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his fellows, and in another instant a sharp pair of eyes caught the movement of
the four who had now broken into a run.
With savage shouts the entire force of head hunters sprang in pursuit. Bulan
lifted Virginia in his arms and dashed on ahead of Number Twelve and Number
Three. A shower of poisoned darts blown from half a hundred sumpitans fell
about them, and then Muda Saffir called to his warriors to cease using their
deadly blow-pipes lest they kill the girl.
Into the jungle dashed the four while close behind them came the howling pack of
enraged savages. Now one closed upon Number Three only to fall back dead with
a broken neck as the giant fingers released their hold upon him. A parang swung
close to Number Twelve, but his own, which he had now learned to wield with
fearful effect, clove through the pursuing warrior's skull splitting him wide to the
breast bone.
Thus they fought the while they forced their way deeper and deeper into the dark
mazes of the entangled vegetation. The brunt of the running battle was borne by
the two monsters, for Bulan was carrying Virginia, and keeping a little ahead of
his companions to insure the girl's greater safety.
Now and then patches of moonlight filtering through occasional openings in the
leafy roofing revealed to Virginia the battle that was being waged for possession of
her, and once, when Number Three turned toward her after disposing of a new
assailant, she was horrified to see the grotesque and terrible face of the creature.
A moment later she caught sight of Number Twelve's hideous face. She was
appalled.
Could it be that she had been rescued from the Malay to fall into the hands of
creatures equally heartless and entirely without souls? She glanced up at the
face of him who carried her. In the darkness of the night she had not yet had an
opportunity to see the features of the man, but after a glimpse at those of his two
companions she trembled to think of the hideous thing that might be revealed to
her.
Could it be that she had at last fallen into the hands of the dreaded and terrible
Number Thirteen! Instinctively she shrank from contact with the man in whose
arms she had been carried without a trace of repugnance until the thought
obtruded itself that he might be the creature of her father's mad experimentation,
to whose arms she had been doomed by the insane obsession of her parent.
The man shifted her now to give himself freer use of his right arm, for the savages
were pressing more closely upon Twelve and Three, and the change made it
impossible for the girl to see his face even in the more frequent moonlit places.
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