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The chief of our captors, who had received several severe burns and injuries through his fall, pressed forward, and telling first of our fight in the rocky passage, afterwards spoke of his own rescue by Denviers, so we learnt from Hassan. Wimpai rose and leant upon his spear when the savage had concluded his account, and was evidently perplexed as to what course to pursue.
"Pull with all your might with the stream, Harold!" said Denviers to me, as we drew close to where the roaring waters were leaping down. "Pull, pull, it is our last chance!" We both knew that if we failed to shoot the rapid ahead we should be sucked down and drowned.
The motionless arm of the form made no attempt to move from the side where it hung to protect the mask from Denviers' touch, for the rigid features upon which we looked at that moment were those of the dead! "Quick, Harold!" exclaimed Denviers, as he saw the momentary panic which his action had caused among the superstitious Tamils. "On to the entry!"
For some time the tangled pathway which we traversed wound up the steep side of a mountain spur, running almost down to the edge of the raised coral beach. Forcing our way through the screw-pine, which obstructed us, we were soon passing under the shade of some bamboos and banyans, when Denviers motioned to some trees a little way ahead, and suddenly exclaimed: "Look out, Harold!
Denviers drew from his belt one of the pistols thrust there, for we had taken the precaution at Rangoon to get a couple each, since our own were lost in our adventure off Ceylon. I quietly imitated his example, and, drawing well away from the entrance of the tent, so that our watchfulness might not be observed, we waited for the hill-man to approach.
"Jump!" cried Denviers, at that moment, to the man clinging to the rigging, just as the waters, with a swirl, sent us past the ship. The watcher flung his blazing torch into the waves, and the hiss of the brand was followed by a splash in the sea.
"Then," said Denviers, "their strange monarch was not disappointed after all in his sentence being carried out only it affected his own subjects." "That," said Hassan, "is not an infrequent occurrence in the East; but so long as the proper number perishes, surely it matters little who complete it fully."
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