. . . . . . .

Wu and Long Sin paused only a minute in astonishment.  Then they literally fell upon the wealth that lay before them, gloating over the gold, stuffing their hands into the jewels, lifting them up and letting the priceless gems run through their fingers.

Suddenly they paused.  There was the slight tinkle of a Chinese bell.

Kennedy had reached Aunt Tabby’s garden, outside the roof of the subterranean chamber where it had given way, had gone down carefully over the earth and rock, and in doing so had broken a string stretched across the passageway.  The tinkle of a bell attached to it aroused his attention and he stopped short, a second, to look about.  Wu Fang had arranged a primitive alarm.

Quickly, Wu and Long Sin blew out their lanterns while Wu gave the rock a push.  Slowly, as it had opened, it now closed and they stood there listening.

I was still struggling in the bird lime, getting myself more and more covered with it, when the reverberation of revolver shots reached me.

Wu and Long Sin had opened fire on Kennedy, and Kennedy was replying in kind.  In the cavern it sounded like a veritable bombardment.  As they retreated, they came nearer and nearer to me and I could see the revolvers spitting fire in the darkness.  So intent were they on Kennedy that they forgot me.

I watched them fearfully as they hopped deftly from one stone to another to avoid the lime—­and were gone.

“Craig!  Craig!” I managed to cry feebly.  “Be careful.  Keep to the stones.”

He strained his eyes toward the ground in the darkness, at the sound of my voice.  Then he struck a match and instantly took in the situation which, to me, under any other circumstances, would have been ludicrous.

Stepping from stone to stone, he followed the retreating Chinamen.  But they had already reached the mouth of the cave and were making their way rapidly down the road to a bend, in the opposite direction from which we had come.  There, Wu’s automobile was waiting.  They leaped into it and the driver, without a word, shot the car off into the darkness of early dawn.

A moment later, Kennedy appeared, but they had made their getaway.  Baffled, he turned and retraced his steps to the cave.

I don’t think that I ever welcomed him more sincerely than I did as, finally, I crawled slowly out from the bird lime, exhausted by the effort that I had made to free myself from the sticky mess.

“They got away, Walter,” he said, lighting a lantern they had dropped.  “By George,” he added, I think a little vexed that I had not been able to stop them, “you are a sight!”

He was about to laugh, when I fainted.  I can remember nothing until I woke up over by the wall of the chamber where he dragged me.

Kennedy had been working hard to revive me, and, as I opened my eyes, he straightened up.  His eye suddenly caught something on the rock beside him.  There was a little slot carved in it, and above the slot was a peculiar inscription.