A rusted pocket-knife lay there, and on the left breast of the skeleton
rested a round piece of tin, the top of a canister, which might have
reposed in a coat pocket. Jenks picked it up. Some curious marks and
figures were punched into its surface. After a hasty glance he put it
aside for more leisurely examination.

No weapon was visible. He could form no estimate as to the cause of the
death of this poor unknown, nor the time since the tragedy had
occurred.

Jenks must have stood many minutes before he perceived that the
skeleton was headless. At first he imagined that in rummaging about
with the stick he had disturbed the skull. But the most minute search
demonstrated that it had gone, had been taken away, in fact, for the
plants which so effectually screened the lighter bones would not permit
the skull to vanish.

Then the frown on the sailor's face became threatening, thunderous. He
recollected the rusty kriss. Indistinct memories of strange tales of
the China Sea crowded unbidden to his brain.

"Dyaks!" he growled fiercely. "A ship's officer, an Englishman
probably, murdered by head-hunting Dyak pirates!"

If they came once they would come again.

Five hundred yards away Iris Deane was sleeping. He ought not to have
left her alone. And then, with the devilish ingenuity of coincidence, a
revolver shot awoke the echoes, and sent all manner of wildfowl
hurtling through the trees with clamorous outcry.