Their breathing s.p.a.ce was but short. They had halted on a ridge which commanded a big stretch of the country they had crossed. Jack was seated on the ground, with his back to the wall of rock behind them.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet. He looked steadily for a moment down the pa.s.s, then he said quietly, "We are pursued."

Mr. Haydon had stretched himself at full length on the ground to rest.

Hearing those words from his son, he leapt also to his feet and looked eagerly in the direction to which Jack's outstretched finger was pointed. Far away a patch of the pa.s.s lay in sunlight. For the most part the narrow cleft through the hills lay in gloomy shadow of the precipices which bordered it on either hand, but the climbing sun shot pencils of light here and there into the deep rift. Across one of these sunny patches a line of tiny figures was streaming. Only for a moment were they visible. They crossed the field of light, then vanished into the huddle of rocks which littered the foot of the pa.s.s.

"Fifteen," said Jack, as the last of them disappeared.

Mr. Haydon whistled sharply and nodded.

"We've travelled fast, Jack," said he, with a troubled brow, "but these hard-bitten, wiry, little mountaineers have travelled faster. We must put our best foot foremost. It will be fatal to be caught in this narrow gully between the rocks. They will get round us and rush us from all sides at once."

"I thought we'd got a much better start than this," said Jack.

"So did I," replied his father, "but it has turned out otherwise."

Me Dain's words were short but to the point.

"Kachins!" he cried. "Come on," and pushed ahead with the woman, who was off like a deer at the first hint of danger.

"How far to the end of the pa.s.s, Me Dain?" called Mr. Haydon.

"Not more than two miles, sahib," replied the Burman.

"Good," said Jack, "if we can only clear the pa.s.s we may find some means of throwing them off. In the pa.s.s they have us tight between the walls."

"That's it, Jack," returned his father, and then they hurried over the wild broken track in silence.

Half a mile farther on Jack pointed forward. "Hallo!" he said, "here's another of those roads built along the precipice. I hope it will be a bit sounder than the last."

In another moment they arrived at a stretch of the path where the road was carried in mid-air over a deep chasm in the bed of the pa.s.s. They had already pa.s.sed two such places, and at each point the road was constructed in the same manner. Holes had been cut horizontally in the sheer face of the precipice and huge beams driven into them. About six feet of each beam was left projecting from the hole, and upon these outstanding bars, smaller beams were laid parallel to the face of the rock. The earth had been heaped on all, and the result was a narrow road running along the cliff like a shelf.

The last they had pa.s.sed had been very rotten, and Me Dain had gone through one hole up to his arm-pits. He had only been saved from a fall into the yawning gulf below by the promptness of Jack, who had flung himself on his knees and whipped his hands under the Burman's arms, and held him up. Warned by this misadventure, they moved slowly and carefully along the narrow track which now lay before them.

"Take care, take care," said Mr. Haydon, "this road is worse than the others. We must go in single file. These beams will not take any great weight."

They spread themselves out in a line, with a yard or more between each person, and went gingerly forward.

The truth was, that hundreds of years before, when some native ruler had gone to immense trouble and labour to build these roads, the pa.s.s had been an important highway. But a tremendous land-slide had blocked a portion of the pa.s.s, and swept away a number of the wooden roads, and the way had fallen into disuse. Since then the vast beams of teak which formed the road-bed had been slowly crumbling into decay, and many were very insecure.

As Jack brought up the rear of the little procession, he kept his eyes fixed on the road at his feet, and this for two reasons. One, to avoid the rotten places, and the other, because to look around from a roadway six feet wide into the yawning gulf which gaped beside him was very dizzying.

Suddenly he heard a scream from the native woman who guided them. He looked ahead at once, but could not see her. The little procession was now winding its way round an acute angle of the cliff about which the road had bent sharply. The woman was out of sight; Me Dain was disappearing. Mr. Haydon quickened his steps, and Jack hurried on too.

What had that scream meant? It had not been loud, but low and full of awful terror. What lay beyond the angle?

