I watched them fearfully as they hopped deftly from one stone to another to avoid the lime—and were gone.
"Craig! Craig!" I managed to cry feebly. "Be careful. Keep to the stones."
He strained his eyes toward the ground in the darkness, at the sound of my voice. Then he struck a match and instantly took in the situation which, to me, under any other circumstances, would have been ludicrous.
Stepping from stone to stone, he followed the retreating Chinamen. But they had already reached the mouth of the cave and were making their way rapidly down the road to a bend, in the opposite direction from which we had come. There, Wu's automobile was waiting. They leaped into it and the driver, without a word, shot the car off into the darkness of early dawn.
A moment later, Kennedy appeared, but they had made their getaway.
Baffled, he turned and retraced his steps to the cave.
I don't think that I ever welcomed him more sincerely than I did as, finally, I crawled slowly out from the bird lime, exhausted by the effort that I had made to free myself from the sticky mess.
"They got away, Walter," he said, lighting a lantern they had dropped. "By George," he added, I think a little vexed that I had not been able to stop them, "you are a sight!"
He was about to laugh, when I fainted. I can remember nothing until I woke up over by the wall of the chamber where he dragged me.
Kennedy had been working hard to revive me, and, as I opened my eyes, he straightened up. His eye suddenly caught something on the rock beside him. There was a little slot carved in it, and above the slot was a peculiar inscription.
For several minutes, Kennedy puzzled over it, as Wu had done. Then he discovered the little cup near the ground.