Transcriber’s Notes:

The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been corrected.

NICK CARTER
STORIES

Issued Weekly. Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post Office, by Street & Smith, 79-89 Seventh Ave., New York.

Copyright, 1915, by Street & Smith. O.G. Smith and G.C. Smith, Proprietors.

Terms to NICK CARTER STORIES Mail Subscribers.

(Postage Free.)

Single Copies or Back Numbers, 5c. Each.

How to Send Money—By post-office or express money order, registered letter, bank check or draft, at our risk. At your own risk if sent by currency, coin, or postage stamps in ordinary letter.

Receipts—Receipt of your remittance is acknowledged by proper change of number on your label. If not correct you have not been properly credited, and should let us know at once.

No. 135. NEW YORK, April 10, 1915. Price Five Cents.

STRAIGHT TO THE GOAL;
Or, NICK CARTER’S QUEER CHALLENGE.

Edited by CHICKERING CARTER.

CHAPTER I.
THE MESSAGE OF THE SPEAR.

A spear shot into the midst of the camp, and stuck, quivering, in the ground!

Patsy Garvan and Chick jumped to their feet, rifle in hand, and looked inquiringly at Nick Carter.

The detective had not moved. He was sitting with his back against a rock, a cigar in his mouth, and silently contemplating the small fire that he had consented to have made.

When the spear came sailing over the bluff, at the foot of which was the little camp, he merely glanced at it, as if it were a rather curious visitor, but not one to cause untoward agitation.

There were other persons around the camp fire besides Nick Carter and his two assistants.

Jefferson Arnold, the millionaire shipowner of New York and Calcutta; Jai Singh, the high-caste Hindu, who had proved himself so valuable an ally to Nick Carter, and Adil, also an East Indian, the body servant of Jefferson Arnold’s son, Leslie, all were sitting there.

The men started up when the spear came sailing over the rocks and buried its heavy metal head in the ground just before them.

“That thing might have hit some of us,” cried Jefferson Arnold. “Better look out! There may be others.”

“I hardly think so,” was Nick Carter’s calm response. “That is a message only, unless I am much mistaken. Don’t you see there is something tied around the wooden shaft just below the head. Looks like a bit of cloth.”

He stepped forward, and, with a sharp tug, drew the spear from the hard earth. Then he unwound from it a silk necktie of a rather unusual pattern.

“It is Leslie’s!” shouted Jefferson Arnold wildly, as he held out his hand for the tie. “I never saw one like it except on my son. He had it on when we were in that city yonder.”

“I remember it,” answered Nick, looking at the curious combination of colors thoughtfully. “It struck me as unique, and yet in perfect taste. Still, probably there are others like it in the world.”

“Perhaps. But it isn’t likely others would have these initials embroidered on the back of it,” rejoined Jefferson. “See! ‘L.A.’ No, Carter, this is my boy’s necktie, and he is in the hands of those rapscallions over there.”

The father buried his face in his hands, and rocked to and fro convulsively.

“Well, even so, what is the meaning of the spear coming over the rocks like this?” asked Patsy.

“There can be only one meaning,” returned Nick Carter. “Calaman, the high priest of that strange city, Shangore, sends us this necktie to let us know he has Leslie Arnold a prisoner.”

“Why did we ever come away without making sure he was safe?” groaned Jefferson Arnold. “It was my fault. My boy will think we have deserted him.”

“No,” contradicted Nick. “He will know better than that. He will understand just how it was. In the darkness, when we escaped from that city, we thought he was with us. You will remember we had quite a tussle on the drawbridge, and got off only just in time. It looks now as if Leslie must have been caught when they pulled up the bridge.”

“I suppose so,” assented the millionaire. “But what are we going to do?” he wailed. “What do you suppose this message means? Do you think the necktie was sent just to taunt us?”

The agony of this usually self-contained man was pitiful.

An answer came in an unexpected way at this moment. Another spear dropped upon the rocks a little way off and lay flat. It had not been so skillfully discharged as the first one, but it also bore its message—this time in writing.

The characters were more like those of ancient Greece than the letters used by English-speaking people to-day, and the spelling was phonetic. But it was possible to make them out, with a little study.

