El Dragón de Fuego (The Fire Dragon)

# "El dragón de fuego" [The Fire Dragon] by Fidel Prado Duque

This serialized adventure narrative depicts a daring rescue at a monastery fortress. The small, resourceful Chinese servant Kao, believed abandoned by his companions, executes an elaborate plan to save the professor and Regis from execution. Hiding in the High Priest's chest, Kao emerges to brutally kill the priest with a copper jar and systematically locks one hundred monks in their cells, ensuring they cannot respond to alarms. He kills the outer guard with an iron maul, then forces the wounded High Priest to lead him to the rooftop temple where the professor and Regis are suspended in narrow bamboo cages above a pit containing hungry "deggs" (creatures awaiting their fall). The narrative emphasizes Kao's strategic reconnaissance of the monastery during captivity and his decisive violence. The professor and Regis, confined in their cages, despair of rescue, unaware that Kao has arrived with torchlight to free them, though the text remains incomplete regarding their final fate.