stan halted before entering the dark archway. he had seen a movement in the moonlight which filtered through the leaves of a big tree beyond the wall. slowly stan moved forward and as he went his hands lifted until his fists were pressed at each side of his head.

he felt something soft strike his shoulder, something that looped around his neck like the coils of a snake. there was a quick and powerful jerk that lifted him off the ground. his fists were pressed into his neck with terrific force. it required all of stan’s strength to keep the silken cord from cutting off his breath and choking him. his feet touched the ground, then he was lifted again and held dangling in the air.

stan held the cord away from his throat135 and let his body go limp. he did not struggle. the expert on the top of the wall was muttering in guttural tones, repeating strange words in a low mumble. stan realized that the strangler had intended that his first terrific jerk and twist should paralyze his victim. for what seemed a long time, stan dangled there.

slowly he was lowered to the ground where he let himself collapse with every muscle relaxed. as the cord slackened he spread it and removed his fists, then tightened the cord again until it almost choked him. after that he lay still and waited. from the wall above came a low bird call. the call was answered from across the garden.

out of the gloom appeared a man swathed in a black cape. behind him strode two squat, burly fellows. the man in the cape knelt and felt the taut cord around stan’s neck with icy fingers. then he uttered a grunt of satisfaction, removed the cord and stood up. he spoke softly to the two fellows beside him, turned, and melted into the night.

the two men caught stan by the arms and136 dragged him through the archway. they passed near a large building, brightly lighted, and entered a darkened shed with a low roof and open walls. a band of moonlight played across an earthen floor.

the men dragged stan to a low plank platform and dumped him there. one of them kicked him in the side with a wooden sandal. stan did not stiffen his body. the man bent and searched stan’s pockets, taking out his knife, compass and a handful of silver coins.

the two then seated themselves in the band of moonlight to argue over the division of their loot. they wrangled and snarled, coming near to blows before the coins and articles had been divided. stan smiled as he thought about his wrist watch. it was the only thing of value he carried and they had missed it.

finally the two men settled their argument. one of them stepped to a corner of the room and came back with a cotton cloth. he flipped this over stan. a moment later stan heard their wooden sandals clicking over the hard floor as they left the shed.

pushing the cloth back from his face, stan137 listened. he heard a profusion of sounds, a woman’s laugh, men talking and a night bird calling. none of the sounds were near the place where he lay. stan felt sure most of these natives feared the dead and would stay away from this morgue. what he did not know was how soon grave diggers would come to dispose of him.

he was about to sit up when he saw someone approaching. stan got ready for a fight. a lone figure wrapped in a white robe crossed the floor and passed through the moonlight. above the robe rose a turban of white cloth. bending down, the visitor pulled back the shroud and laid something on stan’s breast. stan looked up into the face of niva.

with a noiseless movement, he caught her wrist.

“don’t scream,” he said softly.

the girl tried to wrench her hand free. she did not scream or make any sound, but she fought fiercely. suddenly, she dropped to her knees beside stan. he could feel her body tremble.

“you are not dead?” she whispered.

138 “no, i am not dead,” stan answered. “won’t you help me to get out of here? i need a guide.”

she looked into his face for a long moment. her voice was very low when she spoke.

“i am glad you are not dead. i watched from outside the garden. the shadow men never fail. they have great pride in their way of killing. i was sure you were dead. i bought a prayer at the temple and brought it here. i thought you would need it. you had no one to buy a prayer for you.” she paused.

stan released her hand. “that was kind of you. but i’ll really need a prayer unless i get out of here.”

“they will not come until daylight to get you,” she said. “that is the way it is done. there is a ceremony going on in a dark temple room right now. when it is over, they will come.”

“fine,” stan said. “now if i can just get away from here.”

“you could not get far in those clothes. i will bring you white robes and a turban.”

139 “good for you, niva,” stan whispered. “i’ll just lie here and wait.”

niva got to her feet and vanished into the night. stan sat on the platform and listened. after a time he heard footsteps and lay down. niva slipped into the shed along the dark side. she knelt beside him.

“put this on your hands and face. it will make you brown,” she whispered.

she poured liquid into his cupped hands out of a bowl. stan smeared his face and hands. the stuff smelled bad and burned like fire.

“what is it?” he asked.

“it is polish for the harness of the sacred elephants,” she said and he heard her giggle. “i could find no other brown stain.”

stan stood up and let her help him into the white robe. he bent down and she fixed his turban into place.

