ailants, he would have seen that the frameworks
were empty in the moonlight. But such an idea as that his victims
could escape never for an instant came into his mind. The whole
neighbourhood was under the thumb of his brutal lord, and he knew that
no one would interfere to save a friend from U Saw's hand, much less a
pair of strangers and foreigners.

Thrice he shouted his threats and warnings to the empty cages, and he
judged that the silence meant stubborn resolution not to be conquered.
Then, with his own hand, he pulled the cord which should have stripped
the net from Jack.

"Now the father will give way," thought the half-caste, and strained
his ears to catch a sound of yielding from Thomas Haydon.

When never a sound was heard, the half-caste played what he thought
would be his trump card. He ordered a Kachin to dart down, and cut the
gag loose from Jack's mouth. Saya Chone counted for certain that the
son's moans of agony would be too much for the father to stand, and
that the latter would give way. But in an instant the nimble blue-kilt
was back, his face full of a surprise beyond description.

"The white men have gone," he gasped.

"Gone!" screamed Saya Chone, and he rushed down the slope waving a
smoking bough about his head. A glance at the prisons told him that
the man's words were true, and for a second he stared in stupefied
amazement at the severed bonds before he rushed back up the slope. He
ran at full speed to the place where U Saw was placidly chewing betel
and waiting the upshot of the affair. The Ruby King was fearfully
incensed at the idea that anyone had dared to meddle with the
prisoners, and both he and the half-caste breathed the most furious
threats of torture and death against all concerned in the affair. That
they would re-capture Jack and his father they did not doubt for an
instant. The fugitives must be somewhere in the valley, and within an
hour they had a hundred men threading every path and searching every
corner of the vale.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE HIDING-PLACE AND THE THIEF.

Jack and his father spent the night safely stowed behind the great
earthen jars on the loft. Stretched out on a heap of soft, dried
grass, they slept and watched in turns, for it was not safe for both
to go to sleep at once.

At break of day the woman brought them a meal, and they ate and drank,
and Jack gave her a few rupees. A couple of hours after dawn they
heard a movement below and saw a s