It seemed extraordinary fortune that not one of them should fall in the midst of the waiting heap. Then he heard a low, evil, chuckling laugh from someone beside the rift, and he understood. Saya Chone was there, playing with him, as a cat plays with a mouse. The half-caste was tossing torches within Jack's reach, simply to torture him with the idea of what would happen when one of the flaming splinters of pine fell into the heap of tinder awaiting it. Five minutes of perfect silence passed, and not another torch fell. To Jack the time seemed like five years rather. He cast swift alternate glances at the rift above and through the tunnel, where he felt that enemies waited and watched for the opportunity the fire might give them. And now a great flare appeared in the rift. A huge bundle of reeds, blazing fiercely, was thrust in, and dropped. His enemies meant now to fire the pile and bring the play to an end. The flaming mass rolled slowly down the steep face of the cliff within, and Jack was torn in a fierce dilemma as to what was the best course for him to follow. Should he leave the mouth of the tunnel and try to beat out the flames with the broad blade of his _dah_, or should he not? But if he left the tunnel, then he would give up the key of the situation, and be swiftly surrounded. If he did not, the roasting flame and the masses of billowing smoke would render the inner cave untenable. Yet, before the bundle of reeds had rolled down to the mass below, the question had been settled for him. A second and a third faggot, each blazing fiercely, and each directed towards a fresh part of the heap, were flung through the rift. "I can't stop all three," thought Jack. "The pile must burn." Within a few seconds it was burning in very truth; the fire ran through the heap of light combustibles with magical power and swiftness. Scarce had the first bunch of burning reeds fallen, than a vast scorching flame was leaping up and roaring towards the rift, while a powerful current of air was drawn through the tunnel and fanned Jack's face. "What's this?" thought Jack; "they reckoned without the draught, I fancy. It looks as if I shall be no worse off than before. It's very hot, certainly, but with this rush of air through the tunnel I can manage all right." But he soon found that his enemies had not made any miscalculation. For five minutes the air rushed fiercely past Jack, fanning the tremendous flame which leapt from the blazing pile and carrying it upwards to the rift, then it began to slacken, and the flame, instead of roaring upwards to a point, began to sink, and spread its wide red wings abroad in the cave, fluttering from one side to the other. Jack looked upwards with a sinking heart: _the rift was closed_. It had been left open till a terrific fire had burned up, and now it was blocked, and the whole of the heat and the smoke was pent up in the cave; and Jack was pent up, too, in this roasting inferno. CHAPTER XXIX.