Jack Haydon's Quest

by John Finnemore

In a moment the native drew back, and Jack jumped to cover as he saw a dark object come whirling through the rift and fall straight into the cave. But the thing flung in was harmless enough in appearance, a mere bundle of dried grass bound loosely with a shred of creeper. Then, thick and fast, bundle after bundle was hurled into the cave, dried reeds, more grass, big loose splinters of pine, fat with resin, withered brushwood, and the like.

Down they came, thicker and faster, until a great pile of this rubbish was heaped on the floor of the cave. Jack was staring wonderingly at this novel method of attack by flinging rubbish apparently at large, when once more the Panthay above thrust his head through the rift and spoke a few words, his voice ringing down hollow into the depths where the three prisoners stood. Jack did not understand what was said, but he saw that the effect on his companions was most extraordinary.

They sprang to their feet, and, braving all the terrors of Saya Chone, whose name had appeared so dreadful to them, they darted for the tunnel, brushed swiftly by Jack, and were gone. The English lad watched them eagerly. He saw them fly down the outer cave, leap wildly into the ravine, and disappear. A minute later he saw them cross his field of view as they climbed the opposite bank. They were going like the wind, and there seemed not the slightest attempt made to stop them, nor was the faintest sound of pursuit to be heard.

"All the same," murmured Jack to himself, "I don't think I shall follow you, my nimble friends. It's pretty certain you've been allowed to go in peace in the hopes of drawing me out as well. I hardly fancy I should be permitted to pass so quietly. Well, I'm thankful the poor beggars have got away in safety. But what scared them so frightfully? They went like rabbits bolting from a hole when the ferrets have been put in. There seems nothing very terrifying about this heap of rubbish."

But was there not? was there not? Ten seconds later Jack was ready to take his words back, and acknowledge that heap of rubbish to be a very terrible and awful weapon in the hands of his enemies. Something flashed above him, and he glanced up to see a flaming torch hurled through the rift. It did not, however, fall into the heap of light inflammable materials awaiting it. It struck against a projecting point of rock, was turned aside, and fell almost at Jack's feet. He stamped the flame out swiftly with his boot.

But his breath came fast and short, and his brave face paled as he saw the frightful cunning of this master-trick. He had luckily quenched one torch, but he could not be sure of quenching the next and the next. One of them had but to fall into the mass of reeds, canes, dry grass, and withered brushwood, to cause a swift, fierce flame to run through the whole mass.

This, then, it was which the Panthays had learned from their fellow who looked down from the rift. The Englishman was to be roasted out, and they were warned of the fearful fate about to befall him. Before this vision of horrors they had fled, the greater fear conquering the less.

Jack stood looking up at the rift with blanched face, and teeth set like a steel-trap. His heart gave another jerk within him. A second torch flashed through the rift. But this time the torch whirled flaming through the air, and fell at the mouth of the tunnel, within a yard of Jack's foot. He stamped it out. A second torch followed, almost in the same place. He stamped this out too. He looked eagerly to see where the next would fall.

It seemed extraordinary fortune that not one of them should fall in the midst of the waiting heap. Then he heard a low, evil, chuckling laugh from someone beside the rift, and he understood. Saya Chone was there, playing with him, as a cat plays with a mouse. The half-caste was tossing torches within Jack's reach, simply to torture him with the idea of what would happen when one of the flaming splinters of pine fell into the heap of tinder awaiting it.

Five minutes of perfect silence passed, and not another torch fell. To Jack the time seemed like five years rather. He cast swift alternate glances at the rift above and through the tunnel, where he felt that enemies waited and watched for the opportunity the fire might give them.