He loaded it, keeping several cartridges ready in his hand. Then, with Nadara at his side, he crept to the back of the temple. Pigs, routed from their slumbers, grunted and complained. A dog growled at them. Thandar silenced it with a cut from his parang. When they reached the edge of the shadow beneath the temple they saw that there were only a few natives upon this side of the structure, and they were hurrying rapidly toward the front of the building. A hundred yards away was the jungle. Now a sudden quiet fell upon the horde before the temple doors. There was the sound of hammering, then a pushing, scraping noise, and presently shouts of savage rage--the dead bodies of the guardsmen had been discovered. Now, from above, came the padding of naked feet running through the temple. The street behind was momentarily deserted. "Now!" whispered Thandar. He seized Nadara's hand, and together the two raced from beneath the temple out into the moonlight and across the intervening space between the long houses toward the jungle. Half-way across, a belated native, emerging from the verandah of a nearby house, saw them. He set up a terrific yell and dashed toward them. Thandar's pistol roared, and the savage dropped; but the signal had been given and before the two reached the jungle a screaming horde of warriors was upon their heels. Thandar was confused. He had lost his bearings since entering the village and the temple. He turned toward Nadara. "I do not know the way to the coast," he cried. The girl took his hand. "Follow me," she said, and to the memories of each leaped the recollection of the night she had led him through the forest from the cliffs of the bad men. Once again was Waldo Emerson Smith-Jones, the learned, indebted to the greater wisdom of the unlettered cave girl for his salvation. Unerringly Nadara ran through the tangled jungle in the direction of the coast. Though she had been but once over the way she followed the direct line as unerringly as though each tree was blazed and sign posts marked each turn. Behind them came the noise of the pursuit, but always Nadara and Thandar fled ahead of it, not once did it gain upon them during the long hours of flight. It was noon before they reached the coast. They came out at the camp of the pirates, but to Thandar's dismay it was deserted. Tsao Ming had waited the allotted time and gone. If Thandar had but known it, the picturesque cut-throat had overstayed the promised period, and had but scarce left when the fugitives emerged from the jungle beside the beach. In fact his rude craft was but out of sight beyond the northern promontory. A pistol shot would have recalled him; but Thandar did not know it, and so he turned dejectedly to search for the hidden canoe. It lay behind the little clump of bushes that had hidden Thandar the morning that he had saved Tsao Ming's life, several hundred yards to the south.