There was a desperate fight when they tried to take away the spear.
Jai Singh had a superstitious regard for his favorite weapon, and bound though he was, he gave the guards such a tussle that one of them had a great gash in his arm before he could tear the spear out of its owner’s grasp.
“Look around you, my stranger guests,” said Calaman, when the struggle was over. “This is the Temple of the Golden Scarab, and those you see in their places on the walls are his victims. He claims a certain number once every year at the coming of the full moon. Look!”
They saw that the vast circular walls were faced by serried tiers of niches, in each of which was a mummified, headless form, wrapped in beaten gold.
Over each mummy was a horrible shrunken head in a smaller niche.
There were hundreds and hundreds of them, tier upon tier.
“These are only the noble born of the Scarab’s victims,” explained Calaman. “The common herd are flung into the lake, where the alligators get them. That empty place over there, on the farthest wall, is for the Prince Tillo, whose body was prepared by one of our medicine men in a cave in the hills.”
“We saw that,” put in Nick Carter, almost before he knew he had spoken. “It was an awful sight.”
The priest laughed.
“You are oversensitive, stranger. I was going to say that Prince Tillo was a great man and powerful—too powerful, for his removal caused some discontent among the people. That is partly why I wanted those sticks of yours. If the discontent should rise to a head, it would be difficult to deal with them.”