A night of dread foreboding, of weary watching for the day that seemed as if it would never come. With what tantalising slowness did the snail-like stars crawl across the black vault of the heavens! And when day came, what then?
Hunger and thirst, danger and despair, and the certainty of death! But no need to await the dawn for these; already they were here. Comfortable bed-fellows, truly, and for a bed the bare, unyielding rock.
Jack lay with his head pillowed upon the coil of rope. Not that he found it a comfortable resting-place. The knowledge of what the rope could not do for them made it a pillow of thorns. He could not rest. The last thread of hope had broken, plunging him into the abyss of despair. Besides, his arm had become extremely painful within the last hour; he was restless, feverish. Fever goads the brain. Jack's brain was just then busier, perhaps, than it had ever been before. He felt none of the sharp gnawings of hunger, none of the insatiable cravings of thirst, though, as a matter of fact, these were even then conspiring with his wound to fever his blood and keep him awake, and make him think, think, think with: never an instant's pause. When thought is goaded like this, it speedily verges on delirium.
To give way to despondency was not at all like Jack; and as he tossed from side to side and thought upon the “whine” (that was what he called it, in his own mind) in which he had indulged a little while ago when the utter desperateness of the situation first burst upon him—when he thought of this, he felt heartily ashamed of himself. He was a coward, a rank, out-and-out coward. He hated himself for his faint-hearted, babyish lack of spirit. But he would redeem his reputation yet. He would show them—meaning Don and the blacks—that he was no coward, anyhow!
The blacks, as they crossed and recrossed each other on their noiseless beat, thought little and said less. They were desperately hungry, and hunger is the one fellow-feeling that does not make us wondrous kind. Every now and then they tightened their waist-cloths a little, but beyond this gave no outward sign or token of what they thought or felt.
So the night wore on, and still Jack thought in restless silence. There was a deeper flush on his cheek, but it was no longer the flush of shame. The fever in his blood, the delirium in his brain, were rising. So was his resolution. He flung himself about restlessly, muttering. He would show them he was no coward, anyhow!
So the night wore on, until by-and-by, as Don turned for the hundredth time upon his uneasy couch—for he, too, was unable to rest—his hand came into accidental contact with that of his chum. He started; Jack's hand was fiery hot.
Housed by his companion's touch and movement, Jack sat bolt upright, and gazed about him in an excited, feverish fashion, muttering incoherently. His breath came and went in short, hurried catches, and in his eyes shone an unnatural wildness that struck terror to Don's heart. Knowing nothing of his chum's resolve, he thought him simply delirious.
“Lie down,” he said soothingly, placing his hand on Jack's shoulder, and attempting, with gentle force, to push him back into his former recumbent position.
Jack flung the hand aside petulantly. Whatever of delirium there might be in his eyes and manner, his words, though spoken rapidly and with excitement, were rational enough.
“Look here, old fellow,” he cried, “it's all my fault, your being here in this fix; and I'm bound to do my level best to get you safe out of it, especially after the way I funked a while back. No, don't cut in and try to stop me—I know what I'm saying right enough, though I expect I do look a bit wild and that. Now, my arm here—I ain't said much about it—'tain't like me to whine, anyhow—at least not often—but all the same, my arm's getting jolly bad. Knotting the rope and that, you see, has made it a bit worse, and—well, the fact is, old fellow, I don't believe I could go down that rope to save my neck, even supposing it to be fastened, you understand.”
“I feared as much,” said Don gravely.
“Yes? Well, that's just how it stands,” Jack went rapidly on. “Tisn't that I'm afraid, you understand—there's no cliff hereabouts that would make me funk—it's simply that my arm's out of gear and won't work. Not even if the rope were fastened, you see, which it isn't. And that's what I'm coming at, old fellow. Look here, I'll tell you what we can do. Spottie and Pug can lower you away—over the cliff, you know—and then, when Pug and I have sent Spottie after you, I'll manage somehow to pay out the line while Pug follows. He's the lightest weight of the lot, anyhow.”
