THE SECRET CHAMBER.
"Shout, shout!" cried Mr. Haydon, and the two yelled at the top of
their voices and waved their torches as they ran for the steps. But
neither the noise nor the fire saved them. They owed their safety to
the cubs. These ran at once to their mother, and the fierce creature
stayed a moment to lick and fondle them and assure herself of their
safety.
Jack and his father used the respite to full advantage. They tore up
the steps and hurled themselves into the room above. Mr. Haydon and
the woman pushed the broken door into place before the opening and
held it, fearing a rush from the great savage beast But the tigress
made no charge. They heard her prowling about the foot of the steps
below, and growling horribly, but she made no attempt to pursue them
farther, and presently her fierce notes of anger died away.
"She has gone back to the cubs," said Mr. Haydon with a deep breath of
relief. "That was a close shave, Jack. If she'd come straight at us
instead of staying beside them for an instant, it would have been all
up with us."
"We could have had a chop at her with a _dah_," said Jack. Mr. Haydon
shook his head grimly.
"Not good enough to tackle a charging tigress," he said. "Might as
well chop at a hurricane."
"Well," said Jack, "a miss is as good as a mile; and anyhow, we've
landed the buck."
Jack had hung on to their quarry like grim death, and the buck now lay
on the floor at their feet. But before they satisfied their hunger,
they looked carefully around the place in which they found themselves.
Like the vault below, the room was large and low, and it was lighted
by a number of small apertures on two sides. They approached these
little holes, and found that none was of greater size than to admit of
a fist being thrust through them. Mr. Haydon looked carefully at them.
"These holes," said he, "are hidden among the ornaments and carving of
the exterior. The room below is in the base of the pagoda. This room
is built in the second of the three terraces known as Pichayas. Above
us the pagoda is solid right away to the vane."
"We're in a queer fix now," said Jack. "Mrs. Stripes below is very
useful to keep out U Saw and his friends, but she'll keep us in as
well. It will be an awkward job to slide out after dark and take the
chance of blundering into her with claws and fangs ready for
business."
"Yes," replied his father, "it cuts both ways."
"Well, we won't worry about it now," said Jack. "Let's have something
to eat. Here's plenty of meat, but how shall we cook it?"
It would have been easy to make a fire, for the remains of a couple of
large chests lay in one corner, but smoke curling from the holes would
betray their hiding-place.
"We'll make some biltong, as I've done many and many a time in South
Africa," said Mr. Haydon. "In this sun the meat will parch very
quickly."
He cut some long and very thin slices from the leg of the buck. Then
he thrust them through one of the holes which lay towards the sun, and
spread them on the flat stone outside. The stone was burning hot, so
hot that the hand could not be borne upon it, for the sun had been
beating there with immense power for many hours. Between the fiery sun
and the hot stone, the meat parched swiftly, and ere long they were
satisfying their ravenous hunger with the excellent venison. They
offered some to the native woman, but she preferred to eat from her
own stock of food.
"I wonder why this city was deserted," said Jack, as he devoured his
venison.
"War, pestilence, or famine," replied his father briefly. "I'll pump
this woman and see how the local tradition runs."
He conversed with her for some time, then turned to his son.
"I can begin as I used to begin stories when you were a nipper," said
Mr. Haydon. "Once upon a time there was a great king."
"How long ago?" queried Jack.
"Goodness knows," said his father. "Time is a mere blur in these old
stories. A hundred, two hundred, five hundred years, all are one to a
people who keep no written records. Well, a great king ruled here over
a busy and wealthy people. He built this pagoda and was immensely
proud of it He delighted to deck it with gold and precious stones. She
says that once the whole of the exterior was covered with plates of
solid gold, and the _Hti_, the umbrella, that is the topmost stage of
the pagoda, was hung with thousands of golden and silver bells, and
decked with huge rubies and other precious stones. Most of these
didn't belong to him. For he had a habit of marching upon neighbouring
rulers and stripping their treasuries to brighten up his pagoda.