“This says ‘You are all invited to Shangore,’” announced Nick Carter, after examining the note for a few minutes. “Here is a small sketch of the head and face of Calaman in the corner. In lieu of a signature, I suppose. It is written on some kind of parchment. Probably the people of Shangore have not mastered the art of making paper.”

“Many letters are written on skin of this kind,” remarked Jai Singh quietly, as he took the scrap of material from Nick Carter’s hand and rubbed it between his fingers. “And yet paper is made in many parts of India, too.”

“That is all unimportant,” interrupted Jefferson Arnold impatiently. “What are we going to do about it? How are we going to save my boy?”

“What do you want to do?” asked Nick.

“Go,” was the prompt reply.

“That’s what I say,” put in Patsy. “If Leslie is in that heathen city, we’ve got to get him out.”

“It may mean death, remember, Patsy!” suggested Nick Carter.

His impulsive young assistant actually jumped in the air and cracked his heels together, as one of his ancestors might have done at Donnybrook Fair, generations before, when a challenge was thrown out to them.

“What do we care for that?” howled Patsy. “We’ll make it hot for them first. Anyhow, I don’t think it would mean death or anything like that. But we’ve got to get Leslie Arnold.”

Jefferson Arnold reached across to shake hands with Patsy.

“Well, let us look over the situation dispassionately before we take action,” suggested Nick. “We cannot hide from ourselves that Calaman is a cunning and powerful personage, and that his control of the people of that city, where they worship the Golden Scarab, is complete.”

“I just want to get my fingers on that old geezer’s throat if he has hurt Leslie,” muttered Patsy.

“When we went into Shangore yesterday with Calaman and his guards, it was as his guest,” continued Nick. “We found the rascal Pike, who had stolen a hundred thousand dollars from the Arnold Company in Calcutta, and who had taken refuge in Shangore, because he did not think any one could trace him there.”

“That was reasonable enough for him to think,” commented Chick. “Shangore, the capital city of Bolongu, is right over here, in the Himalayas, in a region where few white men have penetrated in many centuries.”

“I don’t believe any have been here till now,” put in Jai Singh, as he looked up from polishing his spearhead with a cloth he had taken from his garments. “At least, not for more than two or three hundred years.”

“That’s as it may be,” observed Nick Carter. “Anyhow, we all know that it was the intention of Calaman to hold us as prisoners, and perhaps to kill us all eventually. That was why we got out.”

“The only thing there was for us to do,” growled Jefferson Arnold.

“Now he is trying to entice us in again,” said Chick. “How do we know Leslie Arnold is in the city?”

“Here is his necktie, sent over to us on a spear,” Nick reminded him.

“Well, what of that? Leslie may have dropped it.”

“No,” interposed Jefferson Arnold. “I saw that necktie tightly knotted around his neck as we came over the drawbridge. It could not have come off accidentally. The only way old Calaman could have got hold of it was by having it taken from the boy’s neck. Leslie is a prisoner in Shangore.”

“That is my reading of it,” agreed Nick Carter. “We shall have to go and get him out.”

“I don’t see how we’re going to do that, even if we get into the city,” remarked Jai Singh. “Those thick walls and the gates that no one can pass must be kept in mind.”

Arnold looked at the tall, dignified Hindu resentfully.

“What are you croaking about, Jai Singh? It isn’t like you to hold back when there is to be some fighting. Why do you oppose our going back to Shangore?”

“I do not oppose it, sahib,” replied Jai Singh, with dignity. “I need not tell that I am ready to fight. My spear is sharp and my arm strong. Besides, I have learned to use the revolver I carry in my sash. But I know of the danger that is behind the walls of Shangore, and it is not well that you should forget it, either.”

“We do not forget it,” put in Nick Carter. “But we have to bring Leslie Arnold away, and we must take whatever risks there are. Jai Singh, will you make them understand that we will go back?”

Jai Singh bowed in acquiescence, and, picking up his spear, was about to go down the pass through the rocks that led to the valley, on the opposite side of which the towers and roofs of Shangore glistened in the early-morning sun.

“Wait,” ordered Nick. “Where are you going?”

“To the cliff beyond, where the men in the valley can see me.”

“I understand. You will give them a sign that they will understand. Well, tell them we will come at once.”

Jai Singh bowed again, and disappeared, while Nick Carter turned to give a few last words of advice to those with him.

