o some extent; but the movement of
the litter set them off bleeding again, and I fancy that I lost
pretty nearly all the blood in my body. I think that it was pure
weakness, rather than fever, that kept me unconscious so long; for
I gather, from the pantomime of the trooper, that I must have been
nearly a fortnight unconscious."

"Yes, you were certainly so when I came the first time, Harry; but
I think, perhaps, on the whole, it is lucky that you were. You
would probably have had a great deal more fever, if you had not
been so very weak; and if you had escaped that, and had gone on
well, you might have been sent off to Ava before I could get all
the arrangements made for your escape."

"Tell me all about it," Harry said. "It seems to me wonderful how
you managed it."

Stanley told him the whole story. By the time that he had finished,
the stores had all been taken upstairs; and the fire most carefully
extinguished, as the smoke would at once have betrayed them. The
cross pieces of the litter had been taken off, to allow Harry to be
carried in through the door, and he was now lifted. Two of the men
took off their cloths, and wrapped the materials of the bed into
these, carrying them up at once. As soon as they had gone on, Harry
was slowly and carefully taken to the upper chamber, and laid down
again on the bed. Stanley took his place beside him, and the rest
of the party went down to the lower room; having received the
strictest orders not to show themselves near the entrance, and not
to smoke until well assured that their pursuers must have passed on
ahead.

The bamboos of the litter were converted into a rough ladder and,
on this, Meinik took his post at the little window in the second of
the lower rooms. Owing to the immense thickness of the rock wall,
he did not get an extensive view, but he could see the path by
which anyone coming up through the forest would approach the
temple. It was now about half-past seven and, by this time, the
pursuers might be at hand; in ten minutes, indeed, distant shouts
could be heard, and Stanley at once went down and joined the men
below.

He placed himself in the line of the doorway. As the wall here was
four feet thick, the room was in semi-darkness and, standing well
back, he was certain that his figure could not be perceived by
anyone standing in the glare of sunshine outside. The sounds grew
louder and louder; and in a minute or two an officer, followed by
some twenty