Meanwhile, the cries of a horde of Dyaks from the boats arose from the jungle below. They had evidently landed with considerable willingness of spirit, as Grenville was thoroughly aware. He thought of Elaine with a sudden sinking of the vitals. No sooner had the second of the natives started to mount to the deck, where number one still lay groaning, than a wild idea shot into Sidney's mind. At any cost, he must make one dash for the hill.
He quietly slipped to the cabin again, where "Buli" had long been captain and crew of the barque. The one brief glance he bestowed, through the hole, on the leader of the murderous demons, now hastening to the place, showed that ingenious savage standing perhaps a rod away and calling to the on-coming crews.
The fellow on deck was making sufficient noise to mask a fair disturbance in the cabin. Taking instant advantage of this fact, Grenville groped downward with his hands--and encountered "Buli" promptly.
"I need your services, brother," he murmured, grimly, and, finding the chain that shackled the sitting skeleton, he placed one foot upon its upper end and tore the staple entirely out of the rotten wood it pierced.
Bodily lifting the mummified thing in his arms, he hastened forward, to the hole that he alone had dared to utilize, broken through the decaying hulk, where he passed first his burden and then himself between the ancient ribs.
A cry had been sounded from within the barque. The chief of the Dyaks suddenly turned and rushed, knife in hand, upon the man he beheld escaping from the hold.
Grenville waited for him, deliberately. Just as the fellow lunged actively forward, Sidney thrust the hideous effigy of a human being into the arms and against the face of his wildly stabbing assailant and nimbly leaped towards the trail.
A sound of horror broke from the Dyak's lips as he rolled on the earth with the skeleton rattling down upon him. But a brief time only was he prostrate there with his terror. Uttering screams as shrill as a woman's and darting swiftly to meet his crew of men, who suddenly swarmed from the thicket, he headed a wild, fanatic pursuit where Grenville was speeding for the terrace.
Alone on the hill, and already strung to the highest tension of dread by Grenville's long absence, after what he had said of a prompt return, Elaine had been struck with alarm to the core of her being, as the various sounds came clearly up from the jungle about the disintegrated wreck.