Jack Haydon's Quest Part 38

"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 paG.o.da. This room is built in the second of the three terraces known as Pichayas. Above us the paG.o.da 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 paG.o.da 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 paG.o.da, 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 paG.o.da.

"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 s.p.a.ce before the paG.o.da, 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 s.h.i.+karees, 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 paG.o.da 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."