For a moment the two stood in silence; Bulan torturedby thoughts of the bitter humiliation that he mustsuffer when the girl should learn his identity;Virginia wondering at the sad lines that had comeinto the young man's face, and at his silence.

It was the girl who first spoke. "Who are you,"she asked, "to whom I owe my safety?"

The man hesitated. To speak aught than the truthhad never occurred to him during his brief existence.He scarcely knew how to lie. To him a question demandedbut one manner of reply--the facts. But never beforehad he had to face a question where so much dependedupon his answer. He tried to form the bitter,galling words; but a vision of that lovely facesuddenly transformed with horror and disgust throttledthe name in his throat.

"I am Bulan," he said, at last, quietly.

"Bulan," repeated the girl. "Bulan. Why thatis a native name. You are either an Englishmanor an American. What is your true name?"

"My name is Bulan," he insisted doggedly.

Virginia Maxon thought that he must have some goodreason of his own for wishing to conceal his identity.At first she wondered if he could be a fugitive fromjustice--the perpetrator of some horrid crime,who dared not divulge his true name even in the remotefastness of a Bornean wilderness; but a glance athis frank and noble countenance drove every vestigeof the traitorous thought from her mind. Her woman'sintuition was sufficient guarantee of the nobilityof his character.

"Then let me thank you, Mr. Bulan," she said, "for theservice that you have rendered a strange and helpless woman."

He smiled.

"Just Bulan," he said. "There is no need for Missor Mister in the savage jungle, Virginia."

The girl flushed at the sudden and unexpected use of hergiven name, and was surprised that she was not offended.

"How do you know my name?" she asked.

Bulan saw that he would get into deep water ifhe attempted to explain too much, and, as is ever the way,discovered that one deception had led him into another;so he determined to forestall future embarrassing queriesby concocting a story immediately to explain his presenceand his knowledge.

"I lived upon the island near your father's camp,"he said. "I knew you all--by sight."

"How long have you lived there?" asked the girl."We thought the island uninhabited."

"All my life," replied Bulan truthfully.

"It is strange," she mused. "I cannot understand it.But the monsters--how is it that they followed you andobeyed your commands?"

Bulan touched the bull whip that hung at his side.

"Von Horn taught them to obey this," he said.

"He used that upon them?" cried the girl in horror.

"It was the only way," said Bulan. "They were almost brainless--they could understand nothing else, for they could not reason."

Virginia shuddered.

"Where are they now--the balance of them?" she asked.

"They are dead, poor things," he replied, sadly."Poor, hideous, unloved, unloving monsters--they gaveup their lives for the daughter of the man who madethem the awful, repulsive creatures that they were."

"What do you mean?" cried the girl.

"I mean that all have been killed searching for you,and battling with your enemies. They were soullesscreatures, but they loved the mean lives they gave upso bravely for you whose father was the authorof their misery-- you owe a great deal to them, Virginia."

"Poor things," murmured the girl, "but yet they arebetter off, for without brains or souls there couldbe no happiness in life for them. My father did thema hideous wrong, but it was an unintentional wrong.His mind was crazed with dwelling upon the wonderfuldiscovery he had made, and if he wronged themhe contemplated a still more terrible wrongto be inflicted upon me, his daughter."

"I do not understand," said Bulan.

"It was his intention to give me in marriage to oneof his soulless monsters--to the one he called NumberThirteen. Oh, it is terrible even to think of thehideousness of it; but now they are all dead he cannotdo it even though his poor mind, which seems well again,should suffer a relapse."

"Why do you loathe them so?" asked Bulan. "Is it becausethey are hideous, or because they are soulless?"

"Either fact were enough to make them repulsive,"replied the girl, "but it is the fact that they werewithout souls that made them totally impossible--one easily overlooks physical deformity, but the moraldepravity that must be inherent in a creature withouta soul must forever cut him off from intercoursewith human beings."

"And you think that regardless of their physical appearancethe fact that they were without souls would have been apparent?"asked Bulan.

"I am sure of it," cried Virginia. "I would know themoment I set my eyes upon a creature without a soul."

With all the sorrow that was his, Bulan could scarcerepress a smile, for it was quite evident either thatit was impossible to perceive a soul, or else that hepossessed one.

"Just how do you distinguish the possessor of a soul?"he asked.

The girl cast a quick glance up at him.

"You are making fun of me," she said.

