“The devil take them!” he growled, for he feared that the commotion would awaken Iris.  He was still laboriously worming his way through the inner maze of branches when a well-known voice reached him from the ground.

“Mr. Jenks, what on earth are you doing up there?”

“Oh! so those wretched fowls aroused you?” he replied.

“Yes; but why did you arouse them?”

“I had a fancy to roost by way of a change”

“Please be serious.”

“I am more than serious.  This tree grows a variety of small sharp thorn that induces a maximum of gravity—­before one takes the next step.”

“But why do you keep on climbing?”

“It is sheer lunacy, I admit.  Yet on such a moonlit night there is some reasonable ground for even a mad excuse.”

“Mr. Jenks, tell me at once what you are doing.”

Iris strove to be severe, but there was a touch of anxiety in her tone that instantly made the sailor apologetic.  He told her about the ledge, and explained his half-formed notion that here they might secure a safe retreat in case of further attack—­a refuge from which they might defy assault during many days.  It was, he said, absolutely impossible to wait until the morning.  He must at once satisfy himself whether the project was impracticable or worthy of further investigation.

So the girl only enjoined him to be careful, and he vigorously renewed the climb.  At last, some twenty-five feet from the ground, an accidental parting in the branches enabled him to get a good look at the ledge.  One glance set his heart beating joyously.  It was at least fifteen feet in length; it shelved back until its depth was lost in the blackness of the shadows, and the floor must be either nearly level or sloping slightly inwards to the line of the fault.

The place was a perfect eagle’s nest.  A chamois could not reach it from any direction; it became accessible to man only by means of a ladder or a balloon.

More excited by this discovery than he cared for Iris to know, he endeavored to appear unconcerned when he regained the ground.

“Well,” she said, “tell me all about it.”

He described the nature of the cavity as well as he understood it at the moment, and emphasized his previous explanation of its virtues.  Here they might reasonably hope to make a successful stand against the Dyaks.

“Then you feel sure that those awful creatures will come back?” she said slowly.

“Only too sure, unfortunately.”

“How remorseless poor humanity is when the veneer is stripped off!  Why cannot they leave us in peace?  I suppose they now cherish a blood feud against us.  Perhaps, if I had not been here, they would not have injured you.  Somehow I seem to be bound up with your misfortunes.”