CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE RUSE OF SAYA CHONE.

In a moment the native drew back, and Jack jumped to cover as he saw a dark object come whirling through the rift and fall straight into the cave. But the thing flung in was harmless enough in appearance, a mere bundle of dried gra.s.s bound loosely with a shred of creeper. Then, thick and fast, bundle after bundle was hurled into the cave, dried reeds, more gra.s.s, big loose splinters of pine, fat with resin, withered brushwood, and the like.

Down they came, thicker and faster, until a great pile of this rubbish was heaped on the floor of the cave. Jack was staring wonderingly at this novel method of attack by flinging rubbish apparently at large, when once more the Panthay above thrust his head through the rift and spoke a few words, his voice ringing down hollow into the depths where the three prisoners stood. Jack did not understand what was said, but he saw that the effect on his companions was most extraordinary.

They sprang to their feet, and, braving all the terrors of Saya Chone, whose name had appeared so dreadful to them, they darted for the tunnel, brushed swiftly by Jack, and were gone. The English lad watched them eagerly. He saw them fly down the outer cave, leap wildly into the ravine, and disappear. A minute later he saw them cross his field of view as they climbed the opposite bank. They were going like the wind, and there seemed not the slightest attempt made to stop them, nor was the faintest sound of pursuit to be heard.

"All the same," murmured Jack to himself, "I don't think I shall follow you, my nimble friends. It's pretty certain you've been allowed to go in peace in the hopes of drawing me out as well. I hardly fancy I should be permitted to pa.s.s so quietly. Well, I'm thankful the poor beggars have got away in safety. But what scared them so frightfully?

They went like rabbits bolting from a hole when the ferrets have been put in. There seems nothing very terrifying about this heap of rubbish."

But was there not? was there not? Ten seconds later Jack was ready to take his words back, and acknowledge that heap of rubbish to be a very terrible and awful weapon in the hands of his enemies. Something flashed above him, and he glanced up to see a flaming torch hurled through the rift. It did not, however, fall into the heap of light inflammable materials awaiting it. It struck against a projecting point of rock, was turned aside, and fell almost at Jack's feet. He stamped the flame out swiftly with his boot.

But his breath came fast and short, and his brave face paled as he saw the frightful cunning of this master-trick. He had luckily quenched one torch, but he could not be sure of quenching the next and the next. One of them had but to fall into the ma.s.s of reeds, canes, dry gra.s.s, and withered brushwood, to cause a swift, fierce flame to run through the whole ma.s.s.

This, then, it was which the Panthays had learned from their fellow who looked down from the rift. The Englishman was to be roasted out, and they were warned of the fearful fate about to befall him. Before this vision of horrors they had fled, the greater fear conquering the less.

Jack stood looking up at the rift with blanched face, and teeth set like a steel-trap. His heart gave another jerk within him. A second torch flashed through the rift. But this time the torch whirled flaming through the air, and fell at the mouth of the tunnel, within a yard of Jack's foot. He stamped it out. A second torch followed, almost in the same place. He stamped this out too. He looked eagerly to see where the next would fall.

It seemed extraordinary fortune that not one of them should fall in the midst of the waiting heap. Then he heard a low, evil, chuckling laugh from someone beside the rift, and he understood. Saya Chone was there, playing with him, as a cat plays with a mouse. The half-caste was tossing torches within Jack's reach, simply to torture him with the idea of what would happen when one of the flaming splinters of pine fell into the heap of tinder awaiting it.

Five minutes of perfect silence pa.s.sed, and not another torch fell. To Jack the time seemed like five years rather. He cast swift alternate glances at the rift above and through the tunnel, where he felt that enemies waited and watched for the opportunity the fire might give them.

And now a great flare appeared in the rift. A huge bundle of reeds, blazing fiercely, was thrust in, and dropped. His enemies meant now to fire the pile and bring the play to an end. The flaming ma.s.s rolled slowly down the steep face of the cliff within, and Jack was torn in a fierce dilemma as to what was the best course for him to follow.

Should he leave the mouth of the tunnel and try to beat out the flames with the broad blade of his _dah_, or should he not?

