and as the mountaineers
gathered hastily about him and shuddered to see the ghastly face of
their chief, Yu Chan tottered and fell dead in their midst!

"Round the two lifeless forms the hunted tribe gathered, and, looking
upon them, knew that they had been slain by their remorseless foes. One
by one the mountaineers pressed forward, and amid the deathly silence of
the others, each in turn touched the sword of their slain chief and
sternly swore the blood-revenge. Fierce, indeed, as are such outbreaks
in many eastern lands, that day marked the beginning of dark deeds of
requitement that have made all others as nothing in comparison to them.
The Burmese came down upon Siam and swept over fair Ayuthia, leaving
nothing but the ruins of the city; yet, even in that national calamity,
the fierce instinct of murder so fatally roused in the breasts of the
mountaineers never paused nor seemed dulled. While the magnificent city
lay despoiled, the once hunted tribe fell upon the others about the
Meinam, and long after peace reigned throughout the country, still their
deeds of pillage and massacre went on, as they do even to this day, so
remote from the one when their leader was slain.

[Illustration: "THEY SWORE THE BLOOD-REVENGE."]

"For months the tribe will be unheard of, and lulled by a false sense of
security the inhabitants of one of these cities will make preparations
for one of their recurring festivals. Even in the midst of such the
strange cry of the hunted tribe will be heard, and the coming day will
reveal to the awe-struck people the evidence of a night attack, in which
men and women have been slain or carried off suddenly to the Three
Hundred Peaks."

"The present descendants of the avengers of Yu Chan's death are a
cowardly lot, at all events," commented Denviers, as the Arab finished
his recital: "they attacked us without reason, and have consequently got
their deserts. If they come upon us again----"

"Hist, sahib," Hassan whispered cautiously, as he pointed with his sword
towards the fantastic bridge of limestone; "the hunted tribe is
returning from its raid, see!" We looked in the direction in which he
motioned us, and saw that the mountaineers bore a captive in their
midst! Immediately one of the prisoners lashed to the trees gave a
warning cry, regardless of the threats which Denviers had uttered.
Hassan sprang to his feet, and stood by my side as we raised our rifles,
still hidden as we were in the shad