CHAPTER XXIV--HOW THE TIGER VANISHED IN THIN AIR
They had thrown themselves down upon the ground in a place where thegrass was long enough to screen them from view. The light was fadingrapidly. It would soon be quite dark. A heavy mist was gathering inthe valley.
Frank looked at his companion. He could see blood flowing profuselydown the man's neck. For all that, the expression upon Ling's face didnot suggest that he suffered pain. He was grinning.
He held in his hand the loaded revolver he had taken from Yung How in AhWu's opium den. It was manifest that every sense was alert. Screwinghis eyes, he endeavoured to pierce the gloom of the thickets immediatelyin front of them.
Nothing was to be seen. No sound disturbed the silence of the evening.Slowly and stealthily Ling began to move forward through the long grass,after the manner of a snake, never for a moment lifting his chin morethan a few inches from the ground.
Frank followed him. There was no reason why the boy should have doneso, and without doubt he had been wiser had he remained behind insafety. But he was consumed by an overmastering desire to see thematter out, to follow to the bitter end the fortunes of the mighty Ling.
He followed in the man's wake, Ling in his progress was making a kind ofpathway through the grass. Frank was careful not to show himself. Herealised that the exposure of any part of his body would, in allprobability, immediately be greeted by another shot from the glade.
Ling was making for a great boulder that lay upon the outskirts of thewood, about twenty yards from a place where the undergrowth wasexceedingly dense. He gained this without any mishap; and there, amoment later, he was joined by Frank.
"You have followed me?" he asked, in a whisper.
The boy nodded his head, not venturing to speak.
"Then you have done so at your own risk. I am not responsible for yourlife."
Very cautiously, Ling peered round the boulder behind which they lay inhiding. Almost at once, a single shot from a revolver was fired fromthe thickets immediately before them.
Ling did not draw back, nor did he flinch. On the contrary, he drewhimself forward until at least half his body was exposed to view.
Then came another shot from the wood; Frank saw a bullet strike theground not three inches from the man's head. At that moment Linghimself fired. Three revolver shots rang out in quick succession, andthen, with a roar like that of a charging tiger, the man rose to hisfeet and plunged into the wood.
Frank saw the flash of a long knife he carried in his left hand. In hisright he still held his revolver. He crashed into the undergrowth likea wild bull, and the darkness swallowed him up.
The boy waited an instant; then, as nothing happened, he rose to hisfeet and followed after Ling.
He was able to see very little of his surroundings. He found himself intwilight. Trees arose on every side of him like gaunt spectres, twistedand deformed. Dark shadows upon the ground seemed to be moving,floating here and there like silent ghosts.
Knowing not which way to go, for a few seconds the boy remained quitemotionless. Then suddenly there came a loud shout, in which Frankrecognised the voice of Ling. This shout was followed by an uproar, anoise that bore no small resemblance to the crackling of green wood upona mighty fire. Branches were broken; dry sticks and twigs were trampledunder the feet of excited, hastening men.
Frank, running forward, found himself, before he had gone thirty yards,upon the skirting of the Glade of Children's Tears. Here there was morelight. The boy could see the great broken idols, overgrown with mossand lichen, lying upon the ground; he could see the ruins of the ancienttemple and the great red stone beneath which the treasure had beenhidden. Then, on a sudden, he became conscious of the figure of a mancrouching behind a rock, not ten yards away.
Though he was well in the shadow, there was sufficient light to enablethe boy to make quite sure that the man in front of him was not Ling.One could not fail to identify the gigantic proportions of the Honanese;and this was a thin, small man. Moreover, he did not wear the long robeof the upper classes in China, but a short jacket, reaching not farbelow the waist; and so far as Frank could make out, this coat was red.Also, the man was bareheaded, whereas Ling had been wearing the buttonedhat of a mandarin.
Frank remained silent and motionless, scarcely daring to breathe. Onhands and knees the man moved a few paces forward, which brought himinto the light. The boy recognised at once the shrunken, evil featuresof Cheong-Chau, the brigand chief.
He could have been given no greater cause to regret the fact that he wasaltogether unarmed. In this conflict, the sympathies of the boy werewholly on the side of Ling. That Cheong-Chau was more evil than Lingwas not to be doubted, since the brigand was never to be trusted. Ling,on the other hand--so far as Frank's experience went--was not likely togo back upon his word. He was pitiless and wholly unscrupulous; but atthe same time, he had in his own way certain estimable virtues. The boyconsidered that the worst calamity that could, at this juncture,possibly befall him and his friends was for Cheong-Chau to regainpossession of his hostages. If the brigand overpowered Ling, he wouldpossess himself of the ransom money, he would recapture his own junk,setting free the crew which Ling had bound hand and foot; and then, itwas more than probable, he would seek satisfaction in the murder of hisvictims.