But if he left the tunnel, then he would give up the key of the situation, and be swiftly surrounded. If he did not, the roasting flame and the ma.s.ses of billowing smoke would render the inner cave untenable. Yet, before the bundle of reeds had rolled down to the ma.s.s below, the question had been settled for him.

A second and a third f.a.ggot, each blazing fiercely, and each directed towards a fresh part of the heap, were flung through the rift.

"I can't stop all three," thought Jack. "The pile must burn."

Within a few seconds it was burning in very truth; the fire ran through the heap of light combustibles with magical power and swiftness. Scarce had the first bunch of burning reeds fallen, than a vast scorching flame was leaping up and roaring towards the rift, while a powerful current of air was drawn through the tunnel and fanned Jack's face.

"What's this?" thought Jack; "they reckoned without the draught, I fancy. It looks as if I shall be no worse off than before. It's very hot, certainly, but with this rush of air through the tunnel I can manage all right."

But he soon found that his enemies had not made any miscalculation.

For five minutes the air rushed fiercely past Jack, fanning the tremendous flame which leapt from the blazing pile and carrying it upwards to the rift, then it began to slacken, and the flame, instead of roaring upwards to a point, began to sink, and spread its wide red wings abroad in the cave, fluttering from one side to the other.

Jack looked upwards with a sinking heart: _the rift was closed_. It had been left open till a terrific fire had burned up, and now it was blocked, and the whole of the heat and the smoke was pent up in the cave; and Jack was pent up, too, in this roasting inferno.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE TORTURE BY FIRE.

For some time Jack was but little troubled with the smoke. It billowed up and up, and rolled in huge clouds about the lofty roof. But gradually the cave filled, and Jack saw that with every moment the smoke came lower and lower, threatening to fill the cave from the floor to roof and choke the life out of him. A cloud whirled about him and was gone again. But it left Jack coughing and half-choked, so pungent and keen was the whiff which he had drawn into his lungs.

Thicker and thicker rose the clouds of smoke as the fire burned, for, cunningly intermingled with the dried tinder of the canes and reeds, his enemies had flung great bunches of fresh-cut boughs. The green wood of the latter, roasting and spluttering with sap in the midst of the roaring fire, threw out vast rolling clouds of choking smoke.

The freshest air was still at the mouth of the tunnel, and here Jack crouched, his head as low as possible, for he knew that the last fresh air would be found nearest to the floor. He was resolved not to go out. His stubborn British blood was aflame at the thought of being placed afresh in bonds, and he was ready to face the fiery torture within rather than creep out and give his enemies the joy of knowing that he was beaten, and of seeing him surrender.

Hope, too, was not yet dead in his heart. The heap of blazing brushwood was at some distance from him, for the rift was at the other side of the cave. If he could but set his teeth and endure this agony of fire until the heap had burned out, he would not be forced from his post.

But at that instant the fire reached several great f.a.ggots of green palm branches, and fresh clouds of aromatic smoke rolled out still thicker and faster than before. A swirl of the air currents within the cave sent a thick billowing ma.s.s full on the spot where Jack crouched.

The brave lad felt that he was choking, that his senses were deserting him, as he drew, involuntarily, the pungent, biting smoke into his lungs.

He flung himself on his face, coughed out the smoke he had swallowed, and caught one refreshing gasp of sweet air blowing up the tunnel.

Then the fresh air was driven back by the huge billow of smoke, and the heavy clouds settled about Jack. He could not have moved now had he wished. He was the prey of the thick suffocating smoke, and a swift merciful unconsciousness fell upon him and put an end to the agonies he had so n.o.bly endured.

When Jack came to himself again, the first thing he knew was that he had failed to keep himself out of the clutch of his enemies. When he opened his bleared and smarting eyes and looked round, he saw the dark face of Saya Chone straight before him. The half-caste said nothing, only grinned in evil joy, and Jack closed his eyes again with a groan of despair. He felt that he was once more in bonds, though they were not so close and galling as before. He was dripping wet, and his eyes pained him cruelly.

