She still held a glowing fire-stick in her hand, as she peered through the billowing cloud of smoke where she had flung an ignited bomb. She had fled from her shelter, in desperate dread, lest a murderous fate overtake her companion, battling alone with the fiends. She had found his post deserted, and, having discerned two figures on the trail, had instantly obeyed an impulse to protect the hill with the only means provided. She uttered a cry as she saw Grenville crouching behind her, raising her brand like a weapon, then sinking in relief. "You!" he said. "Elaine! I might have known!" "I am sure they are coming up behind us there!" she answered. "I know I heard the bamboo buckets jangling! Have you been across to see?" "I fired the bomb," he answered. "Didn't you know?" She shook her head. Her ears, that had been so finely attuned to catch the warning from the rearward cliff, had received or recorded no impression whatsoever of the huger disturbance, while her own bomb's colossal thunder and shock engrossed her eager attention. "Was anyone there?" she asked, half choking with the reek. "I suppose you couldn't see." "I saw no one when lighting the fuse," he answered. "What was happening here?" She related what she had seen and what she had done. "I hope I killed them!" she added, weak and dizzy from the smoke. "But they probably ran away!" It was the first time she had entertained such a feeling. He urged her again to the shelter, where he coaxed her to drink, and bathe her face, for the freshening and soothing influence of which she was sadly in need. Returning, then, to the shelter for some of their fruit, he groped his way down along the trail--and found that one or the other of the bombs had so shattered the ledge, as to render it useless for passing till the gap could in some way be bridged. They were safe from invasion in the night--but they were, likewise, marooned on the hill! It was hardly likely the Dyaks would attempt to construct a platform across the yawning cavity, under the shadow of the gun, while, as for themselves, descent at present was entirely out of the question. Meantime the smoke was unabated, if it was not, indeed, more dense and choking than before. All the man's characteristic doggedness of purpose was required in preparations for the night. The sun was down; the brief and usually comforting twilight seemed entirely absent, as darkness was hastened by the fumes. Back and forth from the now deserted shelter to the passage Sidney groped time after time, fetching her couch and robe for Elaine, and their meager supplies for dinner. The gallery then became her boudoir, sanctified to her uses. Outside on the ledge, where at least a breath of air trailed upward from the cave beneath, to escape at the door and a little dilute the stifling smoke, he finally made his sentinel post to pass the long session of darkness.