"At last the usual thing happened. A better fighting man came along
and stripped him. He and his people fought well, but in the end they
were overcome and the whole city was put to the sword. The conqueror
had the plates of gold and a vast number of rubies, emeralds, and
diamonds. But many of the finest rubies slipped out of his grasp. The
priests fled and carried them off. Since that day the city has been a
desert. And so you have the legend."
"Is it true, do you think?" asked Jack.
"Substantially true, without a doubt," replied his father. "The thing
has happened again and again. It might easily happen to-day in Burmah
itself, were it not for the British Raj. These local rulers were
forever cutting each other's throats."
At this point the low murmur of his voice became mingled with a
louder noise without. The sound of busy Kachin tongues in full flow
came through the tiny apertures which lighted the room, and Jack and
his father sprang to their feet.
"The enemy have arrived," murmured Jack, and his father nodded. They
stole swiftly across the room and peered through the little apertures
which lighted the place. No better spying-place could be needed. They
looked straight into the broad open space before the pagoda, and saw
their pursuers defiling from a narrow street. One man was mounted, and
they knew him at once for U Saw, the great ruby in his head-dress
glinting scarlet fire in the rays of the sun. At the tail of his horse
strode the Strangler, and a dozen busy little blue-kilted figures ran
hither and thither, chattering and calling to each other, and
searching eagerly for traces of the fugitives.
A loud shout presently told the Haydons that something had been
discovered. Half a dozen Kachins began to yell together, and Mr.
Haydon listened intently.
"They've found the hole," he murmured coolly. "What next?"
"It's very lucky for us that Mrs. Stripes is at home and on guard,"
said Jack. "We could hold them in the narrow stairs there with our
_dahs_, but she'll do the job much better."
"Yes, for a time, without doubt," replied his father, shaking his
head. "But these chaps are splendid little shikarees, and fear nothing
that stands on four legs."
They could not see the group of Kachins which had gathered before the
opening, but they saw the Ruby King wave his hand, and knew that the
blue-kilts had been ordered to explore. They listened breathlessly,
but, for some moments, all was silence. Then in the vault below there
broke out a frightful roar of anger, and mingled with it came yells
and outcries. The two watchers looked eagerly from their apertures,
and saw the Kachins recoiling in a disorderly body, carrying among
them a man whose legs dragged along the ground.
"Looks as if she'd settled one of them," remarked Mr. Haydon. It was
soon apparent that the tigress had thinned by one the number of their
enemies. The man was laid down in the open space, and his fellows
gathered about him. But very soon they left the body lying where it
had been placed, and collected about the Ruby King in a chattering
crowd.
"Clearly the man is dead," said Jack. "They do not attempt to do
anything for him."
"I should say she smashed his skull in, by the look of things from
this distance," remarked his father. "See how the blood spreads in a
pool about his head!"
Their eyes were fixed on the debating crowd, and they were wondering
what the next move of the Kachins would be, when they heard a low call
behind them. Both whirled round at once, and saw that it was their
companion who was attracting their attention. She was kneeling on the
floor, and they ran to her at once. She knelt beside a large stone
which was sunk three or four inches below its fellows and shook easily
under the touch.
"This is strange," said Jack. "We dried our meat and ate our meal just
about here, and the stone was not out of its place then."
"Perhaps our movements loosened it," replied his father. He spoke with
the native woman for a little, then turned to his son. "It sank a
moment back when she stepped on it," he said. "Just when she cried
out. She feared she was going to fall through the floor."
Jack knelt down and pressed heavily on the stone. It slid away from
his hands, and, had he not grasped the edge of the hole quickly, he
would have rolled after it The stone vanished, and was heard to land
with a heavy ringing crash on stone below.
"By Jove, I nearly went head first after it," said Jack. "It was as
loose as possible. Where does this lead to?"
Mr. Haydon knelt down and looked carefully around the sides of the
square hole left in the floor.
