CHAPTER VIII.
THROWING DOWN THE GAUNTLET.
A loud fanfare on a trumpet echoed across the amphitheater, and into the narrow corridor whence Nick Carter and his companions were looking into the arena.
“Fish!” ejaculated Patsy Garvan, with a pitiful attempt at facetiousness.
“Keep quiet, Patsy,” reproved Chick. “This is no time to be funny.”
“Listen!” whispered Nick Carter sternly.
There was another trumpet blast, and then the voice of Calaman was heard, somewhere above them, proclaiming, in a loud voice, the usual challenge of the Golden Scarab.
“Does any man dare challenge the Golden Scarab of Shangore to mortal combat? A touch of its horns means death. Is there any one bold enough to join issue with this antagonist? If so, he is welcome, and may the fates give victory to the better fighter!”
This was the regulation phrasing of the challenge, as it was sent forth at each succeeding Festival of the Golden Scarab. Calaman rattled it off as mechanically as an auctioneer runs through the merits of a “lot” for which he knows in advance there will be no bids.
There was a pause. Then the voice of Calaman once more rang through the amphitheater.
“The lists are open to all comers,” he added.
Not a sound was heard, and then there was a surprise! Jai Singh, with a bound, reached the opening of the tunnel and sprang into the arena, in front of the throne of Calaman.
“Who are you?” demanded the priest.
“I am Jai Singh, of the land below the hills,” was the haughty reply. “I am of high caste, and I am prepared to do battle with the Golden Scarab. I care not that the touch of his horns is death. I have death in my spear, and I will send it to the heart of this creature just as sure as we meet in combat.”
Calaman, who had turned pale at seeing this man whom he had thought a prisoner appear suddenly in the amphitheater, armed with his spear, and hurling his defiance back in his teeth, frowned and shook his head.
“The challenge is not for you,” he blurted out, at last.
“Why not?” demanded Jai Singh.
“Only men of my own race, or those who are white, can be permitted to face the Golden Scarab in honorable combat.”
“Listen to the old bluff!” whispered Patsy Garvan to Nick Carter. “‘Honorable combat,’ he says. Gee!”
“The challenge was to all comers,” insisted Jai Singh.
“It did not mean such as you,” was Calaman’s contemptuous retort.
Jai Singh stood in front of the priest, his spear ready for action, but with an expression of chagrin on his dark face that he could not hide.
He made a last appeal:
“Listen, Calaman: You have seen that you could not keep me in your dungeon, and that should show you I am worthy to fight your Scarab. If I can set you at defiance in your own temple, why should I not be allowed to go further and prove that the things you send out to battle for you are also of no account?”
Jai Singh had purposely made his tone, as well as his words, as insulting as he could. He wanted to stir the priest to unreasoning wrath, believing that that might lead, sooner than anything else, to his being accepted as a foe for the Golden Scarab.
But Calaman was too crafty to be carried into indiscretion by his own anger.
He controlled himself with a strong effort, and waved Jai Singh away, at the same time nodding to some of his attendants.
The priest was really afraid that this tall, supple Hindu, with his spear, might prove victor in a contest with the Golden Scarab, and he dared not take the chance.
Half a dozen soldiers jumped into the arena and cautiously approached Jai Singh.
“Stand back!” he warned them, flourishing his spear. “I am here, standing on my rights, and I will not move.” Then, to Calaman: “You have promised that if any champion beats the Scarab, he can claim any reward he wants. Isn’t that so?”
“It is the rule,” answered Calaman coldly. “But it does not concern you.” Then, to his soldiers: “Seize him, guards! I’ll see whether strangers of his race can come and beard me on this day of all others—the most sacred one known to Shangore.”
This bombastical speech did not impress Jai Singh. He raised his spear with the firm intention of running through the body the first soldier to come within reach, when a well-known voice in his ear thundered:
“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!
“I have heard the challenge,” called out Nick Carter, in a clear voice, when the hubbub that had arisen on his advent had died down. “I, Nicholas Carter, American, a white man, accept the challenge, and will show this Golden Scarab that he can no longer claim to be the invincible fighter of Shangore! Bring forth your Golden Scarab, Calaman, and let me prove my words on him before you and all the people of this great city.”
Calaman swallowed his anger with a tremendous effort, and replied, as if he were not at all taken aback by the appearance of his late prisoner:
“There is nothing to prevent your fighting, if you like. But your chance is so small that I count you already a dead man. What fight you with? The death stick that you have already shown me?”
“No,” was the prompt reply. “My death stick might prevail. Probably it would. But I shall meet my foe with this spear, that belongs to my comrade, Jai Singh. Since you would not let him take up the challenge, I appear in his stead, and with his weapon.”
Calaman shrugged his shoulders.
“It matters little what you fight with,” he sneered. “The end will be your defeat.”
“That remains to be seen,” was Nick Carter’s reply. “But I want it understood here in public that I am to have the reward if I vanquish my enemy in this fight.”
“Most certainly,” answered Calaman.
“Then I want to go free, with all my friends, including the white man, Leslie Arnold, whom you have kept a prisoner since yesterday,” went on Nick, in a ringing voice. “Do you grant that?”
“I grant all that if you defeat the Golden Scarab,” answered Calaman.
“Everybody has heard your promise,” was Nick’s rejoinder. “Now, bring out this monster of yours, and I will see how much my chance of victory is worth.”
Nick Carter threw up his spear in salute and strode to the middle of the arena.
A faint cheer arose from the packed seats of the common people. It was not very loud, because there was general awe of Calaman and his associates, but it had burst forth involuntarily.
Here was a man, for the first time in some fifty years, brave enough to accept the challenge of the Golden Scarab.
He was entitled to a cheer, and he got it. But there were few in that vast assemblage who expected to see the valiant American leave the place alive.
The gates clanged, and, amid a deathly silence—as if all those thousands of people were holding their breath in unison—the gigantic beetle came darting out, bristling for the fray.
Nick Carter was an adept in the use of the spear, as he was with all other weapons.
Naturally quick to pick up anything demanding great dexterity, he had soon learned to swing and stab with a spear as skillfully as Jai Singh himself.
He had taken his first lessons years before. But he had done better than that. Since he had been in India this time, he had placed himself under the tutelage of Jai Singh, and had learned all the newer tricks that had been acquired by the great Indian spearman himself.
The detective stood his ground as his hideous foe approached. His spear was ready to leap forward, seeking a vital part at any instant.
The Scarab stopped. It seemed as if it realized that here was an adversary not to be subdued in the ordinary way, and who, therefore, must be treated with respect.
Chick, Patsy, Jefferson Arnold, Adil, and Jai Singh were all watching eagerly from their hidden place of vantage, but none of them spoke. The situation was too tense for conversation.
For nearly half a minute the Golden Scarab and Nick Carter stood still, facing each other. Not a sound could be heard from all the multitude that crowded the seats, tier above tier, around the immense arena.