The
path was still clearly discernible; and in a little cave beside it,
which afforded grateful shelter from the merciless rays of the sun, I
unfastened my bundle and prepared to take a frugal lunch.

"I was so employed, gentlemen, when I heard the sound of approaching
footsteps on the path behind me--the path which I had recently
traversed.

"Hastily concealing my bundle, I slipped into some dense undergrowth by
the entrance to the cave, and crouched there, waiting and watching.
I had not waited very long before a yellow-robed mendicant passed by,
carrying a bundle not unlike my own, whereby I concluded that he had
come some distance. There was nothing remarkable in his appearance
except the fact of his travelling during the hottest part of the day.
Therefore I did not doubt that he was one of the members of the secret
organization and was bound for headquarters.

"I gave him half an hour's start and then resumed my march. If he could
travel beneath a noonday sun, so could I.

"In this fashion I presently came out upon a larger and higher plateau,
carpeted with a uniform, stunted undergrowth, and extending, as flat as
a table, to the very edge of a sheer precipice, which rose from it to
a height of three or four hundred feet--gnarled, naked rock, showing no
vestige of vegetation.

"By this time the sound of falling water had become very loud, and as I
emerged from the gorge through which the path ran on to this plateau
I saw, on the further side of this tableland, the yellow robe of the
mendicant. He was walking straight for the face of the precipice, and
straight for the spot at which, from a fissure in the rock, a little
stream leapt out, to fall sheerly ten or fifteen feet into a winding
channel, along which it bubbled away westward, doubtless to form a
greater waterfall beyond.

"The mendicant was fully half a mile away from me, but in that clear
tropical air was plainly visible; and, fearing that he might look
around, I stepped back into the comparative shadow of the gorge and
watched.

"Gentlemen, I saw a strange thing. Placing his bundle upon his head, he
walked squarely into the face of the waterfall and disappeared!"

CHAPTER XXXII. STORY OF THE CITY OF FIRE (CONTINUED)

"'Quitting air, must pass through water.' The meaning of those words
became apparent enough. I stood at the foot of the waterfall, looking up
at the fissure from which it issued.

"Although the fact had been most artistically