He lay still for a few instants, then pulled himself together, jerked himself into a sitting position, and looked round boldly, determined to put the best face possible on the situation, and not give the half-caste the joy of gloating over an enemy who acknowledged himself beaten.

He found he was in the outer cave, and through the tunnel he could see plainly the glow of the fire still blazing in the inner recess. But no smoke came this way. Clearly the rift had been opened, and the fire was pulling up towards the natural vent. Jack looked round and saw that he was in the midst of a pool of water; he supposed that it had been flung upon him to bring him to.

"Well," said Saya Chone at last, "are you not going to thank me for saving the life you seemed obstinately bent upon throwing away? If I had not been able to order a couple of fellows, as careless of their lives as you of yours, to go into the smoke and drag you out, it would have been all over with you by now."

Jack made no answer. He did not so much as trouble to look at Saya Chone. He ignored him entirely, and glanced down at the fetters which confined his limbs. He found that his ankles were bound together with light and slender links of steel, a steel ring encircling each ankle, and similar fetters bound his wrists. At first glance it seemed as if these light bonds might easily be broken, but Jack gave up that idea very soon. He saw that they were the work of a very cunning and skilful craftsman, highly wrought and beautifully tempered, slight in appearance, but immensely strong.

A head now came in sight outside. It was the Strangler, and he called out a few words to Saya Chone. The half-caste had been sitting with his hand in the breast of his jacket. He now drew it out and showed that the b.u.t.t of a heavy revolver had been in his clasp. He pointed the weapon at Jack's heart.

"I must beg of you to get up, my lord," he said, in tones of sneering deference. "Your conveyance awaits you outside the cave."

When he saw that Jack hesitated to obey, he gave a shrill whistle. A couple of Kachins at once sprang up at the mouth of the cave. Sooner than be handled by these evil little ruffians, Jack now got up and shuffled slowly down the cave, his fetters allowing him to move about ten inches at a stride. But this, however, did not save him from their hands. At the mouth of the cave the two Kachins and the Malay seized upon him and swung him down to the bed of the ravine. Here a strong pony was waiting, and when Jack's ankles had been freed, he was tossed astride and the reins put in his hands.

The half-caste followed him at every step with the revolver, nor did he put the weapon away until the Strangler had once more locked the fetters which bound Jack's ankles together. This he did with a small key, and, as the links of steel were brought under the pony's barrel from one foot of the prisoner to the other, Jack was securely tethered to the animal.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

THE STRONGHOLD OF THE RUBY KING.

As soon as Jack was mounted, Saya Chone and the Malay also got to their saddles, and the party moved off down the ravine. Save for his fetters, Jack rode as usual, but the two Kachins, one on either side, held his pony by stout thongs of raw hide, fastened in the bridle. At his heels trotted the two leaders, and Jack knew that both were well armed.

On the journey that followed it is not necessary to dwell, for it was quite uneventful. They travelled steadily till dusk, when they halted in a small village where Jack was a.s.signed a hut, and a strict watch was kept over him at every moment. The next morning the journey was resumed at earliest dawn, and now they held their way for mile after mile through wild, gloomy pa.s.ses between lofty mountains, where no sign of human life or cultivated fields was to be seen. Hour after hour they pushed on through this deserted hill country, until, late in the afternoon, they topped a stony ridge, and Jack gave a sharp exclamation of surprise.

Below him the ground fell away steeply to a small and fertile valley with a river running down its midst, and fields of paddy and plantain lining the course of the stream. Groves of palmyra, and teak, and palms were dotted about the scene, and in the midst of the valley rose a tall house of stone. Instinctively Jack felt that they had reached their journey's end, and that before him was the goal he had set himself to win, the stronghold of U Saw, the Ruby King. But how different was his approach from that he had hoped to make! Instead of advancing upon it in company of his trusty friends, he was marching in as a prisoner, fettered hand and foot.

Jack fixed his eyes eagerly on the great house below as another idea sprang to his mind. Was his father there? Had his quest been in vain, and was Thomas Haydon far away from this lonely valley set among the wild hills? But Jack believed that his father was there; everything seemed to point to it. Well, he would soon know, one way or the other.