"I see it through this doorway," said Jack, and pointed to a gap in the wall. Mr. Haydon looked at the pagoda, and noted how it stood with regard to the sun and their present position.
"This is capital," he said. "We've come out on a side opposite to the open space where U Saw is waiting for reports from his men. We can go ahead in safety. He will have men on the watch all round the pagoda, of course. But we've come clean under their feet, and risen to earth amid the ruins behind them."
"I should say our best plan now would be to try to get clear of the city before they push a way through the tunnel," said Jack. "We've certainly got a couple of hours before they find where we came out. Then, very likely, they'll start a fresh search for us among the ruined houses. That would give us a bit more pull in making a flit of it."
"We can't do better," said his father, and the latter spoke a few words to the native woman, who would be by far the best guide to set them on the line they wished to follow. Led by her, they threaded once more the narrow by-ways and lanes tangled with creepers, and sometimes so choked with growth that they had to turn back and choose another way. At last they came to a broken gap in what had once been the city wall, and from it they looked across the bare, bright, open plain.
"There's no one to be seen," murmured Jack, "and if we can once get over the rim of the hill, we shall be out of sight. What is it? Not more than four hundred yards."
They stayed for a few moments longer in shelter of the ruined wall, and looked warily on either hand again and again. But there was not the slightest token of danger to be seen or heard. The sun, now sloping to the west, shone brilliantly upon the open space of stones and sand, stones too small to hide a spy, and sand too bare of brushwood to afford him an ambush.
"There's a risk, of course, in venturing into the open," murmured Jack. "But there's risk whichever way you take it. We may as well make a dash for it as hang about in the ruins till someone drops on us or on our tracks."
"That's true," agreed his father.
"Come on, then," said Jack in a low voice, and he led the rush across the open.
For the first hundred yards they ran breathlessly. How naked and bare the land seemed around them after the friendly shelter of the narrow lanes and alleys they had just left! Then, as they forged steadily ahead, and the rim of the cup-shaped hollow came nearer at every stride, hope awoke in their hearts and they strained forward, counting on the moment when they would slip over the sky-line, and be lost to sight of the broken walls and towers amid which their enemies sought them.