clap of thunder detonated in the hollow with a violence that seemed
capable of bursting into small pieces the ring of high land, and a warm
deluge descended. The wind died out. We panted in the close cabin; our
faces streamed; the bay outside hissed as if boiling; the water fell in
perpendicular shafts as heavy as lead; it swished about the deck, poured
off the spars, gurgled, sobbed, splashed, murmured in the blind night.
Our lamp burned low. Hollis, stripped to the waist, lay stretched out on
the lockers, with closed eyes and motionless like a despoiled corpse; at
his head Jackson twanged the guitar, and gasped out in sighs a mournful
dirge about hopeless love and eyes like stars. Then we heard startled
voices on deck crying in the rain, hurried footsteps overhead, and
suddenly Karain appeared in the doorway of the cabin. His bare breast
and his face glistened in the light; his sarong, soaked, clung about his
legs; he had his sheathed kriss in his left hand; and wisps of wet hair,
escaping from under his red kerchief, stuck over his eyes and down
his cheeks. He stepped in with a headlong stride and looking over his
shoulder like a man pursued. Hollis turned on his side quickly and
opened his eyes. Jackson clapped his big hand over the strings and the
jingling vibration died suddenly. I stood up.

"We did not hear your boat's hail!" I exclaimed.

"Boat! The man's swum off," drawled out Hollis from the locker. "Look at
him!"

He breathed heavily, wild-eyed, while we looked at him in silence. Water
dripped from him, made a dark pool, and ran crookedly across the cabin
floor. We could hear Jackson, who had gone out to drive away our Malay
seamen from the doorway of the companion; he swore menacingly in the
patter of a heavy shower, and there was a great commotion on deck. The