“There was the Door to which I found no Key;
  There was the Veil through which I could not see: 
      Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee
  There was—­and then no more of Thee and Me.”

The sailor, too, wrestled with the great problem.  He may be pardoned if his heart quailed and he groaned aloud.

“Iris,” he said solemnly, “whatever happens, unless I am struck dead at your feet, I promise you that we shall pass the boundary hand in hand.  Be mine the punishment if we have decided wrongly.  And now,” he cried, tossing his head in a defiant access of energy, “let us have done with the morgue.  For my part I refuse to acknowledge I am inside until the gates clang behind me.  As for you, you cannot help yourself.  You must do as I tell you.  I never knew of a case where the question of Woman’s Rights was so promptly settled.”

His vitality was infectious.  Iris smiled again.  Her sensitive highly strung nerves permitted these sharp alternations between despondency and hope.

“You must remember,” he went on, “that the Dyak score is twenty-one to the bad, whilst our loss stands at love.  Dear me, that cannot be right.  Love is surely not a loss.”

“A cynic might describe it as a negative gain.”

“Oh, a cynic is no authority.  He knows nothing whatever about the subject.”

“My father used to say, when he was in Parliament, that people who knew least oft-times spoke best.  Some men get overweighted with facts.”

They chatted in lighter vein with such pendulum swing back to nonchalance that none would have deemed it possible for these two to have already determined the momentous issue of the pending struggle should it go against them.  There is, glory be, in the Anglo-Saxon race the splendid faculty of meeting death with calm defiance, almost with contempt.  Moments of panic, agonizing memories of bygone days, visions of dear faces never to be seen again, may temporarily dethrone this proud fortitude.  But the tremors pass, the gibbering specters of fear and lamentation are thrust aside, and the sons and daughters of Great Britain answer the last roll-call with undaunted heroism.  They know how to die.

And so the sun sank to rest in the sea, and the star, pierced the deepening blue of the celestial arch, whilst the man and the woman awaited patiently the verdict of the fates.

Before the light failed, Jenks gathered all the poisoned arrows and ground their vemoned points to powder beneath his heel.  Gladly would Iris and he have dispensed with the friendly protection of the tarpaulin when the cool evening breeze came from the south.  But such a thing might not be even considered.  Several hours of darkness must elapse before the moon rose, and during that period, were their foes so minded, they would be absolutely at the mercy of the sumpitan shafts if not covered by their impenetrable buckler.

The sailor looked long and earnestly at the well.  Their own bucket, improvised out of a dish-cover and a rope, lay close to the brink.  A stealthy crawl across the sandy valley, half a minute of grave danger, and he would be up the ladder again with enough water to serve their imperative needs for days to come.