Scarce had the first suggestion of dawn lightened the eastern sky than Divine, who was again on guard, awakened Theriere.In a moment the others were aroused, and a hasty raid on the cached provisions made.The lack of water was keenly felt by all, but it was too far to the spring to chance taking the time necessary to fetch the much-craved fluid and those who were to forge into the jungle in search of Barbara Harding hoped to find water farther inland, while it was decided to dispatch Bony Sawyer to the spring for water for those who were to remain on guard at the cliff top.
A hurried breakfast was made on water-soaked ship's biscuit.
Theriere and his searching party stuffed their pockets full of them, and a moment later the search was on.First the men traversed the trail toward the spring, looking for indications of the spot where Barbara Harding had ceased to follow them.
The girl had worn heelless buckskin shoes at the time she was taken from the Lotus, and these left little or no spoor in the well-tramped earth of the narrow path; but a careful and minute examination on the part of Theriere finally resulted in the detection of a single small footprint a hundred yards from the point they had struck the trail after ascending the cliffs.
This far at least she had been with them.
The men now spread out upon either side of the track--Theriere and Red Sanders upon one side, Byrne and Wison upon the other.Occasionally Theriere would return to the trail to search for further indications of the spoor they sought.
The party had proceeded in this fashion for nearly half a mile when suddenly they were attracted by a low exclamation from the mucker.
"Here!" he called."Here's Miller an' the Swede, an' they sure have mussed 'em up turrible."The others hastened in the direction of his voice, to come to a horrified halt at the sides of the headless trunks of the two sailors.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the Frenchman, reverting to his mother tongue as he never did except under the stress of great excitement.
"Who done it?" queried Red Sanders, looking suspiciously at the mucker.
"Head-hunters," said Theriere."God! What an awful fate for that poor girl!"Billy Byrne went white.
"Yeh don't mean dat dey've lopped off her block?" he whispered in an awed voice.Something strange rose in the mucker's breast at the thought he had just voiced.He did not attempt to analyze the sensation; but it was far from joy at the suggestion that the woman he so hated had met a horrible and disgusting death at the hands of savages.
"I'm afraid not, Byrne," said Theriere, in a voice that none there would have recognized as that of the harsh and masterful second officer of the Halfmoon.
"Yer afraid not!" echoed Billy Byrne, in amazement.
"For her sake I hope that they did," said Theriere; "for such as she it would have been a far less horrible fate than the one I fear they have reserved her for.""You mean--" queried Byrne, and then he stopped, for the realization of just what Theriere did mean swept over him quite suddenly.
There was no particular reason why Billy Byrne should have felt toward women the finer sentiments which are so cherished a possession of those men who have been gently born and raised, even after they have learned that all women are not as was the feminine ideal of their boyhood.
Billy's mother, always foul-mouthed and quarrelsome, had been a veritable demon when drunk, and drunk she had been whenever she could, by hook or crook, raise the price of whiskey.Never, to Billy's recollection, had she spoken a word of endearment to him; and so terribly had she abused him that even while he was yet a little boy, scarce out of babyhood, he had learned to view her with a hatred as deeprooted as is the affection of most little children for their mothers.
When he had come to man's estate he had defended himself from the woman's brutal assaults as he would have defended himself from another man--when she had struck, Billy had struck back; the only thing to his credit being that he never had struck her except in self-defense.Chastity in woman was to him a thing to joke of--he did not believe that it existed;for he judged other women by the one he knew best--his mother.And as he hated her, so he hated them all.He had doubly hated Barbara Harding since she not only was a woman, but a woman of the class he loathed.
And so it was strange and inexplicable that the suggestion of the girl's probable fate should have affected Billy Byrne as it did.He did not stop to reason about it at all--he simply knew that he felt a mad and unreasoning rage against the creatures that had borne the girl away.Outwardly Billy showed no indication of the turmoil that raged within his breast.
"We gotta find her, bo," he said to Theriere."We gotta find the skirt."Ordinarily Billy would have blustered about the terrible things he would do to the objects of his wrath when once he had them in his power; but now he was strangely quiet--only the firm set of his strong chin, and the steely glitter of his gray eyes gave token of the iron resolution within.
Theriere, who had been walking slowly to and fro about the dead men, now called the others to him.
"Here's their trail," he said."If it's as plain as that all the way we won't be long in overhauling them.Come along."Before he had the words half out of his mouth the mucker was forging ahead through the jungle along the well-marked spoor of the samurai.
"Wot kind of men do you suppose they are?" asked Red Sanders.
"Malaysian head-hunters, unquestionably," replied Theriere.
Red Sanders shuddered inwardly.The appellation had a most gruesome sound.
"Come on!" cried Theriere, and started off after the mucker, who already was out of sight in the thick forest.
Red Sanders and Wison took a few steps after the Frenchman.
Theriere turned once to see that they were following him, and then a turn in the trail hid them from his view.Red Sanders stopped.
"Damme if I'm goin' to get my coconut hacked off on any such wild-goose chase as this," he said to Wison.