“All very well,” demurred Don, who thought he saw a fatal objection to Jack's plan, “but how will you get down yourself?”
“Oh, my getting down isn't in the bill at all,” said Jack; “I mean to stay right here.”
This announcement fairly took Don's breath away. He had supposed all along that Jack was holding the pith of his proposal in reserve; but never once had he so much as dreamed of such a climax as this.
“What! stop here?” he gasped. “You don't know what you're saying—it's certain death.”
“Hope I ain't such a duffer as not to know that,” said Jack brusquely. “All the same, I mean to stay.”
“Don't say that, Jack.”
“Why not? Better one than four.”
“Then I'll stop with you,” said Don, with dogged determination. “The blacks may have my chance and welcome. Nothing on earth will induce me to go.”
His chum was silent for a long time after that—so long, indeed, that Don thought the matter settled for good and all. But in this he was mistaken.
“Say, old fellow,” said Jack at last, “tell you what I'll do; I'll toss you as to which of us is togo. What do you say?”
“No, no,” cried Don.
“But why not? Where's the use of being such a softie over the matter? There are no end of reasons why I should stay, I tell you. For one thing, I've got no mother to consider.”
“That's true enough,” assented Don, gulping as he thought of his own mother.
“And no sisters or brothers.”
“Don't,” said Don huskily; “you forget me, Jack.”
“No, I don't,” protested Jack; “you are more to me than any brother could ever be, old man; but that's only an additional reason why I should see you safe out of this mess. Then there's another thing; you know how good the guv has always been to me—sent me to school, and treated me just as if I was his own son, you know.”
“Yes?” said Don.
“Well, I've always felt that if ever I got the chance I should like to repay his kindness, don't you know; and now that the chance has come I don't mean to let it slip. Say, will you toss?” Don wavered. It seemed terribly hard that they should all have to die like so many rats in a trap. Besides, once he and the blacks were off the Rock, they could fall back on the cutter, renew their stock of ammunition, and——
“I'll toss you on one condition,” he said suddenly.
“What condition's that?”
“Why, this. That after the die is cast we take no further steps until daylight, so as to make quite sure there's no way of securing the rope to the rock. Are you agreed?”
For reply Jack held out his hand, and thus the compact was sealed. Then Don drew a rupee from his pocket and passed it to his companion... “Tails, you go,” said Jack, and tossed.
A flash of silver in the moonlight, a mocking jingle, and the coin lay still. Eagerly the rivals for the honours of death bent over it.
“Tails!”
“I knew it!” said Jack quietly; “and what's more, I'm jolly glad it isn't heads.”
His chum turned quickly away and bowed his head upon his knees, while a sound suspiciously like a stifled sob broke the stillness of the night. Jack crept close up to him and slipped an arm about his neck. So, for a long time, they sat in silence.
Jack was the first to break the silence that followed the spinning of the fateful coin. He rose, stretched himself, and, pointing to a ruddy glow that had begun to light up the eastern horizon, exclaimed in a voice of undisguised relief:
“Daybreak at last!”
“I only wish it would never come,” his companion rejoined gloomily, turning his gaze upon the unwelcome light—of which, however, he had caught scarce a glimpse ere he sprang to his feet in sudden excitement.
“That's no daybreak, Jack! It's more like the reflection of a fire.”
“I believe you're right,” assented Jack. “It certainly is a fire; but where can it be, that we see only the reflection? Behind Haunted Pagoda Hill?”
“No; this side of the hill, I should say.”
“Then it must be somewhere in the creek.”
At mention of the creek Don started violently, a suspicion of the truth flashing upon him. He began to sniff the air. An odour of smoke floated to them on the fresh morning breeze, faint but pungent. Jack, catching a whiff of it, fell to sniffing too.
“Well, what do you make of it?” Don inquired anxiously.
“Tar!” replied Jack, without hesitation.
“I thought so,” said Don, with a queer catch in his voice. “Jack, it's the cutter!”
