With my right hand I seized my assailant, who was anointed with oil and slipped through my fingers like an eel. Yet he did not run, but remained at a little distance, waiting to attack me again, and there were others with him. By their stiffened upright black hair I saw they were Malays; but the one who seemed their leader was the devil of the cellar. And my heart thumped and thumped, as I waited.
Then a soft hand again touched me, and a voice said, "It is I," and the woman had taken my finger that held the ring, and saying, "Yet I must do it, _because_ I love him," had bitten it clean through. And shouting to the men in a tongue I knew not, she hurled it in their midst; and their leader seized it, and yelled aloud in triumph, and showed it to the others running round him.
[Illustration: "TAKING THE FINGER THAT HELD THE RING, SHE BIT IT CLEAN THROUGH."]
And the woman spoke again, and to some purpose, for then the men departed with the prize. And the moon went in again behind the clouds.
"Do not slay me, my lord," the woman was saying, "for your life is not yet saved."
She tore the veiling from her face and bandaged the stump that had been my finger; and then she took my other hand, and, withdrawing the dagger, sucked softly at the poison of the wound. But the pain was too much for me, and I just leaned over and fell fainting to the ground.
Next morning, I found myself in my bunk, and the Second was watching over me, and the woman was crouching on the floor.
"That's right, old man," said the Second, "and now I'll fetch the doctor."
The doctor was the chief engineer, who forthwith came aft with a hot iron and seared the stump of my finger.
"And now, laddie, ye'll do," he said; "and I must awa, for there is some leetle difficulty with the boilers."
"She carried you here," said the Second, answering my eyes, "though how she managed it I can't say. And she had sucked the poison clean from your wound, and Mac said there was no danger left. Though, mind you, the kriss had enough on it to kill twenty men.
"Yes," he went on, "I'm all right, and you shall tell me how it happened to you afterwards. Now you must swallow this sleeping draught Mac's left for you."
But I did not sleep; I fell into a stupor. I could not move or speak; yet I could hear and understand.