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On those sides of these giant tors, however, which are less precipitous, miniature forests are sometimes found, and absolutely impassable jungles. "Bordering an independent state, this territory is not at all well known, but I had secured as a guide a man named Vadi or that was the name he gave me whom I knew to be a high-caste Brahmin of good family.

Accordingly: "'Vadi, I said, 'I know for a positive fact that we are within ten miles of the secret Temple of Fire. "I shall never forget the look in his eyes, with the reflection of the firelight dancing in them; but he never moved a muscle. "'The sahib is wise, he replied. "'So is Vadi, said I. 'Therefore he knows how happy a thousand pounds of English money would make him.

"But to return to Vadi, my Brahmin guide. We had camped for the night in the shadow of one of those giant tors which I have mentioned. The bearers were seated around their fire at some little distance from us, and Vadi and I were consulting respecting our route in the morning, when I decided to take him into my confidence.

"So the night passed, and dawn found me still sitting there, the dead man huddled on the ground not three paces from me. I am a man who as a rule thinks slowly, but when the light came my mind was fully made up. "From the man who had died in Nagpur I had learned more about the location of the City of Fire than I had confided to Vadi. In fact, I thought I could undertake to find the way.

"Naida, for such was her name, told me that the Brahmin, Vadi, who had acted as my guide, was one of the followers of the Prophet of Fire, to whom had been given the duty of intercepting me. His failure to report within a certain time had resulted in two of the priests of this strange cult being sent out to obtain information.

That these were the yellow-robed mendicants who had passed me in the mountains, I did not doubt. "Their reports, so Naida informed me, had led to a belief that Vadi had perished with me; but as an extra measure of precaution, that very night indeed, shortly after I had passed that way a guard had been set upon the secret entrance.

"As I began a desperate fight for life, I realized that, whatever else Vadi might be, he was certainly an expert thug. The jungle, the rocks, seemed to swim around me as I crashed to the ground and felt the Brahmin's knee in the small of my back." "How I managed to think of any defense against such an attack, and especially in the circumstances, is a matter I have often wondered about since.

The plateau upon which I stood was one of a series of giant steps, and on the west was a sheer descent to a dense jungle, where banks of rotten vegetation, sun-dried upon the top, lay heaped about the tree stems. "Dragging the heavy body of Vadi to the brink of this precipice, I toppled it over, swaying dizzily as I watched it crash down into the poisonous undergrowth two hundred feet below.

To Vadi the task had been allotted by the mysterious organization of which he was a member, of removing me quietly and decently, under circumstances which would lead to no official inquiry. Although only animals, insects, and reptiles seemed to be awake about me, yet I could not get rid of the idea that I was watched. "I remembered the phantom light, and that memory was an unpleasant one.

Even in the light of the morning, amid that oppressive stillness, I could scarcely believe in my own safety, for that to Vadi the duty of assassinating me had been assigned by this ever-watchful, secret organization, whose stronghold I had dared to approach, was a fact beyond dispute.