With this he set off at a run towards that part of the Rock which overlooked the creek. Advancing as far as the rapidly-increasing slope of the declivity, made it prudent to venture, he came to a stand. The glow of the fire was now brighter, though its source still remained hidden from view; but by edging his way well to the right, he at length succeeded in reaching a point whence the ruddy light that had excited his fears could be seen as a leaping, swaying column of smoke and flame, terminating, far down amid the darkness of the creek, in a single point of lurid red.
“Just as I feared!” he cried, as Jack rejoined him. “The niggers have set fire to the Jolly Tar. I was afraid the rascals had smelt her out when I met the lascar in the creek the other morning. The old boat's done for, anyhow; so let me off my promise, Jack.”
“What for? I can't see that the burning of the cutter has anything to do with it. There are plenty of native boats to get away in.”
“Oh, it isn't the getting away! You don't suppose I'd go off and leave you in the lurch, I hope? It's the powder that troubles me. There wasn't much on board the cutter, it's true; just about enough to fight my way back here with—as I meant to do, please God, had this not happened. I planned the whole thing out while we sat mooning yonder, you see. But now!” and at thought of how this hope—the secret of his acquiescence in the outcome of that fatal toss—had vanished into thin air before his very eyes, Don's lips trembled and his voice choked.
“Never mind, old chap!” said Jack, deeply touched by this new proof of his friend's generosity; “I'll take the will for the deed. But, I say—you pledged me your word, you know; and at daybreak, if no way of anchoring the rope shows up, I shall expect you to go over the cliff like a man. We shan't have long to wait now. Look!”
He pointed to a deep roseate hue which tinged the sky just above the ocean rim. And even as they stood watching it, the light came leaping up from the sea, and outshone the stars, and set the whole east aglow. A flush of dawn, and it was day.
“Now,” said Jack, tightening his belt, “let's make the round of the Rock again. If there's a shadow of a flaw anywhere we're bound to find it in this light.”
“Heaven grant we may!” ejaculated Don, as they began the search.
The cliff forming the Elephant's left side was out of it altogether. The native town lay directly at its base, rendering escape in that direction impracticable. So, too, with that part of the Rock abutting on the creek; its formation was such that no human being, rope or no rope, could have made his way down its face. There remained only the Elephant's right flank—overlooking the jungly back of the island—and the loftier head parts facing the western sea. To these, then, the search was necessarily confined.
Again and yet again did they pace the dizzy heights, scanning every inch of the rocky surface for that crack or projection upon the existence of which Jack's life was staked. But, as before, the search ended in failure and despair. There was absolutely nothing—neither crevice, nor jutting point, nor friendly block of stone—in which, or to which, the rope's end could be made fast: nothing but Jack's body!
To secure the rope to the palms or the masonry of the temple was an utter impossibility. It was too short by half.
As a last hope Don approached the chasm in which lay the pool. But the hope was short-lived. The native guard had been trebled overnight. Hope—so far, at least, as Jack's life was concerned—stood on a par with the powder: not a grain was left.
As a matter of fact, Don had all along indulged a secret conviction that “something would turn Up.” Now, when the terrible truth was at last forced upon him in such a manner that he could no longer shut his eyes to it, his distress was pitiable to witness.
He had hazarded his friend's life on the toss of a coin—and lost! And now he must go over the cliff—over the cliff to safety and life—over the cliff by means of a rope, at the death-end of which stood his dearest friend. Given his choice, he would have taken that friend's place—oh, how gladly! But go he must, for his honour was-pledged, and the time was come!
Ay, the time was come—the supreme moment of Jack's heroic resolve. And Jack was glad of it, ready for it. The fever in his blood had abated, leaving him cool, collected, and more firm in his resolve than ever. He had chosen his-course and he would stick to it, anyhow!
“Come,” he said simply, laying a gentle hand on Don's shoulder, “it is time for us to go.”
“For us!” The words, though kindly meant stabbed Don to the heart.
Kicking the coil of rope before him like a ball, Jack approached the brink of the precipice. The blacks followed. There was little danger of their being missed by the native guard, unless the latter mounted the steps, and this they were not likely to do after the severe lesson they had received in the night. Last of all came Don—slowly, reluctantly. He looked and felt like one going to his execution.
