CHAPTER XVI.

BESIEGED IN THE TEMPLE.

As Sam watched the shadow cast by the moonlight on the marble slab at the entrance, his prisoner turned sharply about and lifted a hand as if to shield himself from attack.

“A savage!” he exclaimed in a terrified whisper.

It seemed to Sam Weller at that moment that no word had ever sounded more musically in his ears. The expression told him that a third element had entered into the situation. He believed from recent experiences that the savages who had been seen at the edge of the forest were not exactly friendly to the two white men. Whether or not they would come to his assistance was an open question, but at least there was a chance of their creating a diversion in his favor.

“How do you know the shadow is that of a savage?” asked Sam.

The prisoner pointed to the wide doorway and crowded back behind his captor. There, plainly revealed in the moonlight, were the figures of two brawny native Indians! Felix was approaching the entrance with a confident step, and the two watchers saw him stop for an instant and address a few words to one of the Indians. The next moment the smile on the fellow’s face shifted to a set expression of terror.

Before he could utter another word, he received a blow on the head which stretched him senseless on the smooth marble. Then a succession of threatening cries came from the angle of the cliff, and half a dozen Indians swarmed up to where the unconscious man lay!

The prisoner now crouched behind his captor, his body trembling with fear, his lips uttering almost incoherent appeals for protection.

The savages glanced curiously into the temple for a moment and drew their spears and bludgeons. Sam turned his eyes away with a shudder. He heard blows and low hisses of enmity, but there came no outcry.

When he looked again the moonlight showed a dark splotch on the white marble, and that alone! The Indians and their victim had disappeared.

“Mother of Mercy!” shouted the prisoner in a faltering tone.

“Where did they take him?” asked Sam.

The prisoner shuddered and made no reply. The mute answer, however, was sufficient. The young man understood that Felix had been murdered by the savages within sound of his voice.

“Why?” he asked the trembling prisoner.

“Because,” was the hesitating answer, “they believe that only evil spirits come out of the sky in the night-time.”

Sam remembered of his own arrival and that of his friends, and congratulated himself and them that the savages had not been present to witness the event.

“And they think he came in the machine?” asked Sam.

The prisoner shuddered and covered his face with his hands.

“And now,” demanded Sam, “in order to save your own life, will you tell me what I want to know?”

The old sullen look returned to the eyes of the captive. Perhaps he was thinking of the great reward he might yet receive from his distant employers if he could escape and satisfy them that the boys had perished in the trap set for them. At any rate he refused to answer at that time. In fact his hesitation was a brief one, for while Sam waited, a finger upon the trigger of his automatic, two shots came from the direction of the chamber across the corridor, and the acrid smell of gunpowder came to his nostrils.

The prisoner gasped and opened his lips. It was undoubtedly his belief at that time that all his hopes of making a favorable report to his employers had vanished. The shots, he understood, indicated resistance; perhaps successful resistance.

“Yes,” he said hurriedly, his knees almost giving way under the weight of his shaking body. “Yes, I’ll tell you where your friends are.”

He hesitated and pointed toward the opposite entrance.

“In there!” he cried. “Felix caused them to be thrown to the beasts!”

The young man seized the prisoner fiercely by the throat.

“Show me the way!” he demanded.

The captive still pointed to the masked entrance across the corridor and Sam drew him along, almost by main force. When they came to the narrow passage at the eastern end of which the barred gate stood, they saw a finger of light directed into the interior of the apartment.

While they looked, Sam scarcely knowing what course to pursue, two more shots sounded from within, and the odor of burned powder became almost unbearable. Sam threw himself against the iron gate and shouted out:

“Jimmie! Carl!”

“Here!” cried a voice out of the smoke. “Come to the gate with your gun. I missed the last shot, and Carl is down!”

Still pushing the prisoner ahead of him, Sam crowded through the narrow passage and stood looking over the fellow’s shoulder into the smoke-scented room beyond. His electric light showed Jimmie standing with his back against the gate, his feet pushed out to protect the figure of Carl, lying on the floor against the bars. The searchlight in the boy’s hand was waving rhythmically in the direction of a pair of gleaming eyes which looked out of the darkness.

