nquiries among
the inhabitants of the mountain villages resulted in several of them
coming forward with the information that they had seen a small body of
armed Chinese escorting a cloaked and shrouded figure on a mule and
climbing up towards Bhutan. Two of the Government Secret Service agents
among these Bhuttias had followed them cautiously to the frontier and
seen them received there by a party of the Tuna Penlop's armed
retainers. These men reported that the watch on all the passes into
Bhutan was stricter than ever, and, as one of them phrased it, not even
a rat could creep through unobserved.

This discouraging intelligence was a further proof of _Amban's_ guilt.
But Frank realised that it would not be sufficient to justify the
Government of India claiming redress from the Republic of China; and,
indeed, diplomatic procedure was much too slow to be of any use in the
rescue of the girl. An appeal to the Maharajah of Bhutan would be
equally fruitless; for his powerful vassal the Tuna Penlop was
practically in rebellion against him and defied his authority. The sole
hope of saving Muriel lay in Wargrave's prompt action.

Yet try as the subaltern would, he and Tashi were unable at any point to
pierce the cordon of guards along the frontier. Generally they got away
unseen; but on one occasion they were discovered and had to flee back
into British territory under a shower of arrows. Fortunately fire-arms
are scarce in Bhutan; and the Tuna Penlop's soldiers possessed only
bows.

It was imperative that Wargrave and his follower should be circumspect
in their movements, and by day they hid in caves or in the jungle
clothing the slopes of the higher hills, to escape observation by
Bhutanese spies. When they had exhausted the food that they had brought
with them and failed to procure any more from their Secret Service
agents in the villages, Tashi gathered bananas, dug up edible tubers
like the _charpattia_ or _charlong_, and snared jungle-fowl and Monal
pheasants. Having obtained a bow and a sheaf of arrows from a village he
sometimes succeeded in killing a _gooral_, the active little wild goat
found in the lower hills, the flesh of which is excellent.

As day after day went by and found them no nearer success in crossing
the frontier Wargrave began to lose heart. He was harassed by anxiety
over Muriel's fate and feared that he would never be able to rescue her.
At times he grew desperate and but for his companion's rem