Chapter VII: The Temple of Kali

As the boys stood rooted, the strange cries came again; first from one direction, then the other. But now there was a change in their weird tones. They trailed longer, as though the thugs were telling each other something, perhaps that they had helpless victims caught between.

Both Kamuka and Chandra sensed it. Kamuka was for taking to the jungle, a setting that he knew so well, even though it meant facing creatures different from those in Brazil. Chandra was willing to go along with that, but Biff overruled them with a single vote.

“They’d start beating the brush for us,” he argued, “and that would only drive us deeper. It’s not going into the jungle that I mind; it’s our chance of ever coming out.”

He was beckoning the other boys along the road as he added: “We must keep ahead of that bunch behind us, because they are really hot on our trail. Those up front are farther away, even though they are coming toward us. We may still have time to find a clearing where we can hide, or better still, some jungle path.”

Tensely, the boys quickened their pace. The road here was winding more sharply, for it was veering in among the low-lying hills. As they passed a turn in the road, Biff pointed ahead to a gap in the thick jungle, exclaiming, “That may be it!”

Again, long trailing cries came from both directions as though taunting Biff’s hopes. The call from in back was still as far behind, but the one ahead was much closer. Gritting his teeth, Biff muttered for his own benefit, “This will have to be a path—or else!”

It was a path, but a rocky one, leading up a steep slope that flanked the road. But the boys took to it eagerly, climbing rapidly despite their packs, so as to reach the first spot where the path itself made a sharp turn amid the thick foliage.

Once there, they were out of sight from the road below, so they paused for a breather while they dipped water from a little stream that tumbled down among the rocks beside the zigzag path.

Biff asked Chandra, “Any idea where this path may take us?”

“Maybe nowhere,” responded Chandra glumly. “It may just be an old stream gone dry.”

“I don’t think so.” Kamuka studied the course of the stream with a practiced eye. “Look at the smooth rocks here in the stream, yet all those on the path are rough. If water came up there a lot, they would be smooth, too.”

Chandra still was doubtful until Kamuka pointed far up the path.

“See where the path takes a short cut over the little hump of ground?” he said. “The stream would go around that, even in the wet season. This is a path, all right.”

“And we’d better be using it,” Biff put in, “before those thugs get the same idea.”

Low calls of “_Hyyaahh_” from both directions down on the road below indicated that the pursuing groups were close together, probably closing what they thought were the jaws of a trap. Now that they had regained their wind, the boys lost no time in resuming their climb, this time at a steady, even speed that they were sure would keep them well ahead.

Kamuka was correct about the path. It was a real one, for soon it veered away from the stream entirely and brought the boys to a jutting promontory that gave them a good view over the green wave of the jungle slope below. There they rested again, while Biff traced the course of the road that they had left.

“If we could only cut across and strike the road a few miles up the line,” he said, “we would really shake off those thugs. But no such luck, I guess. We’d never hack our way through all that growth. Let’s stick to the path.”

Sticking to the path meant further climbing, but it proved short, as the top of the hill was only a little way above. As they reached the final hump and emerged from the thick foliage, the boys stopped in surprise. Perched on the summit was a ruined temple, its white marble steps showing through the tangled underbrush, which was climbing up the battered pillars and weather-worn walls.

A corner of the tiled roof had fallen in and a tree projected there instead of a small dome, one of a group surrounding a larger central dome, which was also in a battered state. As the boys reached the steps, there was a sudden chatter from within the ruined temple, and troupes of monkeys scampered out through the holes in the roof and the long window slits in the walls.

“A good hiding place,” decided Chandra, “if the monkeys have been using it as their home.”

“Then we can lie low here,” Biff said, “until after the thugs have gone.”

They were entering through a fancifully tiled archway as Biff spoke. Chandra extended a restraining hand as Biff turned toward an inner corner, where a battered stone railing marked a stairway leading to a floor below.

“Be careful where you lie low,” warned Chandra. “These old places are alive with deadly cobras.”

“But how can the monkeys live with the snakes?”

“They don’t. Monkeys stay up there”—Chandra pointed to a balcony where tiny faces and quick little eyes were peering through what was left of a once ornamental railing—“and the cobras live in the pits below.”

Biff saw that the stairway was blocked by broken chunks from the floor, but he eased away on the chance that a poisonous snake might be lurking in the rubble. Kamuka, meanwhile, had crossed the floor to a small domed platform that was reached by steps leading up from three sides. Kamuka called:

“Biff,” he called. “Come look! See who is here!”

Biff joined Kamuka and stared up at the most hideous idol he had ever seen. It was carved from a dark wood and had white, glaring eyes formed of tiny pearls with a jet-black stone in the center. Larger pearls formed the teeth of an open mouth, from which a carved, red-painted tongue extended.

The ferocious image had four arms extended from its body. One hand held an actual knife with jeweled handle and long curved blade, as though ready for a downward stroke. Another hand was raised in a warning gesture. The third dangled a carved human head. The fourth hand was thrust slightly forward and was cupped, but empty.

From the idol’s neck hung a chain of human skulls, forming a huge, grotesque necklace. Biff had already guessed the identity of the carved horror, when Chandra arrived and gasped the name: “Kali!”

Biff stared at Chandra, wondering why he was so shaken. In a frightened tone, Chandra exclaimed:

“This temple is old and broken, but the idol is a new one! We can’t hide here! This is where the thugs themselves meet to worship Kali. They have driven us up into their trap, and they will come here to hunt us down. See that hand, Biff, the one like a cup? It is supposed to hold blood, so it is waiting for the big ruby that you carry!”

An odd fascination had gripped Biff as he studied the hideous figure of Kali. He snapped out of it now.

“What are we waiting for?” he demanded. “Let’s get out of here!”

They couldn’t go out the way they had come in. Already, a long-drawn cry was sounding from the path leading up to the temple. It was answered almost from the doorway, and the boys realized now that other members of the Kali cult must have been lurking in the fringes of the jungle, watching their arrival.

Kamuka, quick as ever, pointed out a corner stairway leading up to a stone balcony in the rear wall, just above the Kali statue. Sunlight shone through a slitted window that was located there. Grabbing their belongings, the boys raced up the steps, then along the balcony, where they jumped its broken gaps. They reached the window slit and squeezed themselves through to a narrow outer ledge, where they pressed their backs against the wall and stared downward hopelessly.

They were high up in the temple now, the equivalent of about three floors in an ordinary building. There, a full thirty feet below, was a stone court at the rear of the temple wall. The paving was cracked, but as hard as ever—anything but a happy landing.

Close to the wall was the circular rim of a stone well, but it was built up only a few feet from the courtyard. Not a slit, not an opening showed in the wall itself, as the boys studied it cautiously, except for a few irregular cracks that would afford no hold whatever.

If they had arrived here sooner, they could have planned some way to lower themselves to the courtyard, but that was too late for Biff and his companions now.

Already, high-pitched cries of glee were sounding from within the very walls of the crumbling temple that the thugs had turned into a trap baited with their idol, Kali.