"Not at all," he replied. "I am just curious as to howsouls make themselves apparent. I have seen men killone another as beasts kill. I have seen one who wascruel to those within his power, yet they were all menwith souls. I have seen eleven soulless monsters dieto save the daughter of a man whom they believed hadwronged them terribly--a man with a soul. How thenam I to know what attributes denote the possessionof the immortal spark? How am I to know whetheror not I possess a soul?"

Virginia smiled.

"You are courageous and honorable and chivalrous--those are enough to warrant the belief that you have a soul,were it not apparent from your countenance that you areof the higher type of mankind," she said.

"I hope that you will never change your opinion of me,Virginia," said the man; but he knew that there laybefore her a severe shock, and before him a greatsorrow when they should come to where her fatherwas and the girl should learn the truth concerning him.

That he did not himself tell her may be forgiven him,for he had only a life of misery to look forwardto after she should know that he, too, was equallya soulless monster with the twelve that had preceded himto a merciful death. He would have envied them butfor the anticipation of the time that he might be alonewith her before she learned the truth.

As he pondered the future there came to him the thoughtthat should they never find Professor Maxon or von Hornthe girl need never know but that he was a human being.He need not lose her then, but always be near her.The idea grew and with it the mighty temptation to leadVirginia Maxon far into the jungle, and keep her foreverfrom the sight of men. And why not? Had he not saved herwhere others had failed? Was she not, by all that wasjust and fair, his?

Did he owe any loyalty to either her father or von Horn?Already he had saved Professor Maxon's life, so the obligation,if there was any, lay all against the older man; and three timeshe had saved Virginia. He would be very kind and good to her.She should be much happier and a thousand times safer thanwith those others who were so poorly equipped to protect her.

As he stood silently gazing out across the junglebeneath them toward the new sun the girl watched himin a spell of admiration of his strong and noble face,and his perfect physique. What would have beenher emotions had she guessed what thoughts were his!It was she who broke the silence.

"Can you find the way to the long-house where my father is?"she asked.

Bulan, startled at the question, looked up from his reverie.The thing must be faced, then, sooner than he thought.How was he to tell her of his intention? It occurredto him to sound her first--possibly she would make noobjection to the plan.

"You are anxious to return?" he asked.

"Why, yes, of course, I am," she replied. "My fatherwill be half mad with apprehension, until he knows thatI am safe. What a strange question, indeed." Still,however, she did not doubt the motives of her companion.

"Suppose we should be unable to find our way to thelong-house?" he continued.

"Oh, don't say such a thing," cried the girl."It would be terrible. I should die of miseryand fright and loneliness in this awful jungle.Surely you can find your way to the river--it was but a short march through the junglefrom where we landed to the spot at whichyou took me away from that fearful Malay."

The girl's words cast a cloud over Bulan's hopes.The future looked less roseate with the knowledgethat she would be unhappy in the life that he had beenmapping for them. He was silent--thinking. In his breasta riot of conflicting emotions were waging the firstgreat battle which was to point the trend of the man'scharacter--would the selfish and the base prevail,or would the noble?

With the thought of losing her his desire for hercompanionship became almost a mania. To return herto her father and von Horn would be to lose her--of that there could be no doubt, for they would not leaveher long in ignorance of his origin. Then, in additionto being deprived of her forever, he must sufferthe galling mortification of her scorn.

It was a great deal to ask of a fledgling moralitythat was yet scarcely cognizant of its untried wings;but even as the man wavered between right and wrongthere crept into his mind the one great and burning questionof his life--had he a soul? And he knew that uponhis decision of the fate of Virginia Maxon restedto some extent the true answer to that question, for,unconsciously, he had worked out his own crude soulhypothesis which imparted to this invisible entitythe power to direct his actions only for good.Therefore he reasoned that wickedness presupposeda small and worthless soul, or the entire lack of one.

That she would hate a soulless creature he acceptedas a foregone conclusion. He desired her respect,and that fact helped him to his final decision, but thething that decided him was born of the truly chivalrousnature he possessed--he wanted Virginia Maxon to behappy; it mattered not at what cost to him.

The girl had been watching him closely as he stoodsilently thinking after her last words. She did not knowthe struggle that the calm face hid; yet she felt thatthe dragging moments were big with the question of her fate.

"Well?" she said at length.

"We must eat first," he replied in a matter-of-fact tone,and not at all as though he was about to renouncehis life's happiness, "and then we shall set outin search of your father. I shall take you to him,Virginia, if man can find him."

"I knew that you could," she said, simply, "but how myfather and I ever can repay you I do not know--do you?"

