“Where are the others?” cried Jack, as they rounded the shoulder of rock separating the antechamber from the passage. “You never came alone!”
“No; I left them just here—told them to wait,” said Don, peering about in search of the blacks. “They must have gone back; thought they'd save their skins while they could, I suppose, the chicken-hearted beggars! Ha, here's Bosin, at any rate.”
Swinging the monkey upon his shoulder, he set off at a run down the passage, Jack following as close as the weight of the chain would allow him, to do. They had proceeded only a short distance when a faint, sepulchral shout brought them to a stand. The sound seemed to proceed from a gallery on their immediate right. The way out did not lie in that direction.
“That's Pug's wheeze,” said Don. “They've taken the wrong turning;” and he drew a deep breath to answer the call.
Jack interposed quickly. “Stop! The natives will be down on us soon enough without, that. Off with you, old fellow, and fetch' pur party back. I'll wait here.”
Already Don was racing down the side passage. Presently Jack heard him jitter a cautious “hullo.” A short silence followed then the echoes told him that the fugitives were hastily retracing their steps. At the same moment a confused uproar burst on his ears from the direction of the chamber in his rear. The pursuing mob had turned the angle of the passage and were actually in sight. The chain attached to Jack's leg clanked impatiently. He fairly danced with excitement. That ill-advised move on the part of the blacks had almost proved fatal to their sole chance of escape.
But not quite; for now Don and the blacks came up, Jack joined them, and, with the oncoming thunder of many feet loud in their ears, away they sped, running as they alone can run who know that death is at their heels.
Two circumstances favoured them so long as the race was confined to the cramped limits of the corridors: the smallness of their own number, and the multitude of their pursuers. Where four could run with ease, forty wasted their breath in fighting each other for running room.
“We must put the pit between us and-these howling demons while they're tumbling over each other in the passage here,” cried Don.
It was their only hope. Racing on by Jack's side, close on-the heels of the blacks, he rapidly explained to his chum—who knew nothing of the pit, having been brought into the rock by a more circuitous route—the nature of the contemplated manoeuvre; and gave Spottie and Puggles their instructions how to act, backed up by a wholesome threat of summary abandonment to the enemy should they shirk when it came to the crucial point, the plank. The blacks were to cross first, Jack next; while he, Don, would cover their retreat as best he could. To this arrangement Jack could raise no demur. He was too seriously handicapped by the chain.