“We have been here all night,” he began, “and we are rested. We have had a good breakfast, and are strong enough to fight.”

“You bet!” threw in Patsy Garvan energetically.

“It isn’t likely we shall be called on to do anything of the kind at first,” went on Nick. “But we shall have to use our brains if we are to come through this enterprise in safety, and also bring Leslie Arnold with us.”

“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.”

CHAPTER II.
SHARPSHOOTING.

When they walked across the drawbridge at the nearest of the four great gates of the city, and passed under the portcullis, escorted by a dozen of the guards of the high priest Calaman, the latter came forward with a smile and bade them welcome.

“Isn’t he the limit?” muttered Patsy. “Any one would think we were friends of his.”

Nick Carter gave Patsy a warning look, and addressed Calaman in calm, firm tones:

“Whether we are welcome or not, Calaman, is not of so much importance as to know whether you are prepared to deliver to us the white man you have in Shangore.”

“My son!” broke in Jefferson Arnold. “That’s whom we want.”

Calaman held up his hands with a deprecating gesture, as he smiled.

“My white brothers might know that I would not ask them to come back unless I had something to offer that would please them,” he exclaimed. “We did not understand each other before, and that was why there was fighting and death, when all I desired was peace and good feeling.”

“Old liar!” murmured Chick.

“Your former apartments in the palace are ready for you,” continued the priest. “Will you honor me by taking possession? I will send you food and wine. You need them after your journey. After that, we will go to the public square.”

“Why?” asked the detective.

“This is the day of the Festival of the Golden Scarab,” was the reply. “We ask you to take part in the celebration by showing us again how the death sticks do their work. Will you not do it?”

“Where is the white man we want—he who is the son of my friend, here?”

Nick Carter was resolved not to be turned aside from the main purpose of their coming, persistently as the wily priest endeavored to lead the conversation into other channels.

“He shall be delivered to you in good time,” answered Calaman. “In the meanwhile, you have my assurance that he is well and enjoying treatment such as you would desire.”

They had to be content with this for the time being.

“We shall be ready in half an hour,” Nick Carter announced abruptly, as he walked away to the apartments they had occupied before.

Calaman was as good as his word in reference to the meal he had mentioned, and though they had had a frugal breakfast already up in the rocks, they were quite willing to attack the well-served repast provided for them now.

In exactly half an hour two soldiers came to the door and made deep salaams.

“Very well!” was Nick Carter’s response to this silent notification. “Lead on!”

As they filed out of the room, Chick remarked, in a low tone, as he glanced back at the remains of the meal on the table:

“We’ve got to hand it to the old man for the square meal he puts up. I don’t know what we’ve been eating, but it was as good as anything I ever got in New York.”

Jai Singh snorted rather derisively.

“In my part of the country,” he boomed, “when we feed guests, we provide fat sheep, which are roasted over a very hot fire, and put before those who eat, with rice, raisins, and many fruits that are gathered for the occasion.”

“It looks to me as if these people intend us to be the sheep this time,” smiled Nick Carter. “They intend to roast us over a hot fire—if we let them.”

“That’s right,” chuckled Patsy. “If we let them. Gee! There’s going to be a hot time in their old town to-day, and we’ll be fixing the fire.”

Nothing could repress Patsy Garvan’s bubbling spirits at the prospect of a battle. He liked fighting for its own sake.

The possibility of his being beaten never occurred to Patsy. That was the reason he was nearly always on the winning side.

The two tall guards, carrying their spears in military fashion, and never looking behind, were several yards in front. Nick Carter turned and addressed all the members of his little band:

“Don’t overlook the odds against us. Our four coolies—who could be depended on to keep up their end in a mêlée when told to drive ahead—are prisoners somewhere in this place. Then Calaman has all our cartridges. We can’t do much for ourselves or for Leslie till we get hold of our ammunition.”

“We’ll get it,” declared Patsy, with his usual confidence.

“We’ve got to do it,” added Chick. “We are inside the walls of Shangore, and there is nothing for us but to fight. We got out before, and we can do it again. But, as you say, chief, we must find the cartridges.”

When they reached the courtyard of the palace, they found Calaman waiting for them, surrounded by more than a score of his saturnine guards.

“I am glad to see you have brought your death sticks with you,” was the priest’s greeting. “We will go to the public square, where you may show me again how the sticks kill at a distance.”

