“Sahib,” he whispered to Nick Carter. “Once let those gates close behind us, and it is the end. We are only seven, outside of the coolies. In that city are many thousands.”
“Well, it can’t be helped,” rejoined Nick.
“Yes, it can,” insisted Jai Singh. “Let me drive my spear into the side of that old scarecrow. Then we will fight to a finish here in the open. We should have only about a hundred against us. We could beat them, with our guns against their spears. Even if we did not, it would be a man’s fight, and we would take some of them with us if we fell.”
“Bully for you!” broke in Patsy enthusiastically. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard to-day. Let’s get at them, chief! I feel fine to-day. I’ll take on three of them at the very beginning. Then I’ll lay them out by threes till the job is done. Gee! Wouldn’t it be a great——”
“Patsy!”
Nick Carter had raised a warning voice, and Patsy subsided.
“You see, sahib,” continued Jai Singh, still warm with his subject. “Inside those walls we should be as helpless as rats in a box. Let us fight while we can, I say.”
“In some ways you may be right, Jai Singh,” conceded Nick. “But we are here for a certain object, and I am going to see it through. We’ll get that man Pike, no matter how far into the city we have to go. If we fought out here, we never should get inside, whether we won or lost.”
“I’d be willing to let Pike go,” interrupted Jefferson Arnold, “if it is too dangerous to go in. Don’t bother about the money he stole. I can get along without that.”
“It is a matter of principle with me,” returned Nick shortly.