“I feel sure of it,” said I.
“Well, then,” proposed Joe, after a pause, “let’s go down and find him, and have it out with the old rascal in the tombs of the ancestors.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“Let’s offer to divide with him. There’s enough for us all. Who cares what becomes of the governor—whether he suicides or not—so long as we get out of this infernal country and back to Shanghai with our share of the plunder?”
“That’s a clever idea, Joe!” I exclaimed. “There’s no use fighting if a peaceable arrangement can be made. Why haven’t we thought of making a bargain with Mai Lo before?”
It did not take us long to prepare for the trip. The passage was still deserted, but it was necessary to leave both Nux and Bry to guard the entrance to the rooms, and the girls.
So we three boys crept to the dragon tapestry, passed the secret panel without being discovered and soon were creeping along the tunnel for the third time on our way to the chih of the Ancestors of Kai.
I carried with me the famous scimitar we had found in the cabinet—the one with the seven great rubies set in the hilt. For our ammunition was getting low, and if we found a need to use weapons in our present adventure the scimitar might prove very handy.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE VENGEANCE OF THE RUBY SCIMITAR.
I think we had all forgotten that the King Ape had been left imprisoned in the vaults. But when we entered the first alcove from the tunnel and heard the monster barking and growling in the recess at our right, the presence of the beast was recalled to us very forcibly. We paid little attention to the ape just then, however, for we were eager to discover whether or not the governor was really in the ancestral vaults.