ledge near the roof.

"Confound you!" shouted the sailor. He sprang back and whacked the
walls viciously, but all the feathered intruders had gone.

So far as he could judge the cave harbored no further surprises.
Returning towards the exit his boots dislodged more empty cartridges
from the sand. They were shells adapted to a revolver of heavy caliber.
At a short distance from the doorway they were present in dozens.

"The remnants of a fight," he thought. "The man was attacked, and
defended himself here. Not expecting the arrival of enemies he provided
no store of food or water. He was killed whilst trying to reach the
well, probably at night."

He vividly pictured the scene--a brave, hardy European keeping at bay a
boatload of Dyak savages, enduring manfully the agonies of hunger,
thirst, perhaps wounds. Then the siege, followed by a wild effort to
gain the life-giving well, the hiss of a Malay parang wielded by a
lurking foe, and the last despairing struggle before death came.

He might be mistaken. Perchance there was a less dramatic explanation.
But he could not shake off his, first impressions. They were garnered
from dumb evidence and developed by some occult but overwhelming sense
of certainty.

"What was the poor devil doing here?" he asked. "Why did he bury
himself in this rock, with mining utensils and a few rough stores? He
could not be a castaway. There is the indication of purpose, of
preparation, of method combined with ignorance, for none who knew the