some isolated gorge.'
'There are caves,' replied Taku Muda, 'but you will remain here. Here you are safe. No enemy will find my village.'
They were given food and a dry house in which to sleep. But Elsje van der Meer could eat nothing. She was burning with fever, but there was nothing they could do for her. Hendrik van der Meer and Corrie sat beside her the remainder of the night. What must have been the thoughts of this man whose stubbornness had brought this suffering upon the woman he loved? Before noon Elsje van der Meer died.
There is such a thing as a grief too poignant for tears. Father and daughter sat for hours, dry eyed, beside their dead, stunned by the catastrophe that had overwhelmed them. They were only dully conscious of sudden turmoil and shouting in the compound. Then Sing Tai burst in upon them.
'Quick!' he cried. 'Japs come. One man guide last night bring 'um. Hoesin bad man. He send 'urn.'
Van der Meer rose. 'I will go and talk with them,' he said. 'We have done nothing. Maybe they will not harm us.'
'You no know monkey-men,' said Sing Tai.
Van der Meer shrugged. 'There is nothing else I can do. If I fail, Sing Tai, try to get missy away. Do not let her fall into their hands.'
He went to the door of the hut and descended the ladder to the ground. Lum Kam joined him. The Japs were on the far side of the compound. Van der Meer walked boldly toward them, Lum Kam at his side. Neither man was armed. Corrie and Sing Tai watched from the dark interior of the hut. They could see, but they could not be seen.
They saw the Japs surround the two men. They heard the voice of the white man and the monkey jabber of the Japs, but they could not make out what was said. Suddenly they saw a rifle butt rise above the heads of the men. It was thrust as suddenly downward. They knew that on the other end of the rifle was a bayonet. They heard a scream. Then more rifle butts were raised and lunged downward. The screams ceased. Only the laughter of the sub-men was to be heard.
Sing Tai seized the girl's arm. 'Come!' he said, and drew her to the rear of the hut. There was an opening there and, below, the hard ground. 'I drop,' said Sing Tai. 'Then missy drop. I catch 'urn. Savvy?'
She nodded. After the Chinese had dropped safely, the girl leaned from the opening to reconnoiter. She saw that she could climb most of the way down. To drop into Sing Tai's arms might easily have injured him. So she came safely down to within a few feet of the ground, and Sing Tai lowered her the rest of the way. Then he led her into the jungle that grew close to the kampong.
Before dark they found a cave in a limestone cliff and hid there for two days. Then Sing Tai returned to the kampong to investigate and to get food if the Japs had left.
Late in the afternoon he returned to the cave empty handed. 'All gone,' he said. 'All dead. Houses burned.'
'Poor Taku Muda,' sighed Corrie. 'This was his reward for an act of humanity.'
Two years passed. Corrie and Sing Tai had found asylum in a remote mountain kampong with Chief Tiang Umar. Only occasionally did news from the outside world reach them. The only news that would be good news to them would have been that the Japs had been driven from the island. But that news did not come. Some times a villager, trading far afield, would return with stories of great Japanese victories, of the American Navy sunk, of German victories in Africa, Europe, or Russia . To Corrie the future seemed hopeless.
One day a native came who did not belong to the village of Tiang Umar . He looked long at Corrie and Sing Tai, but he said nothing. After he had gone away, the Chinese told the girl. 'That man bad news,' he said. 'Him from kampong Chief Hoesin. Now he go tell and monkey-men come. Maybeso you better be boy. Then we go away and hide some more.'
Sing Tai cut Corrie's golden hair to the proper length and dyed it black. He painted her eyebrows, too. She was already deeply tanned by the equatorial sun, and with the blue trousers and the loose blouse he fashioned for her, she could pass as a native boy anything but the closest scrutiny. Then they went away again, taking up their interminable flight. Tiang Umar sent men to guide them to a new sanctuary. It was not far from the village—a cave close to a tiny mountain stream. There there were to be found many varieties of the edible things that grow in a Sumatran forest jungle, and in the stream there were fish. Occasionally, Tiang Umar sent some eggs and a chicken. Once in a while pork or dog meat. Corrie could not eat the latter, so Sing Tai got it all. A youth named Alam always brought the food. The three became fast friends.
Captain Tokujo Matsuo and Lieutenant Hideo Sokabe led a detachment of soldiers deep into the mountains to locate strategic positions for heavy coastal guns and survey practical roads leading to them.
They came to the kampong of Hoesin, the chief who had betrayed the van der Meers. They knew of him by report as one who would collaborate with the Japanese. Still it was necessary to impress him with their superiority; so, when he failed to bow from the waist when they approached him, they slapped his face. One of the enlisted men ran a bayonet through a native who refused to bow to him. Another dragged a screaming girl into the jungle. Captain Matsuo and Lieutenant Sokabe smiled toothy smiles. Then they demanded food.
Hoesin would rather have cut their throats, but he had food brought to them and to their men. The officers said that they would honor him by making his village their headquarters while they remained in the vicinity. Hoesin saw ruin staring him in the face. Frantically he searched his mind for some artifice by which he could rid himself of his unwelcome guests. Then he recalled the story that one of his people had brought him a few days before from another village. It did not seem to him very likely to be of value in ridding himself of these monkeys, but it would do no harm to try. He thought about it during a sleepless night.
The following morning he asked them if they were interested in finding enemies who had taken refuge in the mountains. They said that they were. 'Two years ago three whites and two Chinese came to my village, I sent them on to another village, because I would not harbor enemies of Greater East Asia. The white man's name was van der Meer.'
'We have heard of him,' said the Japs. 'He was killed.'
'Yes. I sent guides to show your soldiers where they were hiding. But the daughter and one of the Chinese escaped. The daughter is very beautiful.'
'So we have heard. But what of it?'
'I know where she is.'
'And you have not reported it?'
'I only just, discovered her biding place. I can give you a guide who will lead you to it.'
Captain Matsuo shrugged. 'Bring us food,' he ordered.
Hoesin was crushed. He had food sent them, and then he went to his hut and prayed to Allah or Buddha or whatever god he prayed to, asking him to strike the monkey-men dead, or at least cause them to depart.
Matsuo and Sokabe discussed the matter over their meal. 'Perhaps we should look into the matter,' said the former. 'It is not well to have enemies in our rear.'
'And they say that she is beautiful,' added Sokabe.
'But we cannot both go,' said Matsuo. Being both lazy and the commanding officer, he decided to send Lieutenant Sokabe with a detachment to find the girl and bring her back. 'You will kill the Chinese,' he ordered, 'and you will bring the girl back—unharmed. You understand? Unharmed.'
Lieutenant Hideo Sokabe came a few days later to the kampong of Tiang Umar the Chief. Being a very superior person, Lieutenant Sokabe slapped the old chief so hard that he fell down. Then Lieutenant Sokabe kicked him in the belly and face. 'Where are the white girl and the Chinese?' he demanded.
'There is no white girl here, nor any Chinese.'
'Where are they?'
'I do not know what you are talking about.'
'You lie. Soon you will tell the truth.' He ordered a sergeant to get him some bamboo splinters, and when they were brought, he drove one beneath one of Tiang Umar's finger nails. The old man screamed in agony.
'Where is the white girl?' demanded the Jap.
'I know of no white girl,' insisted Tiang Umar.
The Jap drove another splinter beneath another nail, but still the old man insisted that he knew nothing of any white girl.
As Sokabe was preparing to continue the torture, one of the chief's wives came and threw herself upon her
