and a score of Chinamen, evidently fleeing from an enemy, rushed in and
flocked toward that south wall. Ned and his enemy were trampled under
foot for a moment, then the room was clear save for a half dozen marines
who stood in the doorway, their smoking guns in their hands.

Ned's head whirled from a blow he had received, and there was a numb
feeling in one of his arms, but he arose to his feet and glanced around.
Jimmie stood with the marines, a grin on his freckled face.

"Gee whiz!" he shouted, "how that man did go!"

"Which man?" demanded Ned. "Why didn't some one follow him?"

"He just went through that wall," Jimmie answered. "When I tried to
follow him I bumped me nose! Say, but he went right through that old
wall!"

"Where did the Chinks go?" asked Ned.

"Down through the floor!" was the reply. "But, say, did you ever see
anythin' like that vanishin' priest? I'll bet a pie he's forty miles
away right this minute."

When Ned and the marines took up the search for the diplomat and the
Chinese, it did seem that they were forty miles away! There were
numerous passages under the old temple, and in these the fugitives must
have hidden.

"How did you know?" asked Ned of the marines who had broken into the
underground rooms. "How did you know there was danger inside?"

"That little imp of a Jimmie," one of the men said, "came to the
entrance and shouted fit to wake the dead. They were trying to carry
the Captain and the kid away. Bright boy, that!"

Two of the marines had been slightly wounded by knives in the hands of
the Chinese, but they declared themselves quite well enough to go on
with the journey.

"The Chinks didn't fight," one of them said. "They just threw knives
and ran! We never hit one of them! Sheep, that's what they are! Just
sheep!"

"Well," Ned said, "we've lost our chance on the road to Peking, the
fellow we want having escaped, so we must go ahead and set the rat trap
once more."

"You'll walk if you do," one of the marines said, showing from the
outside, "for the Chinks have made off with the motorcycles!"

CHAPTER XIV

SANDY PROVES HIS CASE

"They'll be dead if you don't get out of here an' do somethin'!" said
Sandy. "The Chinks'll eat 'em up!"

Frank looked around the dismal subterranean chamber and a cynical smile
came to his lips.

"We might get out of here," he said, "if we had a ton of dynamite. I
don't know but I'd take a chance on getting injur