Page:The Cave Girl - Edgar Rice Burroughs.pdf/313

 He loaded it, keeping several cartridges ready in his hand. Then, with Nadara at his side, he crept to the back of the temple. Pigs, routed from their slumbers, grunted and complained. A dog growled at them. Thandar silenced it with a cut from his parang. When they reached the edge of the shadow beneath the temple they saw that there were only a few natives upon this side of the structure, and they were hurrying rapidly toward the front of the building. A hundred yards away was the jungle.

Now a sudden quiet fell upon the horde before the temple doors. There was the sound of hammering, then a pushing, scraping noise, and presently shouts of savage rage—the dead bodies of the guardsmen had been discovered. Now, from above, came the padding of naked feet running through the temple. The street behind was momentarily deserted.

“Now!” whispered Thandar.

He seized Nadara’s hand, and together the two raced from beneath the temple out into the moonlight and across the intervening space between the long houses toward, the jungle. Halfway across, a belated native, emerging, from the verandah of a nearby house, saw them. He set up a terrific yell and dashed toward them.

Thandar’s pistol roared, and the savage dropped; but the signal had been given and before the two