Jack turned the corner and saw, and his brown face blanched as he saw the frightful corner into which circ.u.mstances had driven them. Ten yards beyond the angle, the road ended abruptly, broken short off.

Whether the beams had given way and fallen into the chasm, or whether an avalanche of rocks had beaten the road into ruins, they knew not, nor did it matter. What mattered was this, that fifty yards beyond them the road had again joined the solid bed of the pa.s.s, and that now along that fifty yards nothing was left save here and there a broken stump of teak standing out from the face of the precipice. Nothing without wings could pa.s.s over the wide s.p.a.ce where the road had been stripped from the cliff.

For a moment no one could speak. They could only stare aghast at the gulf beside and before them, at the little strip of road broken off short and square at their feet. How were they to pa.s.s this frightful, yawning abyss?

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

PENNED IN THE Pa.s.s.

"What's to be done now, father," said Jack in a low, quick voice; "the road's clean gone. We're trapped."

Both stepped forward and looked over the edge of the sheer descent where the road ended. A broad torrent foamed along fifty feet below.

The side of the precipice fell away to the stream as smooth as a wall.

It rose above them just as smooth. No way up or down. They saw that in an instant.

"Better go back and try another way," said Mr. Haydon. "Ask her, Me Dain."

A few swift words pa.s.sed between the Burman and the native woman. Then the guide shook his head soberly. There was no other way that she knew of.

Jack stepped back to the angle and peered carefully round it. "The Kachins are coming," he said.

The shelf-road had risen as it ran along the precipice, and from this point he could see a long way down the pa.s.s. He saw the bunch of pursuers sweep into sight and race up the pa.s.s. His father joined him at once.

"They would see us now if we went back," said Mr. Haydon. "What on earth are we to do, Jack?"

Jack knit his brows in perplexity, but made no answer. He could not see what to answer. Behind them a band of savage and determined enemies; before them a gulf over which none but a bird could pa.s.s.

"We're in a frightful fix," he murmured at last.

"Frightful," rejoined his father. "I give you my word that I see no way out."

"Nor I, father," said Jack. "It seems to me that all we can do is to try to hold them off at this corner."

"But how?" asked Mr. Haydon.

"The road's fearfully rotten just at the bend," said Jack. "I think we could break it down pretty easily. It trembled and shook as I pa.s.sed over it."

"I see," returned his father, "break the road down and keep them from rushing us. But what of ourselves? How will it advantage us to be isolated on a patch of road, stuck against the face of the cliff like a swallow's nest against a wall?"

"Frankly, I don't know, father," replied Jack. "I simply put that forward as the only means I can see of gaining a slight respite.

Otherwise they will be among us and cut our throats in short order."

"Or make us captives, which would be a long sight worse," said Mr.

Haydon. "Well, Jack, we'll give ourselves an hour or two longer to look at the sun. Down goes the road!"

The three men sprang to the task at once. First, with their hands, they sc.r.a.ped away the earth, which was very thin on the face of many of the beams. When this was removed, there was exposed to sight the flooring of small beams laid lengthways across the big beams which jutted from the rock. From this flooring each selected the soundest stick he could find.

Jack was lucky in dropping across a bit of teak in capital preservation, a bar eight feet long, four inches square, and as hard as iron. With this he began to batter at the rotten patch of roadway where the angle of the cliff was turned, and a few strokes on the rotten timbers served to tumble them headlong into the raging torrent below. His father and Me Dain were hard at work beside him, and in a very few minutes they had broken away the softest part of the road, leaving a ragged gap fifteen feet wide, just at the turn.

They made the last strokes at the outer side in the very face of their enemies. When they withdrew to the shelter of the inner angle, the racing Kachins were not a hundred yards away. In another moment the fugitives heard their pursuers gather close at hand. The little men in blue were now only a few yards away, cl.u.s.tered about the farther edge of the gap, and chattering to each other in a very excited fashion.