“you will do very well,” she said. “but it is best that you walk stooped a little. you stand too straight, too much the soldier.”

“will you get into trouble over this?” stan asked anxiously.

140 “if i am caught, yes,” she admitted. “but no one would charge me with making the dacoit strangler fail. no one can make a dacoit fail. unless we are seen and recognized, the dacoit and the priests will say the body of the white man was stolen by thieves. they would not admit failure.” she smiled up at him.

“but what will they do with you if you are caught?” stan insisted upon knowing.

“i will die,” she replied simply. her smile did not fade as she said it.

“i’d take you with me, but i have to go through the jungle,” stan said. “i may be a long time getting back to my base.”

“you wish to go through the jungle?” she asked.

“that is the only way i can get out of here, isn’t it?” he asked.

“te nuwa has a flying machine. you are a flying man,” she laughed softly. “te nuwa prizes his big bird greatly.”

“can we get to his hangar?” stan asked.

“we can go to the field where he keeps his flying machine and his elephants. it is across the village from the japanese field141 where they keep their war machines. te nuwa and the general are always quarreling about it. the general says he will make a field of his own out of it,” niva explained.

“i’d like to know where the jap flying field is, too,” stan said eagerly. even though he was in danger he was, first of all, a soldier and alert for information.

“it is mostly in the jungle where the big machines can hide, but there is a wide road for them to run on when they leave or come in. i will show you.” niva seemed willing enough to help, even to giving information.

she led the way out of the shed and down a dark lane which ended in a street lighted by a few lamps stuck on poles. the street was crowded with people. the girl caught stan’s arm.

“we must not hurry. we go slowly. i will answer if we are spoken to. i am dressed as a low-caste boy and you may well pass as my father.” niva pulled her white robe around her with one hand. her dark eyes peered out at the passing people.

stan pulled his robe around him and held it. they moved down the street slowly. it142 teemed with dark-skinned people dressed in garments of flaming colors. dark-eyed women looked lazily down from tottering, wooden balconies. guttering tallow lamps and flaring torches half illuminated the interiors of shops and dwellings, giving stan a fleeting glimpse of life in a siamese village. the street was narrow and crooked. they were jostled as they moved along, but no one gave them even a second glance. stan saw no soldiers and no police.

they followed the street for a quarter of a mile, then turned off into a darkened lane shaded by big trees. niva looked up at stan. she had let her robe fall back and he saw she was dressed in a modern gown.

“i took you through the native quarter of the town because it is not open to the japanese soldier yet,” she explained.

“aren’t the japanese your people?” stan asked.

“no,” she answered. “i am burmese. i would now get away from the japanese war office if i could. i had a job which a woman could not get in my homeland. i traveled and i was well paid. but now there is war143 and japan will destroy my country and my people. they plan to move into burma soon.”

“you’re dead right in quitting them,” stan agreed.

niva caught his arm and pulled him out of the road. they crouched beside a bush while a squad of soldiers walked past. they were talking and laughing as they went along. stan was not sure, but he did not think they were japanese.

they came to a wide opening where there were a few lights. the moon flooded a large field. near the edge of the field stood a plane. one glance at it was enough to tell stan what it was. te nuwa’s prized flying machine was an ancient curtiss robin. stan doubted that the ship could be in good flying condition, for it would be difficult to obtain spare parts for a robin out here. but it was a plane and one that stan knew how to handle. it had wings and wings were what he desired.

several guards stood about near a shed. no one seemed to be guarding the plane, but the men were close to it and they were armed144 with rifles. stan sat down and pulled off his turban. it bothered him because he was not used to such a mass of cloth on his head. he looked the field over carefully. the night was hot and the robin’s motor should start without much trouble, though that depended upon its condition. but the engine would take a few minutes to warm up even if it started at once. the problem was to get the needed time.

niva seated herself beside him on the grass. he was wondering if te nuwa ever made early morning hops. if he did, he would have the engine warmed up and idling for some time. he turned to the girl.

“does te nuwa ever make dawn flights?”

“he used to fly in the early morning, but now the japanese will not let him. he must fly in the afternoon. if he flies before there is good light, they will shoot at him.” she laughed softly. “te nuwa is a very smart man for one so fat. he has the markings of the united states on his wings so he can fly to rangoon and other places. the japanese shoot at such markings.”

stan continued to study the robin, but his145 thoughts were with the jap base near the temple. the flying tigers had never spotted this base in the jungle. he turned to niva.

