The surprise had been cleverly executed. Another moment, and Jack and his black attendants would have been surrounded. As it was, the odds were dead against them.

The unexpected appearance of the schooner had evidently wrought a complete change in the tactics of the enemy. So here they were.

This sleek, corpulent native who led the escaladers was none other than old Salambo!

Salambo, the shark-charmer, thief, and director-in-chief of the harassing attacks by which they, the party of adventurers in search of what was indisputably their own, had been baffled at every turn.

By means of the lascar's murderous hand he had clutched at the captain's throat and taken the captain's life. And now that his tool was for ever wrenched from his grasp, he had come in person to add the finishing-stroke to his evil work. Jack's blood boiled as he thought of it. One swift glance around, and his course was taken.

“The temple, Spottie! Point for the temple, Pug!”

The natives, perceiving their intention, swerved aside and attempted to cut them off. But so unexpected was Jack's manouvre, so prompt the obedience of Spottie and Puggles, that the attempt proved unsuccessful. A wild, breathless dash, and they had turned the corner of the temple—whose door, as usual, faced east—and crossed its threshold.

Old and neglected as the edifice was, stout wooden doors still swung upon the rust-eaten hinges. To slam these to and thrust the bolts home, top and bottom, was the work of but a moment. Bosin darted in as the great doors swung into place, narrowly escaping the amputation of his tail as the penalty of his tardiness. Scarcely had the last bolt been shot when up trooped the enemy, howling like hyenas, and commenced a determined assault upon the doors.

At first they hurled themselves upon the barrier and attempted to force it in by sheer imposition of weight. Thud followed thud in furious succession, while Jack stood by with palpitating heart. His fears as to the stability of the doors, however, were soon set at rest. They creaked, yielded a little, but otherwise stood as firm as the solid masonry in which they were framed. The natives were not slow to discover this, and the ill-advised attempt was soon abandoned. In the brief lull that followed Jack looked about him.

Inside here, beneath the cobwebbed, blackened roof of the outer temple, the light was funereal in its dimness. What little there was crept in through the cracks in the shrunken doors in a reluctant sort of way, as if it found the society of bats and spiders anything but agreeable; except at the further or western end of the temple, where there was a second chamber, smaller and somewhat better lighted than the first. Eight feet or so above the floor a small square window pierced the wall, and directly beneath this stood a sort of stone pediment or shrine, on which squatted a hideously distorted image. This was the temple swami, and swami's ugly head reached to within a couple of feet of the window.

A second attempt was now made upon the doors, though not after the haphazard fashion of the first. The cracks in the shrunken woodwork attracting the attention of the natives, they fell to work on the widest of these, and with their spears began chipping away the plank splinter by splinter. But the extreme toughness of the material, seasoned as it was by unnumbered years of exposure to the elements, rendered the task of demolition both difficult and slow.

“Take you a jolly long time to get your ugly head-pieces through that, anyhow!” muttered Jack, as he watched—or rather listened to, for he could see little or nothing of what was going on outside—the fast and furious play of the spears. “And when you do get 'em through, why then——”

To symbolise what would happen then, Jack did what was certainly quite excusable under the circumstances—spat in his palm, and with immense gusto decapitated an imaginary nigger.

Still, given sufficient time for the spears to do their work, it was a foregone conclusion that the doors must fall. Would they hold out till the schooner cast anchor off the creek? He allowed an hour for that—an hour from the time the anchor was weighed.. Well, they—he and-the two blacks—had been in the temple the best part of an hour already. So that was all right.

But then, the rescue party must make their way up the creek, and from the creek to the—summit of the Bock, along that passage by which Don and the blacks had entered on the previous day. This would consume another hour. He made the calculation with the utmost coolness; only, when it was finished, and he asked himself whether the doors would hold out that other hour, the reluctant “No” with which he was compelled to answer the question somehow stuck in his throat and nearly choked him. By way of relief, he slashed the head off another imaginary nigger.

The second hour wore on. The gap in the door grew wider and wider beneath the ceaseless play of the spears, and still the natives showed no signs of desisting or of taking their departure.

Presently a shadow darkened the little window at the rear of the temple. Jack turned on his heel expecting to see a native, but instead saw only Bosin. The monkey had clambered up the image, and so reached the window. The sight of the creature gave Jack a sudden inspiration.

What was to hinder the blacks and himself from beating a noiseless retreat by way of this same window? The aperture was quite ample in size to admit of their squeezing through it. But—his wounded arm! And could the thing be done without attracting the attention of the gang about the doors?

He climbed up the image and looked out. So far as he could discover the way was clear. Between that end of the temple and the stairs leading to the pit, not a single native was to be seen. True, his view was but limited at the best—the aperture was so narrow, and a straggling blackskin or two might, after all, have their eyes on the window, or, worse still, be guarding the stairs. Probably, though—and this seemed the more likely view—the entire force and attention of the belligerents were concentrated upon the temple doors. He would risk it, anyhow!

Once gain the pit, and they were as good as saved; for by that time the rescue party could not be far off.

A wilder shout from the besiegers recalled his thoughts and eyes to the doors. He scrambled down off the idols head and ran into the outer chamber.

What was that peculiar crackling sound—this pungent odour with which the air had suddenly grown so heavy? Fire—smoke! They had set fire to the doors!

He ran back into the inner chamber. The blacks were there, cowering in terror against the wall. In a few hurried words he directed them how to proceed. They pulled themselves together and prepared to obey the sahib's directions.

“The window, lads! through the window! Quick now, you lazy beggars!”

Spottie went first—somewhat unwillingly, it must be confessed, which was scarcely to be wondered at, considering that the drop from the window might land him in the arms of the enemy, or on the point of a spear. The smallness of the aperture, its height from the ground, and the necessity for going through it feet foremost, made a triple difficulty, too. But with Jack's assistance this was speedily overcome, and Spottie dropped out of sight. Barring the faint thud of his bare feet on the rock, no sound followed. Thus far, then, the stratagem had escaped detection. Jack began to breathe easier.

After Spottie went Puggles—with even more difficulty, for, as the reader is aware, Puggles was extremely fat; and again all was still without. Within there was noise enough and to spare. The crackling of the burning doors had grown ominously loud. As Pug's black head disappeared, too, a tremendous shout burst from the rabble gathered about the entrance. Its significance Jack did not stop to inquire. Already he had scaled the image. A wry face or two at the pain of his wounded arm, and a moment later he stood beside the blacks.

The moment of their flight was well chosen. The natives, to a man, were watching the doors with all their eyes.

Bidding the blacks follow close at his heels, he sped across the few yards of rock that separated the temple from the stairs, sprang down the steps, and fell insensible at the feet of his friend, Roydon Leigh.

The rescue party had arrived in the very nick of time.