Jack turned away and buried his face in his hands.
“He was strangled,” Don presently resumed, “strangled with that cord you see tied to the rope there. Afterwards, when the lascar gave me the slip, as he did in the night, he took the cord with him; but Bosin somehow recovered it and fetched it back. I little guessed how it would serve the lascar out when I used it to bridge the pit!”
“Retribution!” cried Jack, flinging his hands impulsively away from his face. “He's rightly served, the villain. Only”—regretfully—“I wish it had been me instead of the cord, that's all. But it's done, anyhow, so let's get out of this.”
And it was time; for during this conversation the natives had not been idle. At this very moment, indeed, a number of them rushed shouting from the tunnel, bearing other planks with which to bridge the chasm. Don and his chum did not wait to see this done. Without further loss of time they set out for the creek, in which direction the blacks had already preceded them.
Hardly had they entered the tunnel, however, when they encountered the blacks, running back full pelt; and before Don could inquire the cause of their precipitate return, a shout, reverberating up the vaulted corridor from the semi-darkness ahead, made inquiry unnecessary. While he and Jack had dallied in fancied security, the natives, skirting the pit by another route, had cut off their retreat.
And, as if to increase the consternation caused by this discovery, at the same instant a chorus of yells in their rear announced that the party in pursuit had succeeded in bridging the pit anew.
CHAPTER XIX.—ONE-TO-TWENTY GIVES TWENTY-TO-ONE THE WORST OF IT.
Hemmed in!” cried Don, as the desperate character of the situation flashed upon him. “Shall we try to cut our way through the gang ahead, or fall back on the pit?”