ge, ruined house.

"May have been a monastery," said Mr. Haydon. "Now for U Saw and his
men. Are we clear of them or not?"

He moved cautiously forward to reconnoitre, Jack following him.

"Where's the pagoda?" murmured Mr. Haydon. "That will give us our
bearings."

"I see it through this doorway," said Jack, and pointed to a gap in
the wall. Mr. Haydon looked at the pagoda, and noted how it stood with
regard to the sun and their present position.

"This is capital," he said. "We've come out on a side opposite to the
open space where U Saw is waiting for reports from his men. We can go
ahead in safety. He will have men on the watch all round the pagoda,
of course. But we've come clean under their feet, and risen to earth
amid the ruins behind them."

"I should say our best plan now would be to try to get clear of the
city before they push a way through the tunnel," said Jack. "We've
certainly got a couple of hours before they find where we came out.
Then, very likely, they'll start a fresh search for us among the
ruined houses. That would give us a bit more pull in making a flit of
it."

"We can't do better," said his father, and the latter spoke a few
words to the native woman, who would be by far the best guide to set
them on the line they wished to follow. Led by her, they threaded once
more the narrow by-ways and lanes tangled with creepers, and sometimes
so choked with growth that they had to turn back and choose another
way. At last they came to a broken gap in what had once been the city
wall, and from it they looked across the bare, bright, open plain.

"There's no one to be seen," murmured Jack, "and if we can once get
over the rim of the hill, we shall be out of sight. What is it? Not
more than four hundred yards."

They stayed for a few moments longer in shelter of the ruined wall,
and looked warily on either hand again and again. But there was not
the slightest token of danger to be seen or heard. The sun, now
sloping to the west, shone brilliantly upon the open space of stones
and sand, stones too small to hide a spy, and sand too bare of
brushwood to afford him an ambush.

"There's a risk, of course, in venturing into the open," murmured
Jack. "But there's risk whichever way you take it. We may as well make
a dash for it as hang about in the ruins till someone drops on us or
on our tracks."

"That's true," agreed his father.

"Come on, then," said Jack in a low voice, and he led the rush ac