Without a word Jack picked up the loose end of the rope and knotted it securely about his friend's chest, beneath his arms. When he had uncoiled the rope to its full length, he fastened the other end about his own waist. Then he held out his hand.
“Good-bye, old fellow,” he said, his voice shaking in spite of himself. “Good-bye, and God bless you! Be sure and cast the rope loose when you reach the ground.”
“Oh, Jack, Jack! Must I go—must I?” cried Don desperately, his voice full of agony.
With unfaltering step Jack led him to the extreme brink of the cliff, left him there with his face set towards liberty and life, turned back, and beckoning to the blacks—who had purposely been kept in ignorance of Jack's resolve—prepared to pay out the line.
“Over with you, old fellow! As gently as you can!”
The rope tightened. Wheeling where he stood, Don cast one last imploring look at his friend, who pointed upwards and then motioned him to go. He obeyed.
As the remorseless Rock closed above him, he let himself swing, neither seeing nor caring whither he was being lowered. The abyss below had no terrors for him—he even hoped that the rope might snap—why should he live since Jack must die? And when at last his feet touched earth, and he had flung the rope from him like a hated thing, he threw himself upon his face at the foot of the insurmountable cliff and burst into a passion of bitter, remorseful tears.
After a time a gentle thud on the back aroused him. He looked up. It was the rope again, but empty! What did it mean? Where was Spottie? Why had he not been sent down? What had happened? A dozen questions such as these flashed through his brain, and with them a sudden wild hope. He started to his feet.
A scrap of paper was secured to the rope by a half-knot. He snatched at it, drawing it to him with something of dread in the movement. It was a leaf from Jacks note-book, scrawled over with writing in Jack's familiar hand. His eyes devoured the words:—
“Good news! A wonderful thing has happened. Was just going to lower Spottie away when the report of a gun came booming up from the sea. The schooner—the governor's schooner—is at anchor off the front of the island! I'd signal her, only I have no powder. I'm all in a daze, anyhow; but you'll know what to do.”
An exclamation of intense gratitude to Heaven burst from Don's lips, and crushing the scrap of paper in his hand, he set off at a run along the base of the cliff, in the direction of the Elephant's head.
There was but one thing to be done: he must gain the schooner with all possible speed, at any risk, and take immediate steps for Jack's rescue.
Instinctively he shaped his course for the Elephant's head. The precipitous cliff was there skirted by a narrow beach. He had seen it gleaming above the surf-line while rounding the island on the morning of their arrival. This beach would afford a short-cut to the front of the island, off which the schooner lay. Once there, he must swim for it. These were his thoughts as he ran.
Tough work it was. True, the jungle did not grow close up to the base of the cliff; but here and there yawning nullahs, of considerable depth, and with sides almost as-steep as walls, had been cut across his pathway by the rains. At intervals, too, he encountered rugged, irregular heaps of stones, fallen from the cliff above, and studded thick with thorny clumps of prickly-pear.
The cutlass at his side impeded his progress. He threw it away. Then on again.
The sands at last! Close on his right lay the sea, close on his left rose the beetling cliff. There was not much room—just enough to run in. Away before him, like a narrow ribbon of burnished silver, stretched the smooth, hard sands, with never a living thing in sight on all their gleaming reach.
Gradually the cliffs crept behind, and the seafront opened out before him. And now, of a sudden, he espied a group of natives making for the beach—a company of fishermen, laden with creels, and oars, and nets.
Just ahead, a wedge-shaped gully split the low bank that bordered the beach on the landward side. Above this bank were the fishermen, heading for the gully. They were perhaps fifty yards short of it, while he, on the beach below the bank, was a full hundred. Should they reach it first, he would certainly be intercepted; whereas, could he but pass the point of danger ere' the natives gained it, he might succeed in eluding them. They did not see him yet. He darted under the bank, and ran as he had never run in all his life before.