“how many planes have they hidden in the jungle?” he asked.

“they have fifty big ones and many small, fast ones, so i have heard the officers say. they are hidden in the trees beyond the big temple with the red roof,” niva answered.

“they are to be used to bomb and to kill your people,” stan said. “if i can get away i will come back and destroy them.”

“you must get away. but i cannot go. i will be safe here. i will go back to my room and will be in bed when my maid comes. i have work yet to do.” she smiled up at him. “when i take off this robe and turban i will be a girl again.”

“i’m afraid you won’t be safe,” stan said.

“i will be safe,” niva assured him. “i can walk out and talk to those men. could you get the flying machine away if i got them to take me across the street to that little shop? i am very thirsty and they could buy me a drink.”

stan looked at her for a long minute. “i146 think you’re taking a lot of chances just to get me off.”

“i take some chances, but always i have taken chances. for a long time i have been a hired spy. i do not think te nuwa will press me with many questions. he will call in his dacoit and the dacoit will lie as will the temple helpers who work with him. i will have many to help me.”

“but the men out there will recognize you. they’ll probably suspect you of helping me and tell the police,” stan argued.

“when you start the machine it will make much noise. the men will rush out to stop you. i will come here into the shadows and put on the boy’s outfit. i will go down to the street and mingle with the crowd. i am a boy much of the time. i go about listening to what the people say about the japanese.” niva laughed softly. “you love the danger of flying. i love danger, too. get ready to act as soon as i have drawn those silly guards away from the shed.”

“i’ll come back and get you out of here,” stan promised.

“you may do that. i will be looking for147 you.” she gave him a saucy toss of her head. “here i go.”

she slipped out of her white robe and laid aside her turban. then she faced stan. stan looked down at her and grinned.

“i am stan wilson. we’ll meet again. i won’t feel right until you are out of here.”

“perhaps you will come,” niva said. “but a fighter who flies in the sky and a spy who slips around helping her enemies cannot be sure of anything.” she turned toward the shed.

stan watched her saunter out toward the guards as though she had come from the shop across the street. he moved close to the shed and waited. niva talked and laughed with the men. they crowded around her eagerly. stan noticed that niva kept her face in the shadow, standing with her back to the moon.

when she turned toward the shop across the street the soldiers followed her, laughing loudly at something she had said. a single flare lighted the shop across the road. it was about a hundred yards from the field where the robin stood. stan waited until the men turned their backs upon the field as148 they ordered drinks at a long table. tossing aside his white robe, he dashed across the field.

he reached the robin without being seen and climbed into the cockpit. the robin was a high-wing, five-place passenger plane with a radial motor. stan snapped on a small light over the instrument panel. he checked gas and oil and the controls. the engine would have to be twisted a few times before he could try for a start.

carefully, stan worked his way out and around to the propeller. he wound up the engine, then stood looking toward the shop. laughter floated over to him. niva was playing her part well. with the motor primed, he climbed back into the plane and seated himself at the controls. he had a plan in mind for getting her warmed up, if she fired as quickly as she should. he kicked the contact on and the robin backfired with an explosion that shattered the hot silence. her prop jerked, slapped back, then rolled over.

stan looked toward the shop. two of the soldiers had whirled and were running for their rifles which they had propped against149 the shop. two more leaped after them firing pistols at the plane. the robin’s motor sputtered some more but kept on turning uncertainly. stan’s trained ear detected loose rods and bearings. the robin’s engine was little better than a wreck.

the men were at the edge of the field and charging out toward the plane. stan saw that all of them had left the shop across the street. niva was moving toward the shadows under the trees where she had left her robe. he kicked off the brakes and the robin stirred. slowly she rolled ahead at a pace that was little better than a crawl.

the robin gained speed until she was outrunning the charging soldiers. stan headed her down the field and, as she moved away from the soldiers, she gained speed. by the time she had reached the end of the runway she was moving about as fast as a horse could gallop. two guards were coming down the field but they had emptied their guns. stan was glad te nuwa’s field was far away from the jap base.

he cramped the robin around and headed her back. she did not have speed enough to150 take off and he would have to make another run up the field. he charged upon the onrushing men at a brisk pace. the guards ducked and leaped aside. the robin galloped past them and up to the shed, where stan whipped her around again and headed down the field for the second time. then he spied a squad of machine gunners coming out of the woods. it was up this time or be riddled.

