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 grass bound loosely with a shred of creeper. Then,
thick and fast, bundle after bundle was hurled into the cave, dried
reeds, more grass, 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 pass 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 mass of reeds, canes, dry
grass, and withered brushwood, to cause a swift, fierce flame to run
through the whole mass.
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 passed, 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 mass 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 masses of billowing smoke would render the inner cave
untenable. Yet, before the bundle of reeds had rolled down to the mass
below, the question had been settled for him.
A second and a third faggot, 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.