Around them seven men, armed with guns and parangs, were dancing with excitement.
Iris's captors were endeavoring to tie her arms, but she was a strong and active Englishwoman, with muscles well knit by the constant labor of recent busy days and a frame developed by years of horse-riding and tennis-playing.

The pair evidently found her a tough handful, and the inferior Dyak, either to stop her screams--for she was shrieking "Robert, come to me!" with all her might--or to stifle her into submission, roughly placed his huge hand over her mouth.
These things the sailor noticed instantly.

Some men, brave to rashness, ready as he to give his life to save her, would have raced madly over the intervening ground, scarce a furlong, and attempted a heroic combat of one against nine.
Not so Jenks.
With the methodical exactness of the parade-ground he settled down on one knee and leveled the rifle.

At that range the Lee-Metford bullet travels practically point-blank.

Usually it is deficient in "stopping" power, but he had provided against this little drawback by notching all the cartridges in the six rifles after the effective manner devised by an expert named Thomas Atkins during the Tirah campaign.
None of the Dyaks saw him.