“Don’t overlook the odds against us. Our four coolies—who could be depended on to keep up their end in a mêlée when told to drive ahead—are prisoners somewhere in this place. Then Calaman has all our cartridges. We can’t do much for ourselves or for Leslie till we get hold of our ammunition.”
“We’ll get it,” declared Patsy, with his usual confidence.
“We’ve got to do it,” added Chick. “We are inside the walls of Shangore, and there is nothing for us but to fight. We got out before, and we can do it again. But, as you say, chief, we must find the cartridges.”
When they reached the courtyard of the palace, they found Calaman waiting for them, surrounded by more than a score of his saturnine guards.
“I am glad to see you have brought your death sticks with you,” was the priest’s greeting. “We will go to the public square, where you may show me again how the sticks kill at a distance.”
They marched through the streets of the city, and the white men were struck by the large numbers of people who were moving about, evidently in holiday dress.
Their garments were all of Eastern style, of course, but there was so many different cloths, cut into such varied designs, that Nick Carter told himself he had never seen a more striking sartorial display even on Fifth Avenue on a bright afternoon.
“You will not kill men for me with your stick, I suppose?” asked the priest, rather wistfully. “I could have three or four of them tied to those stakes over there, and your death sticks could be tried on them.”
This cold-blooded suggestion made Patsy grind his teeth.
Nick Carter shook his head, and answered that he certainly could not consent to do murder in that way.