The detective dropped to one knee, and seemingly without taking careful aim, sent three shots at the swinging head.
Crack! crack! crack!
Every bullet had struck the head and was embedded in it. The process of drying and embalming had given it a toughness which permitted the bullets to sink in, without cracking or destroying its shape.
“Holy mackerel!” muttered Patsy Garvan. “That’s a sickening thing. But the chief plugged it, all the same.”
The detective got up and brushed his knee with his hand.
“Go and see for yourself,” he said to the priest. “I have used three of these little cases, and you will find a bit of lead in that skull for each one. Had three of your guards been standing there, I could have killed them as easily as I hit that head.”
Calaman, accompanied by two of his guards, walked across the open space to the swinging head—it was rather more than two hundred yards from where Nick Carter had stood to shoot—and examined it closely.
The three bullets were there. The priest could see them plainly. There had been no deception by the white man with the death stick.
“Stay there, Calaman!” called out Nick. “Stand three paces to the right of the head, and watch. The death sticks will do more than you have already seen.”
The priest did as he was told, with a wondering expression in his deep-set dark eyes. The detective turned to Chick, and spoke in low, earnest tones: