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Rajah Muda Saffir had no stomach for a fight himself, but he was loathe to lose

the prize he had but just won, and seeing that his men were panic-stricken he

saw no alternative but to rally them for a brief stand that would give the little

moment required to slip away in his own prahu with the girl.

Calling aloud for those around him to come to his support he halted fifty yards

from his boat just as Number Thirteen with his fierce, brainless horde swept up

from the opposite side of the island in the wake of him who bore Virginia Maxon.

The old rajah succeeded in gathering some fifty warriors about him from the

crews of the two boats which lay near his. His own men he hastened to their

posts in his prahu that they might be ready to pull swiftly away the moment that

he and the captive were aboard.

The Dyak warriors presented an awe inspiring spectacle in the fitful light of the

nearby camp fire. The ferocity of their fierce faces was accentuated by the

upturned, bristling tiger cat's teeth which protruded from every ear; while the

long feathers of the Argus pheasant waving from their war-caps, the brilliant

colors of their war-coats trimmed with the black and white feathers of the

hornbill, and the strange devices upon their gaudy shields but added to the

savagery of their appearance as they danced and howled, menacing and

intimidating, in the path of the charging foe.

A single backward glance was all that Virginia Maxon found it possible to throw

in the direction of the rescue party, and in that she saw a sight that lived forever

in her memory. At the head of his hideous, misshapen pack sprang the stalwart

young giant straight into the heart of the flashing parangs of the howling savages.

To right and left fell the mighty bull whip cutting down men with all the force and

dispatch of a steel saber. The Dyaks, encouraged by the presence of Muda Saffir

in their rear, held their ground; and the infuriated, brainless things that followed

the wielder of the bull whip threw themselves upon the head hunters with beating

hands and rending fangs.

Number Ten wrested a parang from an adversary, and acting upon his example

the other creatures were not long in arming themselves in a similar manner.

Cutting and jabbing they hewed their way through the solid ranks of the enemy,

until Muda Saffir, seeing that defeat was inevitable turned and fled toward his

prahu.

Four of his creatures lay dead as the last of the Dyaks turned to escape from the

mad white man who faced naked steel with only a rawhide whip. In panic the

head hunters made a wild dash for the two remaining prahus, for Muda Saffir

had succeeded in getting away from the island in safety.

The Monster Men