They marched through the streets of the city, and the white men were struck by the large numbers of people who were moving about, evidently in holiday dress.

Their garments were all of Eastern style, of course, but there was so many different cloths, cut into such varied designs, that Nick Carter told himself he had never seen a more striking sartorial display even on Fifth Avenue on a bright afternoon.

“You will not kill men for me with your stick, I suppose?” asked the priest, rather wistfully. “I could have three or four of them tied to those stakes over there, and your death sticks could be tried on them.”

This cold-blooded suggestion made Patsy grind his teeth.

Nick Carter shook his head, and answered that he certainly could not consent to do murder in that way.

“Well, I felt sure of that,” returned the priest. “So I have something else for you. Look!”

Nick Carter shuddered as he gazed at the gruesome object at which Calaman pointed.

Between two stakes driven into the ground was strung a long rope. In the middle of the rope was a cord hanging down a little way, and on the end of it was the shriveled head of a human being.

The head had been embalmed, dried, and treated in the secret way known to the people of this strange country, and was not bigger than a good-sized orange.

There it hung, swaying gently to and fro in the slight breeze, occasionally spinning around, as if it were inspecting everything in the square in its own mysterious, grim way.

“Can you hit that with your death stick?” asked the priest.

“Yes,” was Nick’s prompt reply.

“Even while it moves a little?”

“Yes.”

“Gee! I wouldn’t have said that,” grumbled Patsy, in a low tone. “You might as well have had it as easy as you could get it.”

“Then let my white brothers raise their sticks and do it,” directed Calaman, stepping back a little.

“One moment!” called out the detective. “Before we can use our sticks, we must have those little brass cases that you took from us when we were here before.”

Two of the heavy boxes containing cartridges which had come into possession of the priest when Nick and his party had been in the city on the previous day were on the ground, and Nick had seen them.

“Break open that box!” ordered Calaman, pointing to the one he meant.

One of the guards, with his spear, pried off the lid. Nick Carter at once took one of the smaller boxes in the outer case and stuffed it into one of his outside pockets.

The small box contained two hundred and fifty cartridges.

“Get some!” he directed his comrades laconically.

Chick, Patsy, Jefferson Arnold, Adil, and Jai Singh all obeyed. Each was soon well supplied with cartridges, while the big box was practically empty.

Calaman regarded them suspiciously as they grabbed the cartridges. But he did not say anything. Doubtless he felt that he had the whole party in his power, and he could afford to let them have all of these little brass things they wanted.

“First trick to us!” mumbled Jefferson. “And my rifle magazine is plumb full, as well. We’ll make the old scalawag sit up before we’re through with him. Let ’er go, Carter!”

The detective dropped to one knee, and seemingly without taking careful aim, sent three shots at the swinging head.

Crack! crack! crack!

Every bullet had struck the head and was embedded in it. The process of drying and embalming had given it a toughness which permitted the bullets to sink in, without cracking or destroying its shape.

“Holy mackerel!” muttered Patsy Garvan. “That’s a sickening thing. But the chief plugged it, all the same.”

The detective got up and brushed his knee with his hand.

“Go and see for yourself,” he said to the priest. “I have used three of these little cases, and you will find a bit of lead in that skull for each one. Had three of your guards been standing there, I could have killed them as easily as I hit that head.”

Calaman, accompanied by two of his guards, walked across the open space to the swinging head—it was rather more than two hundred yards from where Nick Carter had stood to shoot—and examined it closely.

The three bullets were there. The priest could see them plainly. There had been no deception by the white man with the death stick.

“Stay there, Calaman!” called out Nick. “Stand three paces to the right of the head, and watch. The death sticks will do more than you have already seen.”

The priest did as he was told, with a wondering expression in his deep-set dark eyes. The detective turned to Chick, and spoke in low, earnest tones:

“Blaze away at it, Chick. And be sure to hit it squarely in the middle, if you can.”

“I can do it,” replied Chick. “I’ll drive my first bullet farther in with two others. How will that do?”

“Capital, if you can manage it. I want to teach that old heathen a lesson that will make him wonder where it is going to stop.”

Nick Carter was pumping fresh cartridges into his own magazine as he spoke. There should be no chance of his being caught with an unloaded rifle while he had ammunition within reach, at all events.

