THE STRONGHOLD OF THE RUBY KING.
As soon as Jack was mounted, Saya Chone and the Malay also got to their saddles, and the party moved off down the ravine. Save for his fetters, Jack rode as usual, but the two Kachins, one on either side, held his pony by stout thongs of raw hide, fastened in the bridle. At his heels trotted the two leaders, and Jack knew that both were well armed.
On the journey that followed it is not necessary to dwell, for it was quite uneventful. They travelled steadily till dusk, when they halted in a small village where Jack was assigned a hut, and a strict watch was kept over him at every moment. The next morning the journey was resumed at earliest dawn, and now they held their way for mile after mile through wild, gloomy passes between lofty mountains, where no sign of human life or cultivated fields was to be seen. Hour after hour they pushed on through this deserted hill country, until, late in the afternoon, they topped a stony ridge, and Jack gave a sharp exclamation of surprise.
Below him the ground fell away steeply to a small and fertile valley with a river running down its midst, and fields of paddy and plantain lining the course of the stream. Groves of palmyra, and teak, and palms were dotted about the scene, and in the midst of the valley rose a tall house of stone. Instinctively Jack felt that they had reached their journey's end, and that before him was the goal he had set himself to win, the stronghold of U Saw, the Ruby King. But how different was his approach from that he had hoped to make! Instead of advancing upon it in company of his trusty friends, he was marching in as a prisoner, fettered hand and foot.
Jack fixed his eyes eagerly on the great house below as another idea sprang to his mind. Was his father there? Had his quest been in vain, and was Thomas Haydon far away from this lonely valley set among the wild hills? But Jack believed that his father was there; everything seemed to point to it. Well, he would soon know, one way or the other.
The path now ran through a native village, whose slender huts of reed and cane bordered both sides of the narrow way. The people ran to their doors to gaze upon the passers-by, and Jack knew them for Kachins. He recognised the short, dark, sturdy forms of the men. Beside the latter, women in embroidered kilts, with big, queer head-dresses, and brown, naked, nimble children, came to look upon the sahib who rode into their valley, the captive of their lord and master, U Saw.
The village was passed and a grove of palms was entered. Beyond the palms the land ran smooth and open to the front of the great strong house of stone which U Saw had built to keep himself and his treasures safe.
The cavalcade halted before a strong gate formed of huge bars and beams of teak, and in another moment half of the gate was flung open by a pair of blue-kilted Kachins. Jack's pony was led inside, and the English lad now found himself in a large courtyard beside the house. The walls of the courtyard were formed of great logs of teak, and round them ran rows of thatched huts built against the palisade. These, as Jack learned afterwards, were used as the lodgings of the strong body of retainers whom U Saw kept about his person, his bodyguard.
Only one small door opened upon the courtyard from the house, and towards this Jack's pony was led. The Malay unlocked the fetters which bound Jack's feet, and he was hauled roughly to the ground.
"March in," said Saya Chone, and pointed to the small, narrow, dark doorway. Jack went in, staring hard into the dark before him, and wondering what fate would befall him in this great, lonely house to which he had been led in so strange a fashion, and through such wild adventures. He found himself in a small, dusky hall, lighted only by one tiny window, and that heavily barred with iron. The door was now closed and bolted behind him, and he was taken up a narrow flight of tortuous stairs. Then he was conducted along a maze of narrow passages, being led now and again through doors which Saya Chone unlocked and carefully locked again after them. The stone walls, the iron bars which covered every opening, the narrow passages, the locked doors, all told of the caution of U Saw, he who trusted no one, and suspected all.