stan opened the throttle wide and the ancient motor rattled and pounded as it broke into a surge of power. he let the ship roll as far as he dared. machine guns were rattling away but all the bullets were going wild. stan hoicked the robin’s tail and eased back on the stick.

the robin wobbled off the ground and went slithering between two tall trees. her nose was up, but she wasn’t gaining much altitude. stan had his directions well fixed in his mind. he was not sure where the town lay or where the jap base was located, but he did know which way led home.

he laid over a little and scraped over the spires of a temple. the roof of the building151 was red and stan remembered what niva had said about the japanese base being close to a red-roofed temple. he surged out over the tops of a mass of trees and saw lights dotting the jungle below. by those lights he could see the forms of bombers and fighter planes parked in the woods.

as he roared low over the trees, the lights below began to wink out and a fifty-caliber gun barked at him. the robin was lifting now and as she moved up from the jungle, a burst of shells rocketed past her, bursting high above.

stan laughed softly to himself. the japs had been careful to hide all planes. he had spotted the take-off area and there was not a plane on it. it lay there in the moonlight empty and deserted. that was a break for the slow-moving robin.

the robin’s motor started to get hot and some of the knocks died down. she hammered along, but stan knew she was not doing over one hundred twenty miles per hour. stan thinned her mixture and went on up into the moonlit sky.

after a bit he began watching for the salween152 river. he was sure he was in the area where they had landed with the martin. of course he was not flying a p–40 at three hundred miles an hour, but he was getting along very nicely.

he was beginning to worry about his directions when he spotted a band of moonlight on water. the robin roared out over the wide river and stan eased back. he was not helping the speed of the old ship by leaning forward.

as he flew along, he made plans. the japs might try to get their planes out of the jungle base, unless the flying tigers went after them at daylight. he was thinking about the attack he would lead when he heard the old motor begin to clank and pound.

a dull, hammering sound came to him from the cowling up ahead. stan knew he had pushed the motor too hard. he eased back on the throttle but the hammering continued. as he left the river and headed out over the jungle, the noise grew louder. stan wondered when the crash would come.

he listened and waited. there was nothing to do but keep going. he had no parachute153 and he could not see any rice fields below. every mile he gained was one less to walk, that was all he was worrying about.

the altimeter showed he had only six thousand feet altitude.

that was about the robin’s ceiling. stan tinkered with the spark and the gas but the loosened rod kept beating away. all he could do was wait until it smashed out in his face.

one consolation was that no jap night fighters had showed up. probably they had gone too high to sight him. he checked the ship’s compass and altered his course a little. he was easing back, looking down for an open spot, when a dark shape came roaring down out of the sky at him. it hurtled past, leaving a trail of exhaust flame and smoke. stan frowned and eased the robin over. he did not intend to be washed out after getting this far.

that plane was not a karigane. it was a p–40! stan could tell by the whine of its allison motor. he was glad the pilot had saved his ammunition. the robin was plodding along so slowly that she was almost a stationary target.

154 the night fighter was a flying tiger, but would he spare the old robin? the fighter came back and circled over the robin. its pilot seemed puzzled and undecided, which was to be expected. no one would expect to meet a curtiss robin sailing through the burma sky.

the p–40 kept circling and diving as stan bored along toward rangoon. he spotted the blind lights at the landing field, set wide and away from the runways to fool the enemy. easing over, he went on down. he did not worry about ground fire. he could not fail so close to home.

no guns blazed and the field was clear of planes. the robin jolted down and rolled toward a hangar. men came running toward the ship. stan climbed out and faced them. the first man to get to him was allison.

“you old sinner! i said you’d come flying back in a borrowed crate!” allison shouted. “o’malley called in from patrol that he had you covered.”

“how did o’malley know?” stan asked amazed.

155 “well,” he said, “you have the insignia of the united states on your wings.”

“that thai rascal is pretty smart, only this time it worked against him,” stan said.

at that moment a p–40 roared to life beside a hangar. it came across the field wide open, hopped off and knifed up out of sight.

“who was that?” stan shouted to the ground crew who had wheeled the p–40 out on the field.

“that was colonel munson going up for a bit of night air, sir,” a corporal answered.

“he got away,” stan snapped. “i have to get to division headquarters right away. get commander fuller there, will you, allison?” stan was off at a lope.