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They had followed up the tracks of the flying elephants, and inquired in every village round-about. Then the Panthay, returning to his home for food, had spoken of the sahib they had found among the hills, and had put the pursuers on Jack's trail. As Jack turned he heard a grunt of surprise. One of the Panthays had stepped forward and caught sight of the approaching cavalcade.
Then he set himself to work by means of signs to make them understand that he wished them to lead him to the village from which the Panthay had fetched the supplies. In the end they understood him, and put their axes in a corner of the cave. By motions of their heads and hands they gave him to understand that they would lay by work for the day, and become his guides.
The Panthay feeding the fire looked up with a cheerful grin when he heard Jack move, and pointed to the cooking-pot, as if to assure him that breakfast would soon be ready. Jack stretched himself and yawned. After his long sleep he felt like a giant refreshed. He wondered what time it was, and glanced at his watch. But his watch had stopped, he had forgotten to wind it up.
With a gasp of relief, Jack found that it was the elder Panthay who had called out. The two men had been crouching in a corner of the inner cave, and had given no sign of their presence while Jack struggled with his foes. Now one was calling out, and both were pointing upwards. Jack took a step back from the mouth of the tunnel and looked aloft.
"I shall stand the least chance of being trodden on that way," thought Jack. He dropped to the ground all right, for the pad-elephant took not the least notice of their movements. But as for keeping his feet, that was impossible. He rolled to the earth, for his ankles were even more numbed than his wrists. At this instant the second Panthay ran up.
In the year 1874 the government of India, repenting of its brief infatuation for the Panthay cause, yet still reluctant to lose the advantages it had promised itself from the opening of Yunnan to trade, resolved upon sending a formal mission of explory under Colonel Horace Browne, an officer of distinction, through Burmah to that province.
Jack was staring wonderingly at this novel method of attack by flinging rubbish apparently at large, when once more the Panthay above thrust his head through the rift and spoke a few words, his voice ringing down hollow into the depths where the three prisoners stood. Jack did not understand what was said, but he saw that the effect on his companions was most extraordinary.
By some means Saya Chone and the Strangler knew that he and his guides had turned aside from the ordinary track, and had followed on their new trail. Now their pursuers began to climb down the steep side of the ravine, led by a Panthay tracker. In a moment Jack saw that the man was following the path they had followed.
So that, as the three fugitives disappeared among the thicker growth of jungle, a dark figure gained the crown of the slope, and with swift and noiseless tread approached their camping-place. The quick eye of the Panthay at once caught sight of the retreating men, above all of the sahib, so easily to be known by his dress, and the tracker drew back instantly into the bushes.
The Panthay rising calls for description in the first place, because it began at an earlier period than the other, and also because the details have been preserved with greater fidelity. Mohammedanism is believed to have been introduced into Yunnan in or about the year 1275, and it made most progress among the so-called aboriginal tribes, the Lolos and the Mantzu.
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