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Failing in his attempt to undermine the loyalty of the two Dyaks von Horn had chosen the only other way to keep the knowledge of the whereabouts of the chest from Barunda's uncle and Muda Saffir, and now his principal interest in life was to escape the vengeance of the head hunters and return to the long-house before his absence should be detected.
When Muda Saffir turned from the two Dyaks who had brought him news of the treasure he hastened to the long-house and arousing the chief of the tribe who domiciled there explained that necessity required that the rajah have at once two war prahus fully manned.
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.
To have acquiesced too readily would have been to have invited still further demands from them. "Only the rifles and ammunition," he said at last, "unless you succeed in keeping the knowledge of my presence from both Barunda's uncle and Muda Saffir. If you do that you shall have the bracelets also." The prow of the sampan touched the bank. "Come!" said one of the warriors.
At the rate of fifty a minute, a stream of projectiles tore into the bow of the prahu when suddenly a richly garbed Malay in the stern rose to his feet waving a white cloth upon the point of his kris. It was the Rajah Muda Saffir he had seen the girl's face and at the sight of it the blood lust in his breast had been supplanted by another. At sight of the emblem of peace Virginia ceased firing.
Again the party embarked, reinforced by the two Dyaks who were only too glad to renew their allegiance to Muda Saffir while he was backed by the guns of the white men. On and on they paddled up the river, gleaning from the dwellers in the various long-houses information of the passing of the two prahus with Barunda, Ninaka, and the white girl.
He would wait and see, it were always an easy matter to rid himself of her should circumstances require. The river was there, deep, dark and silent, and he could place the responsibility for her loss upon Muda Saffir. Shortly after day break Ninaka beached his prahu before the long-house of a peaceful river tribe.
As the two approached the campong quiet seemed to have again fallen about the scene of the recent alarm. Muda Saffir had passed on toward the cove with the heavy chest, and the scrimmage in the bungalow was over. But von Horn did not abate his watchfulness as he stole silently within the precincts of the north campong, and, hugging the denser shadows of the palisade, crept toward the house.
"The girl and the treasure were both stolen from me by a rascally panglima, Ninaka," said Muda Saffir, seeing that it would be as well to simulate friendship for the white man for the time being at least there would always be an opportunity to use a kris upon him in the remote fastness of the interior to which Muda Saffir would lead them.
"Treasure!" ejaculated the professor. "Bududreen gave up his life for this. Rajah Muda Saffir fought and intrigued and murdered for possession of it! Poor, misguided von Horn has died for it, and left his head to wither beneath the rafters of a Dyak long-house! It is incredible." "But, Professor Maxon," said Lieutenant May, "men will suffer all these things and more for gold."
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