“My gun is empty!” Jimmie almost whispered. “I’ll hold the light straight in his eyes, and you shoot through the bars.”

Sam forced the captive down on the corridor, where he would be out of the way and still secure from escape, and fired two shots at the blood-mad eyes inside. The great beast fell to the floor instantly and lay still for a small fraction of a second then leaped to his feet again.

With jaws wide open and fangs showing threateningly, he sprang toward Jimmie, but another shot from Sam’s automatic finished the work the others had begun. Jimmie sank to the floor like one bereft of strength.

“Get us out!” he said in a weak voice. “Open the door and get us out! One of the jaguars caught hold of Carl, and I thought I heard the crunching of bones. The boy may be dead for all I know.”

Sam applied his great strength to the barred gate, but it only shook mockingly under his straining hands. Then he turned his face downward to where his prisoner lay cowering upon the floor.

“Can you open this gate?” he asked.

Once more the fellow’s face became stubborn.

“Felix had the key!” he exclaimed.

“All right!” cried Sam. “We’ll send you out to Felix to get it!”

He seized the captive by the collar as he spoke and dragged him, not too gently, through the narrow passage and out into the main corridor. Once there he continued to force him toward the entrance. The moon was now low in the west and shadows here and there specked the little plaza in front of the temple. In addition to the moonlight there was a tint of gray in the sky which told of approaching day.

The prisoner faced the weird scene with an expression of absolute terror. He almost fought his way back into the temple.

“Your choice!” exclaimed Sam. “The key to the gate or you return to the savages!”

The fellow dropped to his knees and clung to his captor.

“I have the key to the gate!” he declared. “But I am not permitted to surrender it. You must take it from me.”

“You’re loyal to some one, anyhow!” exclaimed Sam, beginning a search of the fellow’s pockets.

At last the key was found, and Sam hurried away with it. He knew then that there would be no further necessity for guarding the prisoner at that time. The fact that the hostile savages were abroad and that he was without weapons would preclude any attempt at escape.

At first the young man found it difficult to locate the lock to which the key belonged. At last he found it, however, and in a moment Jimmie crept out of the chamber, trying his best to carry Carl in his arms.

“Here!” cried Sam. “Let me take the boy. Are you hurt yourself?” he added as Jimmie leaned against the wall.

“I think,” Jimmie answered, “one of the brutes gave me a nip in the leg, but I can walk all right.”

Sam carried Carl to the center of the corridor and laid him down on the marble floor. A quick examination showed rather a bad wound on the left shoulder from which considerable blood must have escaped.

“He’ll be all right as soon as he regains his strength!” the young man cried. “And now, Jimmie,” he went on, “let’s see about your wound.”

“It’s only a scratch,” the boy replied, “but it bled like fury, and I think that’s what makes me so weak. Did we get all the jaguars?” he added, with a wan smile. “I don’t seem to remember much about the last two or three minutes.”

“Every last one of them!” answered Sam cheerfully.

While Sam was binding Carl’s wound the boy opened his eyes and looked about the apartment whimsically.

“We seem to be alive yet,” he said, rolling his eyes so as to include Jimmie in his line of vision. “I guess Jimmie was right when he said that Daniel in the lions’ den was nothing to this.”

“But when they took Daniel out of the lions’ den,” cut in Jimmie, “they brought him to a place where there was something doing in the way of sustenance! What about that?”

“Cut it out!” replied Carl feebly.

“But, honestly,” Jimmie exclaimed, “I never was so hungry in my life!”

The captive looked at the two boys with amazement mixed with admiration in his eyes.

“And they’re just out of the jaws of death!” he exclaimed.

“Is that the greaser that put us into the den of lions?” asked Carl, pointing to the prisoner.

“No, no!” shouted the trembling man. “I am only the animal keeper! Felix laid the plans for your murder.”

“The keeper of what?” asked Sam.

“Of the wild animals!” was the reply. “I catch them here for the American shows. And now they are killed!” he complained.

