"This is a Malay, who is entirely devoted to U Saw's service," said the half-caste, with an evil grin. "He is a very useful man, for he is absolutely the cleverest hand with the strangling noose that I have ever known. I believe he could strangle a child in its mother's arms and she would know nothing about it. You have already had a slight taste of his skill on two occasions. Once on that heath in your queer, cold England, and again to-night. But as he was under strict orders on both occasions not to take your life, he spared you the last touch of his art, that sharp, neat twist which breaks his victim's spinal column as if he was snapping a bit of dry stick."
Saya Chone turned to go, but paused at the door and looked over his shoulder.
"I heard you shouting as I came in," he said. "If you have a fancy for that amusement, pray shout as much as you like. But I ought to warn you that it is a pure waste of breath. We have carried you nearly a couple of miles into the jungle, and fifty times the uproar you could make would be quite useless to attract attention."
He left the hut, and Jack sat back against the post to think over his desperate situation. He had fallen into the hands of the very people that he and his comrades were trying to circumvent. How they had discovered their line of march, and been enabled to lay this clever trap for him, he could not imagine. But one thing he saw clearly, that U Saw's arm was very long in this country, and that his net for information was spread abroad very widely and very successfully.
He looked across at the Strangler, and found the dark bright eyes of the Malay fixed intently upon him. Jack had been thinking to test the strength of the knots and the cords which bound him, but in the presence of this keen watchman it was useless, and he bent down his eyes in thought once more.
"I am to be carried to U Saw," he thought. "Then my father must be there already. At any rate I shall see him, I hope, and find out what has happened to him, and how he has been treated."
Several hours now passed in complete silence. Jack's bonds chafed him miserably, but he could do nothing to relieve himself, and the Malay watched him with fierce alertness at every moment. Then the ricketty door was jerked open again, and Saya Chone came in.
"It is the dark hour before the dawn," he laughed jeeringly. "A capital time to slip away while all the revellers are sleeping, and the forest paths are empty. Your conveyance awaits you, my lord."
He said two words to the Strangler, and drew a revolver from beneath his jacket. He had thrown aside his disguise as a dancing girl, and now appeared in the rich tartan silk kilt, the jacket, and turban-like head-dress of a prosperous Burman.
"Get up," he said curtly to Jack, while the Strangler unfastened the rope which bound the captive's feet and also that which bound his body to the post.