side them for an instant, it would have been all
up with us."

"We could have had a chop at her with a _dah_," said Jack. Mr. Haydon
shook his head grimly.

"Not good enough to tackle a charging tigress," he said. "Might as
well chop at a hurricane."

"Well," said Jack, "a miss is as good as a mile; and anyhow, we've
landed the buck."

Jack had hung on to their quarry like grim death, and the buck now lay
on the floor at their feet. But before they satisfied their hunger,
they looked carefully around the place in which they found themselves.
Like the vault below, the room was large and low, and it was lighted
by a number of small apertures on two sides. They approached these
little holes, and found that none was of greater size than to admit of
a fist being thrust through them. Mr. Haydon looked carefully at them.
"These holes," said he, "are hidden among the ornaments and carving of
the exterior. The room below is in the base of the pagoda. This room
is built in the second of the three terraces known as Pichayas. Above
us the pagoda is solid right away to the vane."

"We're in a queer fix now," said Jack. "Mrs. Stripes below is very
useful to keep out U Saw and his friends, but she'll keep us in as
well. It will be an awkward job to slide out after dark and take the
chance of blundering into her with claws and fangs ready for
business."

"Yes," replied his father, "it cuts both ways."

"Well, we won't worry about it now," said Jack. "Let's have something
to eat. Here's plenty of meat, but how shall we cook it?"

It would have been easy to make a fire, for the remains of a couple of
large chests lay in one corner, but smoke curling from the holes would
betray their hiding-place.

"We'll make some biltong, as I've done many and many a time in South
Africa," said Mr. Haydon. "In this sun the meat will parch very
quickly."

He cut some long and very thin slices from the leg of the buck. Then
he thrust them through one of the holes which lay towards the sun, and
spread them on the flat stone outside. The stone was burning hot, so
hot that the hand could not be borne upon it, for the sun had been
beating there with immense power for many hours. Between the fiery sun
and the hot stone, the meat parched swiftly, and ere long they were
satisfying their ravenous hunger with the excellent venison. They
offered some to the native woman, but she preferred to eat from her
own stock of food.

"I wonder why this city w