“You shall go, of course,” Nick Carter told him. “But not all these four men. Some of them must be left behind, and I am going to find out which ones by drawing straws. It is a custom in my country. You may stand with my two young men from America.”
He indicated Chick and Patsy Garvan, and Adil willingly enough took his position by their side.
“What about these others?” asked Jefferson Arnold. “If they can fight as well as they row, they’ll be useful fellows to take with us.”
“I’m going to talk to them,” replied Nick. Then, turning to the four oarsmen, he began: “We go yonder, across the mountains, to find the white man who has been taken away. You know that?”
They bowed with the native dignity of all men of their race and muttered an unintelligible assent. Nick continued:
“It is a strange country, and the men there are fierce and cruel. They have strange worship, and their gods are not yours. Whether we will come out of that country alive no one can say. It is possible that the white man who went into the forests with Sahib Arnold may have taken him into the strange land beyond the mountains, and that he will tell the men of the Golden Scarab enough about us to give them power we cannot beat.”
“Not by a jugful!” interrupted Patsy Garvan. “I’ll bet we lick them if ever we get within striking distance. That’s a cinch.”
“We will all go,” said one of the oarsmen. “It is not necessary to draw lots. We will save the young sahib.”
“I knew it!” exclaimed Patsy. “Those boys are the goods, if they are the color of an old tan shoe.”
But Nick Carter shook his head.