Seventy-five yards, fifty yards, twenty yards—and then the gully. Had the natives reached it? As he raced past he darted a swift sidelong glance at the nullah. The fishermen were already halfway down it. They saw him, dropped their fishing implements, and gave chase, yelling like a pack of fiends.
On and on he ran, looking back but once to ascertain what start he had of the dusky gang. Twenty yards at least. They were just emerging from the bottom of the gully.
And now, away to the right, he sighted the schooner, riding at anchor with half a mile of sea between her holding-ground and the shore. He could see her boats swinging at the davits. They had not sighted him, then. He wondered whether Jack could see him from the cliff.
Jack caught sight of Don as he raced past the gully. The fishermen, as it happened, were just then in the gully itself, and consequently invisible. Don's appearance he hailed with a shout.
“Hurrah! he hasn't lost much time, anyhow.”
This exclamation brought both Spottie and Puggles to his side in hot haste. The stairs were thus left unguarded—a step the imprudence of which was wholly overlooked in the excitement of the moment.
At sight of his master tearing along the beach below, a grim delight—not unmixed with anxiety—overspread Puggles' black countenance, while a chuckle of intense satisfaction welled up from the red abyss of his fat, shiny throat. Then, like the shadow of an April cloud driven swiftly across a sunlit meadow, a look of blank dismay eclipsed the grin, the chuckle died away in a gasp of alarm, and pointing to the beach with shaking finger, he cried:
“Sar! sar! black warmints done catch um, sar!”
His alarm was well-founded. The fishermen had just tumbled out of the gully, at Don's very heels, as it seemed at this distance.
“They're after him, sure enough,” cried Jack. “By Jove, how he runs! Go it, old fellow! you've got the start of them, anyhow.”
Away went Don, running like a deer, and after him pelted the fishermen, in a headlong, rough-and-tumble, happy-go-lucky fashion, that, under circumstances less serious, must have provoked the spectators on the Rock to hearty laughter. No laughing matter this, however; for Don's pursuers, having thrown aside their fishing gear, and being moreover fresh in wind and limb, were seen to gain on him at every stride. The race could not prolong itself for many minutes now, and the finish—Jack shuddered, as he thought of what that must be.
At this critical juncture, too, matters took an unexpected turn for the worse. A short distance up the beach a second party of natives appeared on the scene. Don ran straight on, apparently not perceiving them. They, on the contrary, saw him, and bore down upon him swiftly. Their cries, doubtless, warned him of his danger, for now he pulled up short, looked ahead, glanced quickly over his shoulder, and then——-
With a groan Jack turned away.
A loud outcry from the blacks, however, drew his gaze seawards again, and as he looked his pulses thrilled. Don was making straight for the surf!
As often happens on these coasts when the wind is but a whisper, and the sea glass-like in its placidity, a heavy ground-swell was rolling sullenly in from the outer bay. A stone's throw from the shore this swell was but a sinuous, almost imperceptible, undulation of the glassy surface; but as it swept towards the beach, where the water shoaled rapidly, of a sudden it reared aloft a crest of hissing foam, which curled higher and higher as it came on, until it overtopped the sands at the height of a boat's mast. Then with a mighty roar it broke, hurled itself far up the shelving sands, and retired, seething, to make room for the green battalions pressing shorewards in its wake.
Straight towards this living wall of water Don ran. The two bands of natives, uniting their forces as they swerved aside like bloodhounds in pursuit, were close upon him. Before, above him, curled the mighty wave; and then, to his great horror, Jack saw him stumble and fall.
Lucky fall! Ere the natives could throw themselves upon him, the combing wave broke, passed directly over his prostrate body, swept the niggers off their legs, and hurled them with irresistible force far up the beach.
A moment later the breathless watchers on the cliff saw a black object floating on the surface of the water, yards from shore. It was Don. The under-tow had swept him out to sea, beyond his pursuers' reach.
An expert and powerful swimmer, he lost no time in increasing the distance between himself and the disconcerted native crew, one or two of whom attempted to overtake him, but soon gave it up for a bad job.
