of the six while yet at a considerable distance, and with ready parangs the savages crept stealthily toward the sound of the advancing party.
Number Thirteen would have paid no attention whatever to them had they not molested him, for he wished only to reach the girl's side as quickly as possible; but in another moment he found himself confronted by a half dozen dancing wild men, brandishing wicked looking parangs, and crying tauntingly.
A complete panic seemed to have seized the inhabitants little or no resistance was offered scarcely a warrior drew his sword in defence of his family. The fierce assailants seized their victims by the hair, and, with a stroke of their sharp parangs, added a fresh head to the horrid trophies of their prowess. Men, women, and children were indiscriminately slaughtered.
Almost simultaneously Professor Maxon and Sing rushed into the living room to ascertain the cause of the wild alarm, while at the same instant Bududreen's assassins sprang through the door with upraised krisses, to be almost immediately followed by Muda Saffir's six Dyaks brandishing their long spears and wicked parangs. In an instant the little room was filled with howling, fighting men.
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