"Yes," said Bulan, and there was a sudden rush of fireto his eyes that kept Virginia Maxon from urging adetailed explanation of just how she might repay him.

In truth she did not know whether to be angry,or frightened, or glad of the truth that she read there;or mortified that it had awakened in her a realizationthat possibly an analysis of her own interest in thisyoung stranger might reveal more than she had imagined.

The constraint that suddenly fell upon them wasrelieved when Bulan motioned her to follow him backdown the trail into the gorge in search of food.There they sat together upon a fallen tree besidea tiny rivulet, eating the fruit that the man gathered.Often their eyes met as they talked, but alwaysthe girl's fell before the open worship of the man's.

Many were the men who had looked in admirationat Virginia Maxon in the past, but never, she felt,with eyes so clean and brave and honest. There wasno guile or evil in them, and because of it shewondered all the more that she could not face them.

"What a wonderful soul those eyes portray," she thought,"and how perfectly they assure the safety of my lifeand honor while their owner is near me."

And the man thought: "Would that I owned a soul that I mightaspire to live always near her--always to protect her."

When they had eaten the two set out once morein search of the river, and the confidence that is bornof ignorance was theirs, so that beyond each succeedingtangled barrier of vines and creepers they looked to seethe swirling stream that would lead them to the girl's father.

On and on they trudged, the man often carrying the girlacross the rougher obstacles and through the littlestreams that crossed their path, until at last camenoon, and yet no sign of the river they sought.The combined jungle craft of the two had been insufficienteither to trace the way that they had come,or point the general direction of the river.

As the afternoon drew to a close Virginia Maxoncommenced to lose heart--she was confident that theywere lost. Bulan made no pretence of knowing the way,the most that he would say being that eventually theymust come to the river. As a matter-of-fact had it notbeen for the girl's evident concern he would have beenglad to know that they were irretrievably lost;but for her sake his efforts to find the riverwere conscientious.

When at last night closed down upon them the girl was,at heart, terror stricken, but she hid her true statefrom the man, because she knew that their plight wasno fault of his. The strange and uncanny noisesof the jungle night filled her with the most dreadfulforebodings, and when a cold, drizzling rain setin upon them her cup of misery was full.

Bulan rigged a rude shelter for her, making her liedown beneath it, and then he removed his Dyak war-coatand threw it over her, but it was hours before herexhausted body overpowered her nervous fright and wona fitful and restless slumber. Several times Virginiabecame obsessed with the idea that Bulan had left heralone there in the jungle, but when she called his namehe answered from close beside her shelter.

She thought that he had reared another for himself nearby,but even the thought that he might sleep filled her with dread,yet she would not call to him again, since she knew thathe needed his rest even more than she. And all the nightBulan stood close beside the woman he had learned to love--stood almost naked in the chill night air and the cold rain,lest some savage man or beast creep out of the darknessafter her while he slept.

The next day with its night, and the next, and the nextwere but repetitions of the first. It had become anagony of suffering for the man to fight off sleep longer.The girl read part of the truth in his heavy eyes and worn face,and tried to force him to take needed rest, but she did notguess that he had not slept for four days and nights.

At last abused Nature succumbed to the terrific strainthat had been put upon her, and the giant constitutionof the man went down before the cold and the wet,weakened and impoverished by loss of sleep andinsufficient food; for through the last two dayshe had been able to find but little, and that little hehad given to the girl, telling her that he had eatenhis fill while he gathered hers.

It was on the fifth morning, when Virginia awoke, thatshe found Bulan rolling and tossing upon the wet groundbefore her shelter, delirious with fever. At the sightof the mighty figure reduced to pitiable inefficiencyand weakness, despite the knowledge that her protectorcould no longer protect, the fear of the jungle fadedfrom the heart of the young girl--she was no morea weak and trembling daughter of an effete civilization.Instead she was a lioness, watching over and protectingher sick mate. The analogy did not occur to her,but something else did as she saw the flushed faceand fever wracked body of the man whose appeal to hershe would have thought purely physical had she giventhe subject any analytic consideration; and asa realization of his utter helplessness came to hershe bent over him and kissed first his foreheadand then his lips.

"What a noble and unselfish love yours has been,"she murmured. "You have even tried to hide it thatmy position might be the easier to bear, and now thatit may be too late I learn that I love you--that Ihave always loved you. Oh, Bulan, my Bulan, what a cruelfate that permitted us to find one another only to die together!"