“Will you get into trouble over this?” Stan asked anxiously.
“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.”
“We can go to the field where he keeps his flying machine and his elephants. It is across the village from the Japanese field 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. It 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.