Jack did not dare trust his voice in the effort to speak, but when his eyes met those of the parent he shook his head, saying by the gesture: 

“God have mercy, I cannot answer.”

But strong men do not remain dazed and helpless in the presence of a shuddering calamity.  If any one thing could be set down as certain it was that Miss Marlowe had left the place by fleeing deeper into the jungle.  She could not have approached them without being observed:  therefore they must seek her by taking the same direction.

The energy of the man more than threescore under the spur of his anguish was like that of the athlete of one-third of his years.  He still led the way, and, after the brief halt under the fearful blow, he rallied and compelled Jack Everson to keep upon a trot to save himself from falling behind.

A hundred paces from the opening they reached a point where the trails forked.  They stopped, the parent being the first to do so.

“Jack,” said he, using the less formal name, for under the awful shadow they had drawn nearer to each other, “we can’t afford to make any mistake.”

“There shall be none if you tell me how to prevent it.”

“She must have followed one of these paths, but who shall say which?”

He stooped over and peered at the ground.  Within the dim hush of the jungle he was unable to discern the slightest disturbance of the earth.

“No use of that,” said the doctor, reading his intention; “therefore we will separate; one of us will overtake them.”

“Have you any idea of the identity of these devils?”

“I think they are Ghoojurs, but it makes no difference; Mussulmans and Hindoos are the same; each of us has a rifle and revolver; if you get sight of them don’t wait to notify me; shoot to kill; you know how to do it.”

“I shall shrink from nothing, but the case may be hopeless.”

“If it is will you promise me one thing?” asked, the parent of the young man looking him in the eye.

“I do; what is the pledge?”

“That you point your gun at her?”

CHAPTER XVI.

A shadowy pursuit.

It was a fearful pledge to exact, but Jack Everson gave it without hesitation.

“You understand me; enough; let us lose no more time; I will turn to the right; good-bye; we are all in the hands of God.”

There was not a tear in the eye of the parent.  His heart might be torn by grief, but he was now the Roman from whose lips no murmuring was heard.

It seemed to Jack Everson that the strangeness of the incidents of the past hour had lifted him into a state of exaltation.  He never felt calmer nor more self-possessed than when hurrying over the path, rifle in hand, revolver at his hip with the belief that there was not one chance in a thousand that he would ever again look upon the one who had won his heart when the two were on the other side of the world and for whose sake he was ready to go to the uttermost lengths of the earth.