“He has a strong constitution,” pleaded Nick Carter.
“Of course he has, or he wouldn’t be alive now,” snapped Sloane. “But if he moves before next week, at the earliest—well, the consequences be on his own head.”
Without waiting for a reply, Doctor Sloane marched out of the house to his motor car, and was gone.
Nick Carter went back to the sick room and gazed thoughtfully at the flushed face and tossing head on the pillow. As he looked, a thought revolved in his mind which he admitted to be audacious, but which would not be banished, no matter how outrageous it might seem.
“What do doctors know about affairs of state?” suddenly burst from the injured man’s impatient lips, as he turned his eyes, bright with fever, upon the detective. “If I start on that nine-o’clock train to-night, I can make good connections, and get down to Joyalita in time to beat those wretches. You will help me, Carter, won’t you?”
“I will certainly try to bring to justice the men who tried to murder you,” replied Nick Carter. “Don Solado, your prime minister of state——”
“A treacherous old rascal!” put in Marcos.
“Of course he is,” assented Nick. “And your cousin, Prince Miguel, who would like to step into your shoes as ruler of your country. He and Solado are both interested in preventing your reaching Joyalita. Whether they would kill you to keep you away remains to be seen.”
“I am convinced they would. I feel sure that one of them fired that shot at me. Or, if he did not actually do it himself, he hired one of those thugs, who can be procured in any large city, to do it for him.”
“It comes to the same thing,” remarked Nick Carter.