“I can manage it,” grunted Chick, as he took careful aim. “I’m glad I’ve always kept up swinging-target practice. At some of those shooting galleries in New York they have me barred out,” he added, with a grin.

“Wait a moment!” roared Calaman. “I’ll come away while you are using your death sticks. They might go the wrong way.”

“There’s no danger if you don’t move,” Nick Carter called back to him. “Tell your guards to keep away.” Then, to Chick: “Now, old man, show them what you have.”

The guards moved away in a hurry, glad of the excuse to get out of what seemed to them a very dangerous situation. But Calaman stuck to his place. There was no cowardice in the old priest.

Chick was as good as his word.

Calaman involuntarily lifted his hands in astonishment as he saw that there was only one fresh hole, but that it went far into the skull—so nearly through, that some of the sand with which it was tightly stuffed filtered out at the back.

The priest turned toward the white men, just as Nick Carter spoke again, in a loud tone, as a new idea came to him.

“Stand where you are,” he requested of Calaman. “I’ll show you that the death stick can be made to strike closely without hurting anybody when we ask it to do so.”

Calaman stood still, as if he did not quite understand what was meant. Then Nick fired three shots so quickly that they sounded like the roll of a drum—one to the right, one to the left, and another a foot above the head of the priest. All three bullets just shaved him.

As the detective held up a hand and smiled, to indicate that it was all over, Calaman stalked toward him. He was outwardly calm, whatever may have been his thoughts. The old fellow was a past master in hiding his emotions.

“You held my life in your hands,” he said. “I saw that each of those little metal cases meant death, and I heard the whir as they passed by my head. Now, show me how to use them, and perhaps I will let the white man you seek go free. Besides, I may give you all many presents.”

“You say ‘perhaps’ you will let our friend, the white man in your city, go free,” rejoined Nick Carter. “Do you forget that you promised he should be delivered to us? Also you said that there was no enmity between us. I am showing you how we use our death sticks. I would not do that for one whom I believed to be an enemy.”

Calaman smiled inscrutably, and his dark eyes were almost hidden in their sockets for an instant. He looked the incarnation of cunning and malevolence.

“Show it all to me, and your friend shall go free to-night, in honor of the feast of the Golden Scarab,” he promised smoothly.

“Very well,” replied Nick Carter. But he was not blinded in the least by the priest’s sudden acquiescence.

“He doesn’t mean to do it,” whispered Patsy. “He isn’t on the level, and I know it.”

“Of course he isn’t,” returned Nick. “But don’t talk. We shall win in the end.”

“You bet!” breathed Patsy Garvan confidently.

CHAPTER III.
NICK FINDS A NEW FRIEND.

“I should like to try one of the death sticks,” declared the priest persuasively. “Could you show me how to do it?”

This was a feeler that the detective knew meant mischief if the priest were able to follow it up. But there was no way of blocking the game just then. So Nick seemed to accept it with perfect good humor.

“This is a white man’s weapon,” he warned Calaman, as he held up the rifle for inspection. “You may try it. But sometimes it will hurt those who do not understand it.”

“I will take the risk,” was Calaman’s dogged response.

“Very well. Then you place a cartridge in the breech in this way,” explained Nick, as he illustrated with Jai Singh’s rifle, which he had taken from the tall Hindu’s hand.

While showing the priest how the cartridge was put in, Nick had slyly driven the muzzle of the weapon into the sand at his feet, plugging the barrel very badly.

“I see,” observed Calaman. “Is that all?”

“Not quite. You place this end of the stick against your shoulder, to hold it firm. Then you press your finger against this bit of steel. When you do that there will be a loud noise, and the bit of lead, like those you saw in that dried head, will fly out and strike anything that may be in the way.”

Calaman listened intently. Then he took the rifle in his hands with the joy of a child in handling a new toy.

Under Nick Carter’s guidance, he placed the butt against his shoulder, and pulled the trigger.

The detective had said there would be a loud noise.

There was. The plugged rifle came near bursting, and the recoil knocked Calaman backward in a most undignified somersault, with a badly bruised shoulder and half stunned.

“I told you it was a white man’s weapon,” chuckled the detective, “and dangerous to those who did not understand it. You are not hurt?”

The priest did not reply to the question. He was scowling wickedly, as he got up, with the assistance of two of his guards, and rubbed his shoulder.

