“What did I tell you?” said Kitwater, as he looked about the camp and could discover no traces of their two native servants.  “It was one of our prowling rascals you saw, and when he comes back I’ll teach him to come spying on us.  If I know anything of the rattan, he won’t do it again.”

Hayle shrugged his shoulders.  While the fact that their servants were not at the camp to anticipate their return was certainly suspicious, he was still as convinced as ever that the man he had seen slipping through the ruins was no Burman, but a true son of the Celestial Empire.

Worn out by the excitement of the day, Kitwater anathematized the servants for not having been there to prepare the evening meal, but while he and Hayle wrangled, Mr. Codd had as usual taken the matter into his own hands, and, picking up a cooking-pot, had set off in the direction of the stream, whence they drew their supply of water.  He had not proceeded very far, however, before he uttered a cry and came running back to the camp.  There was a scared expression upon his face as he rejoined his companions.

“They’ve not run away,” he cried, pointing in the direction whence he had come.  “They’re dead!”

“Dead?” cried Kitwater and Hayle together.  Then the latter added, “What do you mean by that?”

“What I say,” Codd replied.  “They’re both lying in the jungle back there with their throats cut.”

“Then I was right after all,” Hayle found time to put in.  “Come, Kit, let us go and see.  There’s more than we bargained for at the back of all this.”

They hurried with Codd to the spot where he had discovered the bodies, to find that his tale was too true.  Their two unfortunate servants were to be seen lying one on either side of the track, both dead and shockingly mutilated.  Kitwater knelt beside them and examined them more closely.

“Chinese,” he said laconically.  Then after a pause he continued, “It’s a good thing for us we had the foresight to take our rifles with us to-day, otherwise we should have lost them for a certainty.  Now we shall have to keep our eyes open for trouble.  It won’t be long in coming, mark my words.”

“You don’t think they watched us at work in that courtyard, do you?” asked Hayle anxiously, as they returned to the camp.  “If that’s so, they’ll have every atom of the remaining treasure, and we shall be done for.”

He spoke as if until that moment they had received nothing.

“It’s just possible they may have done so, of course,” said Kitwater, “but how are we to know?  We couldn’t prevent them, for we don’t know how many of them there may be.  That fellow you saw this evening may only have been placed there to spy upon our movements.  Confound it all, I wish we were a bigger party.”

“It’s no use wishing that,” Hayle returned, and then after a pause he added—­“Fortunately we hold a good many lives in our hands, and what’s more, we know the value of our own.  The only thing we can do is to watch, watch, and watch, and, if we are taken by surprise, we shall have nobody to thank for it but ourselves.  Now if you’ll stand sentry, Coddy and I will get tea.”