“We put a lot of their soldiers out of business in that scrap we had with them last night,” observed Chick. “It would be bad if Calaman decided to revenge himself upon us for their loss.”
“No fear of that,” put in Adil, the young Hindu, speaking for the first time. “Calaman thinks nothing of the lives of his men. As he has said to us, they are his slaves, and he can do what he likes with them. He may be sorry to lose their services, but he never would think of avenging them. They are not important enough, in his eyes.”
“There’s truth in that, Adil,” assented Nick Carter. “We have seen how he caused the death of one of his guards just because he stumbled and dropped a package he was carrying. No, I dare say he will pretend to be friendly with us, as if there never had been a fight.”
“He’s a sly old rascal,” snorted Jefferson Arnold. “But we’ll beat him yet. We’ve got to do it. We shall be taking a big chance going into that walled city of his, but I’ve got to save my boy, at any risk.”
“We will start,” announced Nick Carter. “Jai Singh has delivered our answer by this time.”
There was no particular preparation required before they went on. The rifles they had laid by their sides were picked up, and the few fragments of biscuits that had not been devoured were placed in their pockets with the whole ones that Nick Carter’s forethought had caused them all to carry with them.
“We have no ammunition,” observed Nick. “But we must get hold of some of those cartridges of ours that they took from us as soon as we are well within Shangore. I will get the old fellow to let me show him how we use these ‘death sticks,’ as he calls them.”
They marched through the crooked pass between the towering walls of rocks, and came suddenly upon Jai Singh, who was waving his spear about so that a number of men who stood in the valley, looking up, could see his movements without difficulty.
“I have told them,” said Jai Singh coolly. “We can go down at once.”
“Very well, Jai Singh,” returned the detective. “Come on, everybody. And remember, Patsy,” he added to his second assistant, “I will do the talking.”