Thandar had scaled the rickety, toppling saplings of the cliff dwellers for so long that this pole offered no greater difficulties to him than would an ordinary staircase to you or me. First he tested it with eyes and hands to know that it rested securely at the top and that beneath his weight it would not move noisily out of its present position.
Assured that it seemed secure, Thandar ran up it with the noiseless celerity of a cat. Gingerly he stepped upon the roof, not knowing the manner of its construction, which might be weak thatching that would give beneath him and precipitate him into the interior beneath.
To his surprise and consternation he found that the roof was of wood, and quite as solid as one could imagine. It had been his plan to enter the temple from above, but now it seemed that he was to be thwarted, for he could not hope to cut silently through a wooden roof with his parang in the few hours that intervened before dawn.
He stooped to examine the roof minutely with eyes and fingers. The moonlight was brilliant. In it he could see quite well. He pulled away the thin palm frond thatch. Beneath were shingles hand hewn from billian. In each was a small square hole through which was passed a strip of rattan that bound the shingle to the frame of the roof.
Thandar lifted away the thatching over a little space some two feet square. Then he inserted the point of his keen parang beneath a rattan tie string, and an instant later had lifted aside a shingle. Another and another followed the first until an opening in the roof had been made large enough to easily admit his body.
Thandar leaned over and peered into the darkness beneath. He could see nothing. His own body was between the moon and the hole in the roof, shutting out the rays of the satellite from the interior.
The man lowered his legs cautiously over the edge of the hole. Feeling about, his feet came in contact with a rafter. A moment later his whole body had disappeared within the temple. Clinging to the edge of the hole with one hand, Thandar squatted upon the rafter above the temple floor.
Now that his body no longer clogged the aperture in the roof the moonlight poured through it throwing a brilliant flood upon a portion of the floor at the opposite side of the interior. The balance was feebly lighted by the diffused moonlight.
The temple seemed to consist of a single large room. In the center was a raised platform, and also about the walls. From the rafters hung baskets containing human skulls—one swung directly in the moonlight beneath Thandar. He could see its grisly contents plainly.
His eyes followed the moonlight toward the area which it touched upon the far side of the room. It reminded Waldo Emerson of a spot light thrown from the gallery of a theater upon the stage.
Directly in the center of the light a woman lay asleep upon the platform. Thandar’s heart stood still. About her figure was wrapped the glossy hide of Nagoola. Over one bare, brown arm billowed a wealth of thick, black hair, fine as silk, upon the third finger of the left hand blazed a large solitaire. The woman’s face was turned toward the wall—but Thandar knew that he could not be mistaken—it was Nadara.
From the rafter upon which he squatted to the floor below was not over twelve or fifteen feet. Thandar swung downward, clinging to the rafter with his hands, and dropped, catlike, upon his naked feet to the floor below.
The almost noiseless descent was sufficient, however, to awaken the sleeper. With the quickness of a panther she swung around and was upon her feet facing the man almost at the instant he alighted. The moonlight was now full upon her face. Thandar rushed forward to take her in his arms.
“Nadara!” he whispered. “Thank God!”
The girl shrank back. She recognized the voice and the figure; but—her Thandar was dead! How could it be that he had returned from death? She was frightened.
The man saw the evident terror of her action, and paused.
“What is the matter, Nadara?” he asked. “Don’t you know me? Don’t you know Thandar?”
“Thandar is dead,” she whispered.
The man laughed. In a few words he explained that he had been stunned, but not killed, by the earthquake. Then he came to her side and took her in his arms.
“Do I feel like a dead man?” he asked.
She put her arms about his neck and drew his face down to hers. She was sobbing. Thandar’s back was toward the doorway of the temple. Nadara was facing it. As she raised her eyes to his again her face went deadly white, and she dragged and pushed him suddenly out of the brilliant patch of moonlight.
“The guard!” she whispered. “I just saw something move beyond the door.”
Thandar stepped behind one of the tree trunks that supported the roof, looking toward the entrance. Yes, there was a man even now coming into the temple. His eyes were wide with surprise as he glanced upward toward the hole in the roof. Then he looked in the direction of the platform upon which Nadara had been sleeping. When he saw that it was empty he ran back to the doorway and called his companion.
As he did so Thandar grasped Nadara’s hand and drew her around