Patsy Garvan could not repress his mirth. He let out a loud snort of enjoyment before Chick could stop it, and then had to get behind the others to recover himself.

Calaman appeared not to notice all this disturbance. But there is no doubt that he knew all about it, and privately resolved to punish Mr. Garvan in his own good time.

“You have shown me things, white man,” he purred, in his mildest manner as he turned to Nick Carter. “Now I will show you that which none of your race have seen before. Follow me!”

In a low tone he gave instructions to the captain of his guard. At once a number of them formed into column and marched on ahead, while a few remained behind, as bodyguard for the priest.

“Come!” requested Calaman.

As the little party of strangers marched through the streets behind their priestly conductor, Nick Carter noticed that there was some sort of suppressed excitement among the teeming populace.

Angry murmurs arose, and now and again stones and garbage were flung from somewhere.

At first Nick and his companions thought the missiles were intended for them. Soon, however, they saw that they were mistaken.

From a house on their right there suddenly dashed a man, naked to the waist, who was brandishing a short, heavy-bladed sword, and who seemed to be frantic with fury.

With a shriek of rage, he flew at the captain of the guard, and, with one slashing cut, killed the man.

That was not all. He swept right and left with his formidable sword, and down went two more soldiers.

It was over in a second, and the maniacal slayer seemed to be looking around for new victims.

“Good!” ejaculated Jai Singh. “There is a man! Quick as a panther! And how he can strike! He went clean through the skull and halfway through the shoulder before his blade turned.”

Jai Singh had become suddenly filled with the blood fury that always lay a little below the surface in him, and he would have dashed forward with his spear, to fight anybody or anything, if Nick Carter had not held him back.

“Stop!” he commanded in the Hindu’s ear, in stern tones. “This is not our business. Keep out! We shall have enough fighting before we are through. I’ll tell you when to use your spear.”

Jai Singh panted with eagerness to get into the fray.

“But, sahib,” he returned, in a hoarse murmur, “if I could stand back to back with that man for a few moments—he with that sword of his, and I with my spear—there would be a fight that you would like to see. We two could eat up the whole guard of the old priest, and do what we liked in Shangore!”

Nick Carter only waved his hand, and gradually Jai Singh subsided.

The strength and agility of the man who had run amuck were amazing. He escaped from the ring of spears that hedged him in, seemingly by a miracle. His sword flashed up and down, finding its mark each time. He might have been invincible.

Numbers told at last, however. As the man’s arm tired, a spear was thrust into his chest. He sprang back, with a roar of rage, and flourished his sword valiantly. But it was no use. Another spear was embedded between his shoulder blades from behind, and he dropped—dead.

The body was picked up and flung carelessly aside, the dead and wounded guards were carried into a house near by, and the procession moved on as if there had been no interruption.

Calaman had looked on impassively throughout the whole incident, but Nick Carter could make out indications of cold, black rage working within him. Also he noted the scowls of the populace and a certain fidgeting of some of the soldiers in his vicinity.

One man in particular, whose rather elaborate uniform proclaimed him to be an officer, showed that he was disgusted with the tragedy that had just taken place, and that he blamed others than the wretched victims.

This officer was a fine-looking man, with well-cut, high-bred features, while his black eyes appeared to look through anything upon which they might chance to be fixed.

It was evident that he found it hard to restrain himself while the poor, demented creature was struggling with the guard. Once or twice he fingered his sword hilt. At such times his piercing eyes were fixed upon Calaman, while his black brows met in a menacing frown.

He caught Nick Carter’s eye, and at once there was an understanding between the two men.

“Why are such things allowed, my friend?” asked Nick.

“Because that fiend there, Calaman, and his under-priests, rule the land,” was the savage reply, in an undertone. “They have the power and the secret of the Golden Scarab. The people cry out and complain. But that is all. They are superstitious, and they have never understood what the Golden Scarab is, or how it controls their destinies.”

“Sounds like the worst kind of bunk,” muttered Patsy to Chick. “I’d put my foot on this Scarab thing, if I lived here.”

“Hush!” returned Chick. “Let’s hear what this man has to say.”

“The priests rule everything in Bolongu, and particularly in this city of Shangore,” went on the officer to Nick Carter. “Meanwhile we, the nobles, and the rightful rulers of the land, have to pretend that we are loyal to these same priests and that we follow their bidding because we like it.”

