“Suppose I should refuse to show the way?”
“We would find it, anyhow,” replied the detective. “That is, unless it is only a collection of little huts. In that case, we might overlook them—for a while.”
Again Nick Carter had stirred up the anger of his prisoner, with the satisfactory result of his saying more than could have been got out of him in any other way.
“My people are not dogs, to live in huts,” he stormed. “Our palaces are of marble and pure gold. Take the ropes off me, and I will show you. The city of Shangore is more beautiful than such white-faced curs as you can think of.”
“He’s the soul of politeness, that chap!” observed Jefferson Arnold. “If he were worth the trouble, I’d lick him myself, just to teach him to keep his tongue in order. He swears worse than a Malay, too.”
“Are we to kill you and leave you here?” went on Nick, addressing the witch doctor. “Or will you show us the way?”
“I will take you,” answered the man promptly.
This sudden acquiescence made Nick Carter suspicious. Moreover, he had noted a fleeting gleam in the man’s eyes which bade him beware of treachery.
“We will go with you,” he said sternly. “But it will be in our own fashion. We will set out at the breaking of the dawn, and you yourself shall go first. A rope will be around you, holding your arms to your sides even as they are now.”
“I am to walk tied? Will my feet be free?” sneered the prisoner.