As the fellow rushed forward Thandar drew the pistol the pirates had given him and fired point blank at the fellow’s breast. With a howl the man staggered back and collapsed upon the floor. Then his fellow rushed to the attack.
Thandar had no time to reload. He handed the weapon to Nadara.
“In the pouch at my right side are cartridges,” he said. “Get out several of them, and when I can I will reload.”
As he spoke they had been edging toward the doorway. From the street beyond they could already hear excited voices raised in questioning. The shot had aroused the village.
Now the fellow with the parang was upon them. Thandar was clumsy with the unaccustomed weapon with which he tried to meet the attack of the skilled savage. There could have been but one outcome to the unequal struggle had not Nadara, always quick-witted and resourceful, snatched a long spear from the temple wall.
As she dragged it down there fell with it a clattering skull that broke upon the floor between the fighters. A howl of dismay and rage broke from the lips of the headhunter. This was sacrilege. The holy of the holies had been profaned. With renewed ferocity he leaped to close quarters with Thandar, but at the same instant Nadara lunged the sharp pointed spear into his side, his guard dropped and Thandar’s parang fell full upon his skull.
“Come!” cried Nadara. “Make your escape the way you came. There is no hope for you if you remain. I will tell them that the two guards fought between themselves for me—that one killed the other, and that I shot the victor to save myself. They will believe me—I will tell them that I have always had the pistol hidden beneath my robe. Goodbye, my Thandar. We cannot both escape. If you remain we may both die—you, certainly.”
Thandar shook his head vehemently.
“We shall both go—or both die,” he replied.
Nadara pressed his hand.
“I am glad,” was all that she said.
The savages were pouring from their long houses. The street before the temple was filling with them. To attempt to escape in that direction would have been but suicidal.
“Is there no other exit?” asked Thandar.
“There is a small window in the back of the temple,” replied Nadara, “in a little room that is sometimes used as a prison for those who are to die, but it lets out into another street which by this time is probably filled with natives.”
“There is the floor,” cried Thandar. “We will try the floor there.”
He ran to the main entrance to the temple, and closed the doors. Then he dragged the two corpses before them, and a long wooden bench. There was no other movable thing in the temple that had any considerable weight.
This done he took Nadara’s hand and together the two ran for the little room. Here again they barricaded the door, and Thandar turned toward the floor. With his parang he pried up a board—it was laid but roughly upon the light logs that were the beams. Another was removed with equal ease, and then he lowered Nadara to the ground beneath the temple.
Clinging to the piling, Thandar replaced the boards above his head before he, too, dropped to the ground at Nadara’s side. The streets upon either side of the temple were filled with savages. They could hear them congregating before the entrance to the temple where all was now quiet and still within. They were bolstering their courage by much shouting to the point that would permit them to enter and investigate. They called the names of the guards, but there was no response.
“Give me the pistol,” said Thandar.
He loaded it, keeping several cartridges ready in his hand. Then, with Nadara at his side, he crept to the back of the temple. Pigs, routed from their slumbers, grunted and complained. A dog growled at them. Thandar silenced it with a cut from his parang. When they reached the edge of the shadow beneath the temple they saw that there were only a few natives upon this side of the structure, and they were hurrying rapidly toward the front of the building. A hundred yards away was the jungle.
Now a sudden quiet fell upon the horde before the temple doors. There was the sound of hammering, then a pushing, scraping noise, and presently shouts of savage rage—the dead bodies of the guardsmen had been discovered. Now, from above, came the padding of naked feet running through the temple. The street behind was momentarily deserted.
“Now!” whispered Thandar.
He seized Nadara’s hand, and together the two raced from beneath the temple out into the moonlight and across the intervening space between the long houses toward the jungle. Halfway across, a belated native, emerging from the verandah of a nearby house, saw them. He set up a terrific yell and dashed toward them.
Thandar’s pistol roared, and the savage dropped; but the signal had been given and before the two reached the jungle a screaming horde of warriors was upon their heels.
Thandar was confused. He had lost his bearings since entering the village and the temple. He turned toward Nadara.
“I do not know the way to the coast,” he cried.
The girl took his hand.
“Follow me,” she said, and to the memories of each leaped the recollection of the night she had led him through the forest from the cliffs of the bad men. Once again was Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, the learned, indebted to the greater wisdom of the unlettered cave girl for his salvation.
Unerringly Nadara ran through the tangled jungle in the direction of