“There is a nobility in Bolongu, then?” asked the detective.

“As old as any in the world,” was the proud reply. “Look you! That man who rushed out of the house, with his bare sword, and who has just been prodded to death, was of royal blood, a cousin of Prince Tillo. Yet, because he was suspected of plotting against the priesthood, his wife is condemned to die to-day by the Scarab.”

“Die by the Scarab? What does that mean?”

“You will see,” was the enigmatical answer. “It will be this afternoon. Be careful, stranger, you walk a dangerous path! You have strange powers, as I have seen with my own eyes. Yet Calaman is cunning and will lay a trap for you. Even now you may be standing within reach of the claws of the Golden Scarab.”

“What is the Golden Scarab I have heard so much about?” asked the detective. “Surely a strong man like yourself, with a sword that no doubt you know how to wield, could kill it—that is, if there is such a thing as this Scarab, and it is not some fairy tale for children!”

“Wait till this afternoon. I’ll try and have more talk with you then. Calaman is watching us now. When the people are gathered in the amphitheater over there this afternoon, the white man you seek is to be brought out to die the death of the Scarab!”

Horror-stricken as Nick Carter was when he heard this, he was glad the officer had spoken so softly that only he had heard the words. Particularly he was pleased that they had not reached the ears of Jefferson Arnold. If they had, nothing could have prevented the peppery old millionaire flinging himself at once upon Calaman and his guards in an endeavor to save his son.

Such an attack could not but have been unsuccessful just then.

“You say the white man is to die this afternoon?” murmured Nick Carter.

“Yes, but not until some others who are condemned have been disposed of.”

“But—this must not be,” exclaimed Nick, in the same low tone, but with the fire of determination blazing in his gray eyes. “This young man is the son of one of the most powerful and wealthiest men in the big country from which I come—America. You have heard of it?”

“Of course I have,” returned the officer. “Who has not? But if this young white man is to be saved, it must be by your own endeavors. There is one thing more,” he added, after a short pause: “If I can help in any way, I will. Perhaps I can. But no more words. Calaman is beckoning.”

CHAPTER IV.
HOW CALAMAN KEPT HIS WORD

“Whom does he want? You?” asked the detective.

“I think not. He seems to be looking at you. Go!”

“One moment!” begged Nick Carter. “Do you know Calaman very well? Is he your friend or an enemy?”

“Outwardly we are on good terms,” was the answer. “But who can trust Calaman? He trusts me, I believe, because once I did him a service—it matters not what. But if once he got an inkling of a suspicion, even now, at the last hour, neither you nor I would see the sun sink below those hills to-night. Now go, before he gets suspicious.”

Nick Carter strode over to the priest, apparently unconcerned, but with every sense on the alert.

“Stranger! Accompany me!” came from Calaman. “You shall see to-day something you could never have anticipated.”

“I believe that,” was Nick Carter’s quiet response.

They had reached the steps of the temple. It was a magnificent structure, built with the architectural skill of any American or European pile of its kind. It seemed to be of the finest marble, and the great dome was covered with thin sheets of beaten gold that glistened in the sun as if it were afire.

On the lower steps the guard halted. Calaman, accompanied by all of Nick Carter’s party—except Captain, Nick Carter’s splendid bloodhound, who had trotted along modestly at their heels throughout all their peregrinations, without trying to force himself into notice, paused.

He gave a sign to the guards, and one of them took Captain by his massive collar.

If Chick had not spoken a few words to the bloodhound on the instant, the soldier never could have retained his grip. But when Chick told the dog to go with him and be quiet, he obeyed with the docility that was one of his predominant characteristics.

Once inside the temple, Nick Carter was struck by the coolness, in contrast with the stifling heat outside.

“Seems like a fine building,” remarked Chick.

“Nothing slow about this!” muttered Patsy. “Reminds me of the Pennsylvania Station in New York.”

It was a minute or two before their eyes became accustomed to the gloom.

As they began to distinguish their surroundings, Chick observed softly that he understood now what was meant by “dim, religious light.”

The party had just time to note that the interior of the temple was quite the equal in beauty and impressiveness to the outside, when the clang of heavy, metal-sheathed doors sounded behind them, the echoes repeating themselves indefinitely.