Frank therefore was eager to render all the assistance he could to Ling.But since he had upon him neither fire-arms nor weapons of any sort, hecould do nothing but lie still and await the tide of events. Cheong-Chaucontinued to move forward on hands and knees. He turned his headrapidly first one way and then another. The boy was well able to seethat the brigand was armed to the same extent as Ling; in other words,he carried in one hand a revolver of European manufacture, and betweenhis teeth a long Chinese knife.
It was plain that the man was searching in all directions for hisadversary. He was still not many yards away from Frank. On a sudden,he lay quite still, seeming to flatten himself into nothing, just as acat does when it lies in ambush. He had evidently seen something.
Frank, straining his eyes, observed another man, visible as a mereshadow, moving slowly and silently amidst the undergrowth on the otherside of the glade. This man was steadily approaching. Cheong-Chau didnot stir.
When the two men were not fifteen paces away from each other,Cheong-Chau raised his revolver, and was evidently about to fire, whensuddenly he brought it down again.
"Tong!" said he, in a loud whisper.
"Is that you, Cheong-Chau?" came back the answer.
"It is myself. And have you seen aught of the tiger?"
By then the two men were together lying side by side behind a fragmentof the ruined temple wall. They were so close to Frank that, thoughthey spoke to one another in whispers, it was easy for him to hear everyword that they said.
"I thought you were he," said the man who had answered to the name ofTong.
"And I too," said Cheong-Chau. "I was about to fire when I saw that youwere too small to be Ling."
"That is fortunate," said the other, "fortunate--for me."
"And where is Chin Yen?" asked the brigand chief.
"He is close behind me," said the man. "He is here."
Indeed, at that moment they were joined by a third man, who creptforward from out of the midst of the shadows. The night was descendingrapidly; it was already almost dark. Frank, however, had no doubt as tothe identity of these two men. He remembered very well hearing theirnames when he was in the opium den of Ah Wu. Chin Yen was the man whohad fallen down upon his knees beside an opium couch, holding his headbetween his hands. Tong was the unfortunate individual who had beenstruck down with the paraffin lamp. It was subsequently discovered thatthe third man never recovered from his injuries.
"Well, Chin Yen," said Cheong-Chau, "where is the tiger? Have you seennothing of him?"
"Nothing at all," came the answer. "Three minutes ago I saw himstanding on the edge of the glade. I was about to fire, wh
en suddenlyhe disappeared. I think he fell upon his face."
"He is somewhere here," said Cheong-Chau. "He is too big to hidehimself. We shall find him sooner or later. He cannot have beenspirited away."
Tong shivered--or rather there was a tremor in his voice.
"I don't like this business," said he. "Presently, without a moment'swarning, the tiger will spring upon us from out of the darkness. Andthen, woe betide him into whom he digs his claws."
"You are a coward," said Cheong-Chau. "We are three to one, and we areall armed with revolvers. What is there to fear, if we keep together?Ling's strength will avail him nothing."
"That is true," said Chin Yen.
All the same the tone of his voice carried not the least conviction. Hewas obviously just as frightened of his opponent as his comrade.Cheong-Chau himself was the most courageous of the three.
"Obey my orders," said he, "and remain at my side. We will search theplace thoroughly. He lies somewhere in hiding. Keep as close to theground as possible. He will fire the moment he sees us."
"He may have escaped," said Tong.
"He has done nothing of the kind," said Cheong-Chau. "For two reasons:first, we must have heard him; secondly, it is not the custom of Ling torun away."
"Let us go first to the junk," said Chin Yen. "We shall then be ten toone."
"Fool!" exclaimed Cheong-Chau. "We should never get there. Ling wouldshoot us in the open. Come, we do but waste time talking. The glademust be searched."
As he said the words, he began to move forward, straight toward theplace where Frank was hiding.
The boy's heart was in his mouth. He could scarcely hope that he wouldnot be discovered. He could not make his escape without being seen norwas he in a position to offer resistance. And if he was discovered, hehad every reason to believe that Cheong-Chau would kill him.
These were the thoughts that passed rapidly through his mind. He laymotionless, fearing to breathe, his eyes fixed upon the crouched,gliding forms of Cheong-Chau and his companions. And then the boy wasdiscovered. The man called Tong caught sight of him and raised hisrevolver to fire. At the moment Tong pressed the trigger, Frank struckthe weapon upward, so that the bullet flew wide through the branches ofthe trees.
Knowing that he would be shot if he remained at arm's-length orattempted to run away, the boy closed at once with his adversary.Flinging himself into Tong's arms, he endeavoured to seize the man bythe throat; but almost immediately he was overpowered by the three ofthem, and found himself pinned to the ground and once again a prisoner.
Chin Yen peered into the boy's face.
"This is not Ling!" he exclaimed.
Cheong-Chau came out with a brutal oath.
"No," said he. "This is not the tiger; it is the foreign devil who hastwice slipped through my fingers."
Frank Armitage closed his eyes and caught his lower lip between histeeth.