“You see,” continued the priest steadily, “I’ve done everything I promised. You asked to see the city, and even now you stand in its most noble building. As to the other white prisoner—the one who was caught as he tried to break through my guards last night—I promised that you should see and have speech with him. So you shall—this afternoon, in the arena of the Golden Scarab, before you all shall die with him.”
He laughed malignantly and glanced at the bonds of his prisoners, as if to assure himself they were secure.
“You are not ashamed of such vile treachery?” asked Nick Carter, his eyes flashing in disgust.
“All is fair in diplomacy and war, my stranger friend,” was the cool answer. “I know enough of the outside world to be aware that that truth is accepted everywhere. Besides, I have kept faith with you in every particular.”
“This looks like it.”
“This state of things was brought on by yourselves,” snarled Calaman. “You were unwise enough to boast to me that in those metal cases of yours you held the lives of two thousand men. If your words be true—and, frankly, I believe they are—surely I should be foolish to give you your liberty, or to leave you even now with such weapons in your hands.”
“You contemptible old fraud!” burst out Nick. “You shall pay for this. We are not dead men yet.”
“You will be before sundown.”
The priest snapped this at the detective. Then he signed to his guards to seize the rifles and the spear that Jai Singh carried, and which the Hindu never before had allowed out of his hands, even when he had a rifle as well.