Then things began to happen quickly.

White-robed priests seemed to rise from the floor on every side of them, and, before they could raise a hand to defend themselves, each member of the party was pounced upon by half a dozen men, who bound their arms behind their back.

It is not to be supposed that the captives submitted without a battle.

Patsy Garvan, uttering defiances thick and fast, lashed out his feet at the bare legs of the priests, and left many a mark on their shins that they carried for weeks and months.

“Just give me one of my hands!” howled Patsy. “That’s all I want—one! I’ll lick ten of these fellows with the other, and I’ll bet on it. Just give me one hand!”

There was no response to this, and soon Patsy was as helpless as a dressed duck.

Nick Carter had been fighting desperately, and for a moment it looked as if he might even get the better of his assailants. He butted one of them under the chin and sent him crashing backward upon the marble floor.

“Come on, Chick! Use your gun!” he shouted.

But there were too many men against the party.

Even as the detective called to his assistant, the loop of a rope was thrown over his head, and catching him around the waist, pinned his arms to his sides, and brought him back with a jerk, panting and furious.

Everybody in the party was a prisoner by this time, and Nick Carter’s busy brain was working to devise a way of escape.

That was his way always when in a tight fix. He never wasted time bewailing his fate, but used all his wits in seeking relief.

A chuckling laugh that he recognized as coming from Calaman made him turn his face in that direction.

“Calaman!” he called.

“I am here.”

“What does this mean?”

“Part of the ceremony, my dear white stranger,” replied the high priest’s voice. “That is all.”

There was another stifled chuckle, as if Calaman were enjoying the situation too much for mere words.

It had been a trap carefully prepared, and Nick Carter was obliged to admit that it had worked to perfection.

“You will pay for this, Calaman,” he said sternly.

“I am willing to pay for anything I want,” was the calm reply.

“You promised to show us the city,” continued Nick. “And to release the white man you have as prisoner. That was to be the payment for our showing you how the death sticks work.”

The high priest did not try to repress a sneering laugh as he stepped in front of Nick Carter.

“I have not said yet that I will not let the white man go,” Calaman reminded the detective.

“Why have you worked this outrage on us?” demanded Nick Carter. “Less than half an hour ago I held your life in my hands, as you know. Yet I did you no harm with my death stick.”

“I wish you or Chick had put half a dozen bullets into the old rip,” observed Jefferson Arnold.

Calaman glanced at the millionaire with a scowl that promised no good to that impetuous gentleman. Then he turned again to Nick Carter, with a cunning smile, as he fingered his long gray beard.

“I know I made some such promise,” he purred, smiling. “And, behold, I am keeping my word to the letter. I promised you free entrance to the city—and you are here. I promised to entertain you as my guests, and I sent you food and wine and the choicest tobacco to smoke.”

“That’s true enough,” muttered Jefferson. “He’s as cunning as a rat. Oh, wait till I get out of these ropes! If I don’t choke him till his eyes pop out——”

“You see,” continued the priest steadily, “I’ve done everything I promised. You asked to see the city, and even now you stand in its most noble building. As to the other white prisoner—the one who was caught as he tried to break through my guards last night—I promised that you should see and have speech with him. So you shall—this afternoon, in the arena of the Golden Scarab, before you all shall die with him.”

He laughed malignantly and glanced at the bonds of his prisoners, as if to assure himself they were secure.

“You are not ashamed of such vile treachery?” asked Nick Carter, his eyes flashing in disgust.

“All is fair in diplomacy and war, my stranger friend,” was the cool answer. “I know enough of the outside world to be aware that that truth is accepted everywhere. Besides, I have kept faith with you in every particular.”

“This looks like it.”

“This state of things was brought on by yourselves,” snarled Calaman. “You were unwise enough to boast to me that in those metal cases of yours you held the lives of two thousand men. If your words be true—and, frankly, I believe they are—surely I should be foolish to give you your liberty, or to leave you even now with such weapons in your hands.”

“You contemptible old fraud!” burst out Nick. “You shall pay for this. We are not dead men yet.”

“You will be before sundown.”

The priest snapped this at the detective. Then he signed to his guards to seize the rifles and the spear that Jai Singh carried, and which the Hindu never before had allowed out of his hands, even when he had a rifle as well.