"It's a secret entrance to some place or other," he said. "See, Jack,
the wooden bar on which this stone worked. It has rotted through, and
the stone held its place, as you may say, by clinging to the
neighbouring stones. But a slight weight was sufficient to start it
moving."
"What's underneath, I wonder?" murmured Jack.
"Some chamber built in the thickness of the floor between this room
and the vault below," replied his father.
"We ought to have a look into this," remarked Jack.
"We will," said his father; "but I hardly see how it will avail us.
There might be a chance to make it useful if we could get the stone
into place, but it is very heavy, and the machinery on which it worked
has rotted away."
Jack took a half-burned torch, whose flare had been quenched upon
their regaining the room from the raid in which they had secured the
buck, and relighted it. He held it as far into the darkness as he
could, and the red light showed that a ladder, built of heavy beams of
teak, ran downwards from the edge of the hole. Mr. Haydon sniffed
cautiously. "The air doesn't smell bad," he remarked; "close and
musty, but no mephitic vapours. I think we'll go down."
Jack swung himself over the lip of the hole, dropped his feet on the
stout ladder, and went down first, holding the torch before him, and
his father followed. They found themselves in a low room of fair size,
but not one-half as large as that above and below.
"What's that?" said Jack, and pointed to the far corner, where
something gleamed white. They crossed to it, and stood before a knot
of skeletons. Nine they counted, each lying as the dead man had fallen
long, long ago. In the houses of the city, where roofs had fallen in,
where wild beasts had devoured the flesh, and where sun and rain and
wind had worked their will upon the bones, all trace of the citizens
of that long bygone day had utterly disappeared, but here, where the
secret chamber had protected their remains, the skeletons were
perfect.
"These are some of the men who fell in the sack of the city," said
Jack.
His father bent and carefully examined them by the light of the torch.
"I scarcely think so, Jack," he said. "The bones are perfect and bear
no sign of injury. It is more likely that they were priests of the
pagoda who took refuge here, and perhaps died of famine, not daring to
leave their hiding-place."
Jack moved a little, and started. In his new position a ray of red
fire darted at him from one of the heaps of white bones. He stepped
forward, bent, and picked up the glittering object.
"Look here," he said to his father, "this is something in your line,
if I'm not very much mistaken."
His father turned it over, rubbed the dirt off it, and held it up to
the light. It lay in his palm and winked in the light of the torch
with dancing gleams of deep scarlet fire.
"Whew!" whistled Mr. Haydon, "a magnificent ruby, large, and of the
purest water. Where did you get it, my boy?"
Jack pointed to the skeleton at his feet, among whose bones it had
lain.
"Could this have been their secret treasure-room?" said Mr. Haydon,
looking round. "Yet it is very unlikely. It is too large, and hardly
in the place where they would have built it."
At this moment they heard a murmur at their shoulders. The woman had
followed them, and they turned to see that she had picked up a couple
of rubies from among the bones of another skeleton, and was holding
them out to Mr. Haydon.
The great expert took them and examined them swiftly.
"Finer than the one you found in point of size," he said to his son.
"As to purity, they are all of the highest quality. These three stones
in my palm represent a substantial fortune."
Jack had never before seen such magnificent stones. He gazed in wonder
at the three gleaming splendours, and turned them over with his
finger.
"They are true oriental rubies," said his father, "of the finest
colour and without flaw. Any one of them is ten times as valuable as a
diamond of the same weight."
The native woman was turning over the bones of another skeleton. She
straightened herself, came forward, and dropped another noble ruby
into Mr. Haydon's hand.
"Jack, Jack," cried the latter to his son, "don't you see what this
means, my boy? Here is proof positive of the truth of the legend."
"I see," said Jack, "these are the monks who were said to have fled
with the pick of the rubies."
