"Fool!" exclaimed Cheong-Chau. "We should never get there. Ling would shoot us in the open. Come, we do but waste time talking. The glade must be searched."
As he said the words, he began to move forward, straight toward the place where Frank was hiding.
The boy's heart was in his mouth. He could scarcely hope that he would not be discovered. He could not make his escape without being seen nor was he in a position to offer resistance. And if he was discovered, he had every reason to believe that Cheong-Chau would kill him.
These were the thoughts that passed rapidly through his mind. He lay motionless, fearing to breathe, his eyes fixed upon the crouched, gliding forms of Cheong-Chau and his companions. And then the boy was discovered. The man called Tong caught sight of him and raised his revolver to fire. At the moment Tong pressed the trigger, Frank struck the weapon upward, so that the bullet flew wide through the branches of the trees.
Knowing that he would be shot if he remained at arm's-length or attempted to run away, the boy closed at once with his adversary. Flinging himself into Tong's arms, he endeavoured to seize the man by the throat; but almost immediately he was overpowered by the three of them, and found himself pinned to the ground and once again a prisoner.
Chin Yen peered into the boy's face.
"This is not Ling!" he exclaimed.
Cheong-Chau came out with a brutal oath.
"No," said he. "This is not the tiger; it is the foreign devil who has twice slipped through my fingers."
Frank Armitage closed his eyes and caught his lower lip between his teeth.