As the cutter touched the bank the entire party fromthe long-house, whites and natives, were gathered onthe shore to meet it. At first the officers held offas though fearing a hostile demonstration, but whenthey saw the whites among the throng, a command wasgiven to pull in, and a moment later one of theofficers stepped ashore.

"I am Lieutenant May," he said, "of the U.S.S. NewMexico, flagship of the Pacific Fleet. Have I thehonor to address Professor Maxon?"

The scientist nodded. "I am delighted," he said.

"We have been to your island, Professor," continuedthe officer, "and judging from the evidences of hastydeparture, and the corpses of several natives there,I feared that some harm had befallen you. We thereforecruised along the Bornean coast making inquiriesof the natives until at last we found one who had hearda rumor of a party of whites being far in the interiorsearching for a white girl who had been stolen from themby pirates.

"The farther up this river we have come the greater ourassurance that we were on the right trail, for scarcelya native we interrogated but had seen or heard of someof your party. Mixed with the truth they told us werestrange tales of terrible monsters led by a giganticwhite man."

"The imaginings of childish minds," said the professor."However, why, my dear lieutenant, did you honor me byvisiting my island?"

The officer hesitated a moment before answering, hiseyes running about over the assembly as though insearch of someone.

"Well, Professor Maxon, to be quite frank," he said atlength, "we learned at Singapore the personnel of your party,which included a former naval officer whom we have been seekingfor many years. We came to your island to arrest this man--I refer to Doctor Carl von Horn."

When the lieutenant learned of the recent disappearanceof the man he sought, he expressed his determinationto push on at once in pursuit; and as Professor Maxonfeared again to remain unprotected in the heartof the Bornean wilderness his entire party was takenaboard the cutter.

A few miles up the river they came upon one of theDyaks who had accompanied von Horn, a few hours earlier.The warrior sat smoking beside a beached prahu.When interrogated he explained that von Hornand the balance of his crew had gone inland,leaving him to guard the boat. He said thathe thought he could guide them to the spotwhere the white man might be found.

Professor Maxon and Sing accompanied one of the officersand a dozen sailors in the wake of the Dyak guide.Virginia and Bulan remained in the cutter, as the latterwas still too weak to attempt the hard march through the jungle.For an hour the party traversed the trail in the wake of von Hornand his savage companions. They had come almost to the spot whentheir ears were assailed by the weird and blood curdling yellsof native warriors, and a moment later von Horn's escort dashedinto view in full retreat.

At sight of the white men they halted in relief,pointing back in the direction they had come,and jabbering excitedly in their native tongue.Warily the party advanced again behind these new guides;but when they reached the spot they sought, the causeof the Dyaks' panic had fled, warned, doubtless,by their trained ears of the approach of an enemy.

The sight that met the eyes of the searchers told allof the story that they needed to know. A hole had beenexcavated in the ground, partially uncovering a heavy chest,and across this chest lay the headless body of Doctor Carl von Horn.

Lieutenant May turned toward Professor Maxon with a questioning look.

"It is he," said the scientist.

"But the chest?" inquired the officer.

"Mlaxon's tleasure," spoke up Sing Lee. "Hornee himtly steal it for long time."

"Treasure!" ejaculated the professor. "Bududreen gaveup his life for this. Rajah Muda Saffir fought andintrigued and murdered for possession of it! Poor,misguided von Horn has died for it, and left his headto wither beneath the rafters of a Dyak long-house!It is incredible."

"But, Professor Maxon," said Lieutenant May,"men will suffer all these things and more for gold."

"Gold!" cried the professor. "Why, man, that is a boxof books on biology and eugenics."

"My God!" exclaimed May, "and von Horn was accreditedto be one of the shrewdest swindlers and adventurersin America! But come, we may as well return to thecutter--my men will carry the chest."

"No!" exclaimed Professor Maxon with a vehemence theother could not understand. "Let them bury it againwhere it lies. It and what it contains have been thecause of sufficient misery and suffering and crime.Let it lie where it is in the heart of savage Borneo,and pray to God that no man ever finds it, and thatI shall forget forever that which is in it."

On the morning of the third day following the deathof von Horn the New Mexico steamed away from the coastof Borneo. Upon her deck, looking back toward theverdure clad hills, stood Virginia and Bulan.

"Thank heaven," exclaimed the girl fervently, "that weare leaving it behind us forever."

"Amen," replied Bulan, "but yet, had it not been forBorneo I might never have found you."

"We should have met elsewhere then, Bulan," said thegirl in a low voice, "for we were made for one another.No power on earth could have kept us apart. In yourtrue guise you would have found me--I am sure of it."

"It is maddening, Virginia," said the man, "to beconstantly straining every resource of my memoryin futile endeavor to catch and hold one fleeting clueto my past. Why, dear, do you realize that I may havebeen a fugitive from justice, as was von Horn, a vilecriminal perhaps. It is awful, Virginia, tocontemplate the horrible possibilities of my lost past."

"No, Bulan, you could never have been a criminal,"replied the loyal girl, "but there is one possibilitythat has been haunting me constantly. It frightens mejust to think of it--it is," and the girl lowered hervoice as though she feared to say the thing she dreadedmost, "it is that you may have loved another--that--that you may even be married."

Bulan was about to laugh away any such fears when thegravity and importance of the possibility impressed himquite as fully as it had Virginia. He saw that it wasnot at all unlikely that he was already a married man;and he saw too what the girl now acknowledged,that they might never wed until the mysteryof his past had been cleared away.

"There is something that gives weight to my fear,"continued Virginia, "something that I had almostforgotten in the rush and excitement of events duringthe past few days. During your delirium your ravings were,for the most part, quite incoherent, but there was one namethat you repeated many times--a woman's name, preceded by a number.It was `Nine ninety nine Priscilla.' Maybe she--"

But Virginia got no further. With a low exclamationof delight Bulan caught her in his arms.

"It is all right, dear," he cried. "It is all right.Everything has come back to me now. You have given methe clue. Nine ninety nine Priscilla is my father'saddress--Nine ninety nine Priscilla Avenue.

"I am Townsend J. Harper, Jr. You have heard of my father.Every one has since he commenced consolidating interurbantraction companies. And I'm not married, Virginia,and never have been; but I shall be if this miserableold mud scow ever reaches Singapore."

"Oh, Bulan," cried the girl, "how in the world did youever happen to come to that terrible island of ours?"

"I came for you, dear," he replied. "It is a long story.After dinner I will tell you all of it that I can recall.For the present it must suffice you to know that I followedyou from the railway station at Ithaca half around the worldfor a love that had been born from a single glance at yoursweet face as you passed me to enter your Pullman.

"On my father's yacht I reached your island after trailingyou to Singapore. It was a long and tedious hunt and wefollowed many blind leads, but at last we came off an islandupon which natives had told us such a party as yours was living.Five of us put off in a boat to explore--that is the lastthat I can recall. Sing says he found me alone in a row boat,a `dummy.'"

Virginia sighed, and crept closer to him.

"You may be the son of the great Townsend J. Harper,you have been the soulless Number Thirteen;but to me you will always be Bulan, for it wasBulan whom I learned to love."