“Gee! These people from Bolongu, or the Land of the Golden Crab, or whatever it is,” put in Patsy, “never overlook any bets. I suppose if they were going to sacrifice me, they’d frame it up in the Bowery or Union Square, so as to make it stick in New York. They make me sick.”
“What have you found up there, Adil?” asked Nick Carter, who had been waiting with what patience he could command to question the young Hindu.
“They are coming down all at once. They have been commanded to do it, even if some are killed. I heard them talking.”
“In English?” asked Chick.
“Yes. They use the tongue of the white man all over India,” supplied Jai Singh. “Even in Bolongu, which is outside the pale, they still carry on the language they learned from the white man two hundred and fifty years ago. The tribes over the Himalayas have all been in Lower Hindustan at different times.”
“I know that to be true,” remarked Nick Carter. “That is why they are so dangerous. Always, when Oriental races pass under the influence of the Caucasian, they must be kept in close communion with him ever after, or they will forget his civilization, and retain only his cunning.”
Patsy Garvan had heard this with some signs of weariness. He wanted action, not dissertations on the white and Hindu races.
“Are we going to try out those guys up there, chief?” he asked.
“We shall have to hold them back. Where are the four men of Jai Singh?”
“They are here, sahib,” returned the tall Hindu composedly. “I called them while I hung over the rock.”