n, all well mounted, had galloped by
a long detour to gain the other end of the pass, in hopes of cutting
them off. It was a long journey which the mounted party had to make,
and they would have failed if Jack and his friends had been able to
keep steadily forward. But the long delay on the shelf-road had told
heavily against the fugitives, and now, as they suspected, fierce
enemies lay between them and the open country.

As the Ruby King and his followers approached the place where the pass
ran out on to the plain, the Malay had been sent forward to gallop at
breakneck speed down the path the fugitives must follow, and report
any sign he could observe of their presence. He had heard the cry of
the child, and suspected at once their presence in the deserted city.
Now he sat watching the hollow and waiting for his companions.

"Can we dodge back through the city, and slip out on the other side?"
said Jack anxiously. His father shook his head.

"The lie of the ground is dead against that," said Mr. Haydon. "The
place is built in a cup. Leave it where you may, you must go up open
hill-side, and he will see us at once."

"Then we must find a hiding-place among the ruins until nightfall,"
said Jack.

"That's all there is for it now," replied his father. "If we can keep
out of their hands until the dark, we can slip off and travel by the
stars."

He told the native woman what had been decided upon, and she nodded.
She knew perfectly well what terrible fate awaited her and her child
if they fell alive into the merciless hands of U Saw. The little party
turned in search of a hiding-place, and their steps were quickened by
seeing the figures of half a dozen mounted men rise over the rim of
the ridge and join the Strangler.

In a few moments the fugitives had lost all sight of the men without
the city; they were swallowed up in the maze of narrow lanes and
by-ways which had once been thronged by busy crowds of city folk, and
were now given up to the snake, the owl, and the wolf.

Here and there they glided, looking on every hand for some secure
hiding-place, but found none; every house, every room seemed open to
the sun and the broad light of day.

"Surely among so many houses we should hardly be found, if we lay
close in some of these open places," murmured Jack, but Mr. Haydon
shook his head.

"They will split up, and every man will take a patch of the city for
himself," replied Mr. Haydon. "And they are adepts at