“Stop, Jai Singh!”
He swung around, to see that Nick Carter had rushed into the arena and was facing Calaman with a half smile on his strong features.
“Your spear, Jai Singh!” ordered the detective, extending his hand.
Wonderingly, the Hindu placed the weapon in Nick Carter’s fingers, and looked at him inquiringly.
“Go back to the others,” Nick told him, in a low voice that no one else overheard. “Be ready for any attack that may come. Understand?”
Jai Singh made a low salaam, and, without looking again in the direction of Calaman, strode across the sand and into the tunnel from which he had emerged.
Calaman had not been able to repress a start when Nick Carter suddenly came into view and looked at him defiantly.
The priest had been so much occupied with Jai Singh that he had not seen whence the detective came. The first intimation he had of Nick’s presence was when the intrepid American stood before him, taking Jai Singh’s spear from his hand.
It was inexplicable to Calaman that Carter should be free and in the amphitheater so soon after he was known to be a bound captive in one of the dark dungeons of the temple.
The escape had been discovered some time before, and two priests had been trying in vain to trace the fugitives. Now here was this white man, quite at his ease, and without any bonds on him, prepared to demand speech with the most powerful man in Shangore, the great priest, Calaman!