Then a boat put off from the schooner, and soon Jack had the satisfaction of seeing his plucky friend hauled' in over her side. A quarter of an hour later, when the boat had regained the schooner, the signal gun once more boomed out over the sea, and with feelings of devout thankfulness to Heaven Jack realised that Don was safe on board, and that the term of his own and his companions' imprisonment on the summit of the Rock was bounded by a few brief hours at the most.
Even as he looked, as if by magic the schooner's canvas swelled to the breeze, and he caught the distant song of the lascars as they hove the anchor to the cathead.
Hunger, thirst, his wound, the very enemy at the foot of the rock stairs—all had been forgotten in the breathless interest inspired by Don's race for life; were forgotten still as he and the blacks stood watching the schooner get under weigh.
Till a sharp clank of metal, as of a spear carelessly let fall, recalled their roving thoughts, and brought, them swiftly to the right-about, to find the Rock in the immediate vicinity of the pit's mouth literally swarming with armed natives.
The surprise had been cleverly executed. Another moment, and Jack and his black attendants would have been surrounded. As it was, the odds were dead against them.
The unexpected appearance of the schooner had evidently wrought a complete change in the tactics of the enemy. So here they were.
This sleek, corpulent native who led the escaladers was none other than old Salambo!
Salambo, the shark-charmer, thief, and director-in-chief of the harassing attacks by which they, the party of adventurers in search of what was indisputably their own, had been baffled at every turn.
By means of the lascar's murderous hand he had clutched at the captain's throat and taken the captain's life. And now that his tool was for ever wrenched from his grasp, he had come in person to add the finishing-stroke to his evil work. Jack's blood boiled as he thought of it. One swift glance around, and his course was taken.
“The temple, Spottie! Point for the temple, Pug!”
The natives, perceiving their intention, swerved aside and attempted to cut them off. But so unexpected was Jack's manouvre, so prompt the obedience of Spottie and Puggles, that the attempt proved unsuccessful. A wild, breathless dash, and they had turned the corner of the temple—whose door, as usual, faced east—and crossed its threshold.
Old and neglected as the edifice was, stout wooden doors still swung upon the rust-eaten hinges. To slam these to and thrust the bolts home, top and bottom, was the work of but a moment. Bosin darted in as the great doors swung into place, narrowly escaping the amputation of his tail as the penalty of his tardiness. Scarcely had the last bolt been shot when up trooped the enemy, howling like hyenas, and commenced a determined assault upon the doors.
At first they hurled themselves upon the barrier and attempted to force it in by sheer imposition of weight. Thud followed thud in furious succession, while Jack stood by with palpitating heart. His fears as to the stability of the doors, however, were soon set at rest. They creaked, yielded a little, but otherwise stood as firm as the solid masonry in which they were framed. The natives were not slow to discover this, and the ill-advised attempt was soon abandoned. In the brief lull that followed Jack looked about him.
Inside here, beneath the cobwebbed, blackened roof of the outer temple, the light was funereal in its dimness. What little there was crept in through the cracks in the shrunken doors in a reluctant sort of way, as if it found the society of bats and spiders anything but agreeable; except at the further or western end of the temple, where there was a second chamber, smaller and somewhat better lighted than the first. Eight feet or so above the floor a small square window pierced the wall, and directly beneath this stood a sort of stone pediment or shrine, on which squatted a hideously distorted image. This was the temple swami, and swami's ugly head reached to within a couple of feet of the window.
A second attempt was now made upon the doors, though not after the haphazard fashion of the first. The cracks in the shrunken woodwork attracting the attention of the natives, they fell to work on the widest of these, and with their spears began chipping away the plank splinter by splinter. But the extreme toughness of the material, seasoned as it was by unnumbered years of exposure to the elements, rendered the task of demolition both difficult and slow.
“Take you a jolly long time to get your ugly head-pieces through that, anyhow!” muttered Jack, as he watched—or rather listened to, for he could see little or nothing of what was going on outside—the fast and furious play of the spears. “And when you do get 'em through, why then——”
To symbolise what would happen then, Jack did what was certainly quite excusable under the circumstances—spat in his palm, and with immense gusto decapitated an imaginary nigger.
