The Argus Pheasant

"We have nothing except these old guns," he replied.

"They're junk," Carver observed succinctly. "These proas carry Krupps, I'm told."

"What are you going to do?"

"We'll see whether they can handle it first. If they make it too hot for us – well, we'll die fighting."

The first shell broke over the fort an hour later and exploded in the jungle on the other side. Twenty or thirty shells were wasted in this way before the gunner secured the range. His next effort landed against one of the masonry towers on the side defended by the Dutch. When the smoke had cleared away the tower lay leveled. Nine dead and wounded men were scattered among the ruins. A yell rose from the natives, which the remaining Dutch promptly answered with a stinging volley.

"Hold your fire," Carver directed Banning. "We'd better take to the trenches." These had been dug the day before and deepened during the past hour. Carver issued the necessary commands and the defenders, except ten pickets, concealed themselves in their earthen shelters.

The gunnery of the Chinese artilleryman improved, and gaunt breaches were formed in the walls. One by one the towers crumbled. Each well-placed shell was signalized by cheers from the Dyaks and Malays. The shelling finally ceased abruptly. Carver and Banning surveyed the scene. A ruin of fallen stones and splintered logs was all that lay between them and the horde of over three thousand pirates and Malay and Dyak rebels. The natives were forming for a charge.

Carver took the lieutenant's hand in his own firm grip.

"This is probably the end," he said. "I'm glad to die fighting in such good company."

CHAPTER XXIX

A Woman's Heart

Lying on the bamboo floor of the jungle hut which Muller had spoken of, his hands and feet firmly bound, and a Dyak guard armed with spear and kris at the door, Peter Gross thought over the events of his administration as resident of Bulungan. His thoughts were not pleasant. Shame filled his heart and reddened his brow as he thought of how confidently he had assumed his mission, how firmly he had believed himself to be the chosen instrument of destiny to restore order in the distracted colony and punish those guilty of heinous crimes, and how arrogantly he had rejected the sage advice of his elders.

He recollected old Sachsen's warning and his own impatient reply – the event that he deemed so preposterous at that time and old Sachsen had foreseen had actually come to pass. He had fallen victim to Koyala's wiles. And she had betrayed him. Bitterly he cursed his stupid folly, the folly that had led him to enter the jungle with her, the folly of that mad moment when temptation had assailed him where man is weakest.

In his bitter self-excoriation he had no thought of condemnation for her. The fault was his, he vehemently assured himself, lashing himself with the scorpions of self-reproach. She was what nature and the sin of her father had made her, a child of two alien, unincorporable races, a daughter of the primitive, wild, untamed, uncontrolled, loving fiercely, hating fiercely, capable of supremest sacrifice, capable, too, of the most fiendish cruelty.

He had taken this creature and used her for his own ends, he had praised her, petted her, treated her as an equal, companion, and helpmate. Then, when that moment of madness was upon them both, he had suddenly wounded her acutely sensitive, bitterly proud soul by drawing the bar sinister. How she must have suffered! He winced at the thought of the pain he had inflicted. She could not be blamed, no, the fault was his, he acknowledged. He should have considered that he was dealing with a creature of flesh and blood, a woman with youth, and beauty, and passion. If he, who so fondly dreamed that his heart was marble, could fall so quickly and so fatally, could he censure her?

Carver, too, had warned him. Not once, but many times, almost daily. He had laughed at the warnings, later almost quarreled. What should he say if he ever saw Carver again? He groaned.

There was a soft swish of skirts. Koyala stood before him. She gazed at him coldly. There was neither hate nor love in her eyes, only indifference. In her hand she held a dagger. Peter Gross returned her gaze without flinching.

"You are my prisoner, orang blanda," she said. "Mine only. This hut is mine. We are alone here, in the jungle, except for one of my people."

"You may do with me as you will, Koyala," Peter Gross replied weariedly.

Koyala started, and looked at him keenly.

"I have come to carry you away," she announced.

Peter Gross looked at her in silence.

"But first there are many things that we must talk about," she said.

Peter Gross rose to a sitting posture. "I am listening," he announced.

Koyala did not reply at once. She was gazing fixedly into his eyes, those frank, gray eyes that had so often looked clearly and honestly into hers as he enthusiastically spoke of their joint mission in Bulungan. A half-sob broke in her throat, but she restrained it fiercely.

"Do you remember, mynheer, when we first met?" she asked.

"It was at the mouth of the Abbas River, was it not? At Wolang's village?"

"Why did you laugh at me then?" she exclaimed fiercely.

Peter Gross looked at her in astonishment. "I laughed at you?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, on the beach. When I told you you must go. You laughed. Do not deny it, you laughed!" The fierce intensity of her tone betrayed her feeling.

Peter Gross shook his head while his gaze met hers frankly. "I do not recollect," he said. "I surely did not laugh at you – I do not know what it was – " A light broke upon him. "Ay, to be sure, I remember, now. It was a Dyak boy with a mountain goat. He was drinking milk from the teats. Don't you recall?"

"You are trying to deceive me," Koyala cried angrily. "You laughed because – because – "

"As God lives, it is the truth!"

Koyala placed the point of her dagger over Peter Gross's heart.

"Orang blanda," she said, "I have sworn to kill you if you lie to me in any single particular to-day. I did not see that whereof you speak. There was no boy, no goat. Quick now, the truth, if you would save your life."

Peter Gross met her glance fearlessly.

"I have told you why I laughed, Koyala," he replied. "I can tell you nothing different."

The point of the dagger pricked the resident's skin.

"Then you would rather die?"

Peter Gross merely stared at her. Koyala drew a deep breath and drew back the blade.

"First we shall talk of other things," she said.

At that moment the rattle of rifle-fire reached Peter Gross's ears.

"What is that?" he cried.

Koyala laughed, a low laugh of exultation. "That, mynheer, is the children of Bulungan driving the white peccaries from Borneo."

"Ah Sing has attacked?" Peter Gross could not help, in his excitement, letting a note of his dismay sound in his voice.

"Ah Sing and his pirates," Koyala cried triumphantly. "Wobanguli and the warriors of Bulungan. Lkath and his Sadong Dyaks. The Malays from the coast towns. All Bulungan except the hill people. They are all there, as many as the sands of the seashore, and they have the orang blanda from Holland, and the Javanese, and the loud-voiced orang blanda that you brought with you, penned in Van Slyck's kampong. None will escape."

"Thank God Carver's in the fort," Peter Gross ejaculated.

"But they cannot escape," Koyala insisted fiercely.

"We shall see," Peter Gross replied. Great as were the odds, he felt confident of Carver's ability to hold out a few days anyway. He had yet to learn of the artillery Ah Sing commanded.

"Not one shall escape," Koyala reiterated, the tigerish light glowing in her eyes. "Ah Sing has pledged it to me, Wobanguli has pledged it to me, the last orang blanda shall be driven from Bulungan." She clutched the hilt of her dagger fiercely – .