The second victim, who looked a great deal like the first, was disposed of by the Scarab in about the same way as the other, except that it was done in rather less time.
The awful creature had gone back to its retreat, while the body of its victim was taken out, before the spectators had time to take in all the details of the encounter.
The third man proved to be of tougher metal than his two predecessors. Obviously he was a natural-born fighter.
When he was pushed into the arena by the attendants, his shoulders humped and a look of savage determination in his pale eyes, there was a general feeling that he would be more interesting than the other two men who had been disposed of so quickly.
This fellow kept his gaze on the ground for the most part. Soon it was seen why he did this. He was looking for missiles to use against his uncanny foe.
He picked up a pebble here, a lump of rock there, and an odd piece of metal somewhere else.
He huddled them up in his left arm against his body, keeping his right hand free to hurl them when the time should come.
It soon did come. The Golden Scarab came out of its gateway faster than before, making straight for the desperate being it was expected to destroy.
The man sent two big stones, but the Scarab seemed to be incased in such a hard shell that stones would not hurt it. Instead, it rushed forward with greater fury than ever.
It was a curious battle, and to Nick Carter it seemed as if it did not belong to this age at all. The man, in his strange garments—what there were of them—the Golden Scarab, looking like nothing that the detective ever had seen before, and yet so full of life and activity, and then the massed people, yelling in delight at the imminent fate of a fellow being!