Still, given sufficient time for the spears to do their work, it was a foregone conclusion that the doors must fall. Would they hold out till the schooner cast anchor off the creek? He allowed an hour for that—an hour from the time the anchor was weighed.. Well, they—he and-the two blacks—had been in the temple the best part of an hour already. So that was all right.
But then, the rescue party must make their way up the creek, and from the creek to the—summit of the Bock, along that passage by which Don and the blacks had entered on the previous day. This would consume another hour. He made the calculation with the utmost coolness; only, when it was finished, and he asked himself whether the doors would hold out that other hour, the reluctant “No” with which he was compelled to answer the question somehow stuck in his throat and nearly choked him. By way of relief, he slashed the head off another imaginary nigger.
The second hour wore on. The gap in the door grew wider and wider beneath the ceaseless play of the spears, and still the natives showed no signs of desisting or of taking their departure.
Presently a shadow darkened the little window at the rear of the temple. Jack turned on his heel expecting to see a native, but instead saw only Bosin. The monkey had clambered up the image, and so reached the window. The sight of the creature gave Jack a sudden inspiration.
What was to hinder the blacks and himself from beating a noiseless retreat by way of this same window? The aperture was quite ample in size to admit of their squeezing through it. But—his wounded arm! And could the thing be done without attracting the attention of the gang about the doors?
He climbed up the image and looked out. So far as he could discover the way was clear. Between that end of the temple and the stairs leading to the pit, not a single native was to be seen. True, his view was but limited at the best—the aperture was so narrow, and a straggling blackskin or two might, after all, have their eyes on the window, or, worse still, be guarding the stairs. Probably, though—and this seemed the more likely view—the entire force and attention of the belligerents were concentrated upon the temple doors. He would risk it, anyhow!
Once gain the pit, and they were as good as saved; for by that time the rescue party could not be far off.
A wilder shout from the besiegers recalled his thoughts and eyes to the doors. He scrambled down off the idols head and ran into the outer chamber.
What was that peculiar crackling sound—this pungent odour with which the air had suddenly grown so heavy? Fire—smoke! They had set fire to the doors!
He ran back into the inner chamber. The blacks were there, cowering in terror against the wall. In a few hurried words he directed them how to proceed. They pulled themselves together and prepared to obey the sahib's directions.
“The window, lads! through the window! Quick now, you lazy beggars!”
Spottie went first—somewhat unwillingly, it must be confessed, which was scarcely to be wondered at, considering that the drop from the window might land him in the arms of the enemy, or on the point of a spear. The smallness of the aperture, its height from the ground, and the necessity for going through it feet foremost, made a triple difficulty, too. But with Jack's assistance this was speedily overcome, and Spottie dropped out of sight. Barring the faint thud of his bare feet on the rock, no sound followed. Thus far, then, the stratagem had escaped detection. Jack began to breathe easier.
After Spottie went Puggles—with even more difficulty, for, as the reader is aware, Puggles was extremely fat; and again all was still without. Within there was noise enough and to spare. The crackling of the burning doors had grown ominously loud. As Pug's black head disappeared, too, a tremendous shout burst from the rabble gathered about the entrance. Its significance Jack did not stop to inquire. Already he had scaled the image. A wry face or two at the pain of his wounded arm, and a moment later he stood beside the blacks.
The moment of their flight was well chosen. The natives, to a man, were watching the doors with all their eyes.
Bidding the blacks follow close at his heels, he sped across the few yards of rock that separated the temple from the stairs, sprang down the steps, and fell insensible at the feet of his friend, Roydon Leigh.
The rescue party had arrived in the very nick of time.
After all, Jack was but human. His fortitude, strung to a tense pitch by those terrible days and nights of danger, snapped, in presence of actual safety, like an overdrawn bow.
A pitiful spectacle he presented, his clothes torn to ribbons, his hands and face grimy, bloodstained, yet ghastly in their pallor. Don uttered a cry and flung himself on his knees beside his chum. He thought him dead.