"These are they without a doubt," said his father. "They disappeared,
and the conquerors believed that they had escaped, and so the story of
their flight was worked into the tradition. But they had hidden
themselves here, and here they died. The rubies were shared among
them, and concealed in their garments. The ants have made short work
of the robes long since, and the stones have fallen among the bones."
"Then among these skeletons lie the chief treasures of the ancient
city?" said Jack.
"The thing is beyond all question," replied his father. "These
glorious stones bear ample witness."
The intense interest of this marvellous find had almost driven the
thought of their enemies from their minds. But the recollection of
their deadly peril came back in full flood when a hoarse thunder broke
out beneath their feet in the lower vault.
"The tigress!" cried Jack. "Is it a fresh assault?"
Not another thought did they give to the gleaming treasures within
their grasp. Life was worth a mountain of rubies.
They rushed at once to see what U Saw and his retainers were doing.
Mr. Haydon did not even pocket the rubies, such was his haste. He
tossed them aside among the mouldering bones, where they had lain for
so many generations, and flew after his son, who was already climbing
the ladder.
They raced across the room, and now heard the savage roars of the
tigress pealing louder and louder up the narrow stairway. In the vault
below they heard shots and yells.
"They have attacked her in her lair, there is no doubt of it," said
Mr. Haydon in a tone of deep anxiety. "They have without doubt flung
torches in to light the place up, and shot her as she stood before her
cubs, checking her charge with fire, noise, and spears. I have known a
band of them take as desperate a risk for the sake of a mere skin to
sell, so they would certainly take it to seize us."
The growls of the tigress became more furious and deafening.
"They are running out!" cried Jack. "They are flying before her."
In the open space below, the Kachins were running swiftly from the
entrance to the vault. Some looked over their shoulders, as if fearing
pursuit.
"Very possibly," said his father. "They are running for the moment,
but I fear they have done their work. See how joyous they look!"
This was quite true. The dark faces of the little mountaineers were
bright with smiles, and their teeth flashed white as they grinned at
each other, and shouted as if in triumph.
"Their muskets at close range are not to be despised," murmured Mr.
Haydon uneasily. "They fling a heavy ball, and drive it with great
smashing power. And again, the bullets may be poisoned. They often
are."
The Kachins did not run far. They faced about, and three or four who
were armed with spears threw their weapons forward, ready to receive
the charge of the wounded creature. But no charge was made. Had the
tigress been alone, she would have rushed out, but the presence of her
cubs made a great difference. She stayed beside them, growling and
roaring with rage and pain until the very building shook.
Half an hour passed, and the tigress was now making no more than a
low moan. Little by little her growling had died away. The Haydons
heard the sound diminish with uneasy hearts. They knew that the
strength of the great fierce beast was going with it, and that very
soon the Kachins would be at the foot of the stairs.
They talked the situation over, and looked at it from every point of
view, but could see only one thing to do. That was to wait for the
enemy on the narrow winding steps, where but one could pass at a time,
and hold them at bay.
Jack looked round. "Where's the woman?" he said, "she has not come
up."
"No more she hasn't," said his father. They had been so deeply engaged
in watching every movement of their enemies that they had utterly
forgotten their companion. When Jack rushed up from the secret
chamber, he had thrust the flaring torch into her hand, in order that
she might follow at her leisure, but there was no sign of her in the
room behind them.
Jack ran across to the spot where the square black hole yawned in the
floor.
"It's all dark down here," he cried in surprise. "Has the torch gone
out? But why has she not come up?"
Near at hand lay a large lock of dried grass, part of a bundle which
the woman herself had gathered and brought up on their first entrance.
Jack caught it up, struck a match, and thrust the burning vesta into
it. In an instant the tuft of grass was ablaze, and he flung it into
the secret chamber. It dropped to the floor, and the flame shot up
brightly, lighting the little room from corner to corner, from roof to
floor.
"She's gone!" gasped Jack in utter amazement "She's gone!" Save for
the skeletons, the little room was completely empty. There was not the
faintest sign of the native woman. She had disappeared absolutely and
entirely.