"Dig around! There may be some way of getting out. These slant-eyed peoples are slant-eyed in their ways. There may be a hole under the hut that leads somewhere."
"I"ve seen the woman go down cellar," said Sandy.
"Then you go down cellar," advised Frank, "and see if there is no way out from there. I"m bound to get to Ned and Jimmie if I have to begin operations with my gun."
Presently Sandy"s voice was heard from below. He said that he felt a current of air, as if there were a pa.s.sage leading outside.
"Come on down an" see," he said.
The boys went down a steep ladder, after fastening both doors on the inside, and soon found themselves on the cellar bottom. Frank turned on his flashlight and looked about. There was a hole in one of the walls which seemed to lead downward, in the direction of the river.
"I"m going to try it," Jack exclaimed, taking out his light. "When I say for you to come on, come a-running."
He said for them to come on in a moment, and Sandy and Frank soon found themselves in a square subterranean room which must have been cut near the surface and just outside the wall of the hut. It was a comfortless place, and they lost no time in looking for a way out.
"Here it is!" Sandy called out, directly. "Here is a tunnel. Say, but I never knew about this before. Come on!"
Frank led, but proceeded only a short distance. Then his light rested on the grinning face of a Chinaman.
The tunnel was guarded. The boy turned back and looked into the tunnel by which they had entered the chamber. Within a foot of the muzzle of his searchlight he saw the grinning face of another Chinaman.
He stepped back to the mouth of the tunnel and motioned Jack to guard the exit, explaining, briefly, that they had been trapped, not in a hut on the street level, but in a subterranean chamber where they could not be heard, and where no one would ever think of looking for them.
"Oh, no," Jack cried, regarding Sandy angrily, "you didn"t know anything about this--not a thing! You treacherous dog!"
"I didn"t! I didn"t!" shouted the boy. "Call them men in an" ask them if I did."
"You wait a minute," Jack gritted out, "and I"ll see if the c.h.i.n.ks will stand quiet while I beat their accomplice up!"
"Quit it!" Frank commanded. "We"re in trouble enough now, without bringing the c.h.i.n.ks down on us. I"d give a good deal to know if Ned and Jimmie are still alive!"
CHAPTER XIII
A VANISHING DIPLOMAT
Ned turned to the Captain as the men in slate-colored robes lifted their hands after the manner of fake mystics the world over. He was not uninterested, but he was anxious.
They were now some distance from the grove in which the camp breakfast had been prepared, and the grove, in turn, was some distance from the highway. They were also some feet under ground, where any calls for a.s.sistance that might be necessary would be m.u.f.fled by the hewn stone and the damp air and earth.
Besides, the alleged priests had mapped out this scene before the arrival of the boys, as Ned believed. Therefore they might have half a hundred natives within call, prepared to do murder if necessary.
The marines had been ordered by the Captain to gradually surround the temple, to guard every entrance that could be discovered, and to force their way in if anything of a suspicious nature occurred. Ned did not know the men as well as he knew the Captain, therefore he asked:
"The men will obey your orders to the letter? You see, we are in a box here!"
"They will obey," said the officer. "What do you make of the mummery now going on?"
The "mummery" consisted in slow, gliding motions, in whirlings about intended to be graceful, in slow liftings of the hands upward, and in the beating of the drums.
"I don"t make anything of it," Ned replied. "I take it they are waiting for time. Perhaps they got us in here with less trouble than they had figured on, and are waiting for confederates."
"What a land!" mused the Captain. "What a way to seek the destruction of any enemy! An Italian would have stabbed us in the back on the way in here, a Frenchman would have set a band of bullies upon us in the grove, an American would have walked up and made observations with his bare fists!"
"This is Oriental!" smiled Ned. "I wish we were well out of this hole in the ground!"
"I see," began the man with the star on the breast of his dirty gown, "that you are in trouble of mind concerning the loss of two companions."
"Correct!" shouted the irrepressible Jimmie. "Come across with them-- right soon, old hoss!"
"I see," continued the other, not noticing the interruption, "that you are here in a weighty matter--a matter affecting the peace of nations."
Jimmie was primed for another outbreak of conversation, but Ned caught him by the arm and ordered him to remain silent.
"I see," the alleged seer went on, "that you have met with difficulties and perils on the way. Is this true?"
"All true," Ned answered.
"Then approach. Enter the holy room and receive instruction which shall be of benefit."
Ned hesitated a moment.
"And my friends?" he asked.
"The spirit speaks to but one," was the reply.
"What a lot of rot!" whispered Jimmie. "You go on, an" I"ll be there in a second if there is anything like rough house."
With a warning look in the Captain"s direction, the boy advanced to the platform of rock. From there he was directed to a door cut in what, seemed to be soft earth and framed with timbers. The timbers were new.
He saw that at a glance, and drew his own conclusions.
Ned was glad to see that the man who had done all the speaking was the only one to accompany him into the side room. In a contest of muscles, he thought he could hold his own pretty well with this fellow.
Ned was prepared for almost anything, but what took place next filled him with astonishment. The room was just a hole out in the earth. It did not appear to have been a part of the old temple. There were in it a board table, roughly put together, two chairs, and a square box, perhaps five feet in length by one and a half in the other proportions.
As soon as the door was closed the alleged priest threw aside his slate-colored robe, s.n.a.t.c.hed a wig and beard from his head and face, and stood forth a handsome man, dressed in the costume of a modern Englishman or American. At first Ned did not recognize the smiling face which confronted him.
Then there came to his mind the memory of a time in Canton when he had watched a meeting of men he believed to be in conspiracy against his country. This face certainly had been there.
The voice was low, smooth, musical. Ned stood looking at the subtle countenance, but said not a word.
"You are caught at last!" came next.
Still Ned stood silent, saying not a word, only wondering if the time for final action had arrived--if the Captain outside was in such peril as threatened himself.