“No, not dead, thank God! Only done up. He'll be all right soon,” said Captain Leigh, with his hand upon Jack's heart, which still beat, though faintly; and taking out a pocket-flask he poured a few drops of brandy between the drawn, bloodless lips of the unconscious lad.
Under this stimulating treatment Jack soon came round. Needless to dwell on the confusion into which his thoughts were thrown by the sight of the familiar faces bending over him. His bewilderment, however, was but momentary. Memory returned with a rush and spurred him to action and speech. He sat bolt upright.
“Have you got the rascal?” he demanded in eager tones..
“What rascal?” asked Don.
“The shark-charmer, to be sure. Who else should I mean? He's on the Rock, I tell you!”
“Him done stick his leg in trap, sa'b,” interpolated Puggles, with appropriate action.
Don started to his feet. Jack followed suit, somewhat unsteadily.
“Is he above there?” cried Captain Leigh.
“Yes, yes!” said Jack eagerly.
“Up with you, boys!” cried the captain to the peons.
Don had already acquainted his father with the shark-charmer's part in the tragic events of the past week, and the peons had overheard the story. They all knew the shark-charmer, and they followed their leader with enthusiasm. They carried carbines; these glinted in the sunshine, and clanked against the contracted walls of the rock stairway as they jostled each other in the ascent.
A rush of many feet above, and the natives appeared at the stair-head. Only the moment before had they discovered the temple to be deserted, and become alive to the fact that they had lingered too long on the Rock. They were now in hot pursuit of the fugitives. But the sudden apparition of the red-sashed peons, the ominous glint and clash of the carbines, promised hotter pursuit than they had bargained for. A wave of consternation swept through their ranks. Sauve qui peut! In headlong flight they scattered in all directions.
As before, the shark-charmer had led the gang. He almost ran into the arms of the peons.
“Rama! Rama!”
It was the cry of a coward and miscreant who knows that his last hour of freedom, if not of life, has come: the hour of reckoning for his misdeeds.
For as long as it took his half-paralysed tongue to frame the words, the shark-charmer faced his approaching doom. Then he turned and fled like a frightened cur.
The voice of Captain Leigh rang out on the air clear and full as the note of a bugle:
“After him, lads! Never mind the others! Take the fellow alive!”
Up scrambled the peons in obedience to the command, deploying to right and left in a long, semicircular line as they debouched upon the Rock.
“Forward!”
Off they went at the quick; then, with a wild cheer, broke into a loping run, the extremities of the semicircle closing in as they advanced.
The shark-charmer ran towards the Elephant's head, where the precipice was the loftiest and dizziest of the four, the beach lying full three hundred feet below. Whatever chance of escape he possessed, it assuredly did not lie in that direction. To all human seeming his escape was an utter impossibility. So thought the peons, and slackened speed, though the extremities of the living, steel-crested semicircle still closed in and in. Between, and somewhat ahead, ran the shark-charmer. He could not run much farther; the brink of the precipice was only a few yards away. He was caught!
What the thoughts of the guilty, hunted wretch were during those awful moments, God alone knows.
The peons had slowed down to a walk now—a walk confident, yet timid. They were altogether sure of the shark-charmer, and not a little afraid of the precipice. Not so the fugitive; for him all fear lay behind. He advanced to the very brink of the cliff. His arms dropped at his sides.
In upon him closed his pursuers with cat-like tread and alert eyes. They had no desire to be dashed over the cliff. Besides, was he not as good as caught? A mere span of rock divided him from their grasp. He stood motionless, half-turned towards them, apparently resigned to his fate.
Suddenly, however, hurling upon the close-drawn ranks a swift look of defiance, he wheeled full-face to the sea; wheeled, and drew his arms up and back.
Captain Leigh was the first to perceive the significance of the movement.
“Seize him!” he shouted, dashing through the line of peons; “quick, or he'll be over!... Good God!”
He fell back appalled. A stifled cry of horror broke from the peons. The shark-charmer had leapt into mid-air.