ave to the ravine. But Jack was certain that the
unwounded Kachins were still lurking in the cave out of his sight, and
he had no intention whatever of creeping out and engaging in a
hand-to-hand struggle with the iron-limbed little mountaineers. Fully
half an hour passed in this profound silence. Jack kept the sharpest
look-out, but could catch no sign to show that his lair was still
watched.

"If they can wait," thought Jack, "so can I. I'll not stir an inch
from my cover, however silent they may be."

At that instant he caught a sharp, low cry of surprise behind him. He
whirled round swiftly, for in his intentness he had actually forgotten
the two Panthays, his fellow-prisoners. With a gasp of relief, Jack
found that it was the elder Panthay who had called out. The two men
had been crouching in a corner of the inner cave, and had given no
sign of their presence while Jack struggled with his foes. Now one was
calling out, and both were pointing upwards.

Jack took a step back from the mouth of the tunnel and looked aloft.
The rift in the rock forty feet above, which lighted the cave, was
obscured and darkened. In a moment he saw that the gap was filled with
a human body, and that a Panthay was peering down upon them.

"What's this game?" thought Jack. "They've climbed up to that hole,
but unless I obligingly stand under it, and let them drop a stone on
my head, I don't see what they get by it."

Little did the heroic lad dream of the fearful use to which his
enemies meant to put the rift in the rock high above him.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

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 sa