“So that contraption, the masked entrance, the iron gate, and all that, was arranged to hold wild animals in captivity until they could be transferred to the coast?” asked Sam.

“Exactly!” answered the prisoner. “The natives helped me catch the jaguars and I kept them for a large payment. Then, yesterday, a runner told me that a strange white man sought my presence in the forest at the top of the valley. It was Felix. I met him there, and he arranged with me for the use of the wild-animal cage for only one night.”

“And you knew the use to which he intended to put it?” asked Sam angrily. “You knew that he meant murder?”

“I did not!” was the reply. “He told Miguel what to do if any of you entered and did not tell me. I was not to enter the temple to-night!”

“And where’s Miguel?” demanded the young man.

The captive pointed to the broken roof of the temple.

“Miguel remained here,” he said, “to let down the gate to the passage and lift the grate which kept the jaguars in their den.”

“Do you think he’s up there now?” asked Jimmie. “I’d like to see this person called Miguel. I have a few words to say to him.”

“No, indeed!” answered the prisoner. “Miguel is a coward. He probably took to his heels when the shots were fired.”

The prisoner, who gave his name as Pedro, insisted that he knew nothing whatever of the purpose of the man who secured his assistance in the desperate game which had just been played. He declared that Felix seemed to understand perfectly that Gringoes would soon arrive in flying machines. He said that the machines were to be wrecked, and the occupants turned loose in the mountains.

It was Pedro’s idea that two, and perhaps three, flying machines were expected. He said that Felix had no definite idea as to when they would arrive. He only knew that he had been stationed there to do what he could to intercept the progress of those on the machines. He said that the machines had been seen from a distance, and that Felix and himself had watched the descent into the valley from a secure position in the forest. They had remained in the forest until the Gringoes had left for the temple, and had then set about examining the machine.

While examining the machine the savages had approached and had naturally received the impression that Felix was the Gringo who had descended in the aeroplane. He knew some of the Indians, he said.

The Indians, he said, were very superstitious, and believed that flying machines brought death and disaster to any country they visited. By making them trifling presents he, himself, had succeeded in keeping on good terms with them until the machine had descended and been hidden in the forest.

“But,” the prisoner added with a significant shrug of his shoulders, “when we walked in the direction of the temple the Indians suspected that Felix had come to visit the evil spirits they believed to dwell there and so got beyond control. They would kill me now as they killed him!”

“Do the Indians never attack the temple?” asked Sam.

“Perhaps,” Pedro observed, with a sly smile, “you saw the figure in flowing robes and the red and blue lights!”

“We certainly did!” answered Sam.

“While the animals are being collected and held in captivity here,” Pedro continued, “it is necessary to do such things in order to keep the savages away. Miguel wears the flowing robes, and drops into the narrow entrance to an old passage when he finds it necessary to disappear. The Indians will never actually enter the temple, though they may besiege it.”

“There goes your ghost story!” Carl interrupted. “Why,” he added, “it’s about the most commonplace thing I ever heard of! The haunted temple is just headquarters for the agents of an American menagerie!”

“And all this brings up the old questions,” Jimmie said. “How did the Redfern bunch know that any one of our airships would show up here? How did they secure the presence of an agent so far in the interior in so short a time? I think I’ve asked these questions before!” he added, grinning.

“But I have no recollection of their ever having been answered,” said Sam.

“Say,” questioned Jimmie, with a wink at Carl, “how long is this seance going to last without food? I’d like to know if we’re never going to have another breakfast.”

“There’s something to eat in the provision boxes of the _Ann_,” Sam replied hopefully.

“Yes,” said Jimmie sorrowfully, “and there’s a bunch of angry savages between us and the grub on board the _Ann_! If you look out the door, you’ll see the brutes inviting us to come out and be cooked!”

The prisoner threw a startled glance outside and ran to the back of the temple, declaring that the savages were besieging the temple, and that it might be necessary for them to lock themselves in the chamber for days with the slain jaguars!

Jimmie rubbed his stomach and groaned!