"It's a pity they haven't caught you. But for your folly we could have passed through the city unobserved."
Jake no longer believed the Chan Santa Cruz Indians to be such a peaceable race. When, as Cummings had suspected, the shaft he was trying to climb toppled over, he was able to escape injury by leaping to one side, and immediately made an effort to detach the statue which was cemented firmly to the stone.
It seemed to him that he had but just begun the task when two men rushed from the interior of the temple. Fortunately for him they were unarmed or his term of life would have expired at that moment; but as it was one of them seized a fragment of the stone as he turned to run, and threw it with such accuracy of aim that Jake's cheek was cut from the eye to the chin as smoothly as if done with a razor.
With the blood streaming down his face Jake ran for dear life in the direction taken by the remainder of the party, and now fully realizing the danger he had brought upon them.
"I deserve to be killed," he said to himself, "and if that Poyor don't try to even up things with me for this night's job it'll be because he's a better Indian than I ever gave him credit for."
When the remainder of the party reached the end of the broad street with the welcome shelter of the forest not more than half a mile away, Jake was ten or twelve yards in the rear, and three times that distance behind him were a dozen men who appeared to be gaining each instant.
Again Poyor spoke to Cummings, and again the latter stopped suddenly and wheeled about: but this time there was no warning shout to prevent the rifle from being discharged.
There was a loud report, a cry of pain from one of the pursuers, and all halted for an instant to aid their wounded companion.
When Cummings turned to continue the flight Jake was by his side, saying as they ran:
"If it comes to close quarters I'll drop behind, and make as long a fight as I can, which will give the rest a chance to gain on the crowd."
"They would surely kill you. There could be no hope in a hand to hand struggle."
"I know that, and it will be no more than I deserve. If I hadn't been such a fool you would have got through without turning a hair."
This confession and the proposition to sacrifice himself had the effect of dissipating Cummings' anger, and he said decidedly: