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.
There was a desperate fight when they tried to take away the spear.
Jai Singh had a superstitious regard for his favorite weapon, and bound though he was, he gave the guards such a tussle that one of them had a great gash in his arm before he could tear the spear out of its owner’s grasp.
“Look around you, my stranger guests,” said Calaman, when the struggle was over. “This is the Temple of the Golden Scarab, and those you see in their places on the walls are his victims. He claims a certain number once every year at the coming of the full moon. Look!”
They saw that the vast circular walls were faced by serried tiers of niches, in each of which was a mummified, headless form, wrapped in beaten gold.
Over each mummy was a horrible shrunken head in a smaller niche.
There were hundreds and hundreds of them, tier upon tier.
“These are only the noble born of the Scarab’s victims,” explained Calaman. “The common herd are flung into the lake, where the alligators get them. That empty place over there, on the farthest wall, is for the Prince Tillo, whose body was prepared by one of our medicine men in a cave in the hills.”
“We saw that,” put in Nick Carter, almost before he knew he had spoken. “It was an awful sight.”
The priest laughed.
“You are oversensitive, stranger. I was going to say that Prince Tillo was a great man and powerful—too powerful, for his removal caused some discontent among the people. That is partly why I wanted those sticks of yours. If the discontent should rise to a head, it would be difficult to deal with them.”
“This does not concern me,” broke in Nick Carter. “What are you going to do with us now?”
“Those other empty recesses on the wall are for certain nobles who will die this afternoon, and for you, my stranger guests. It will be an honor to you, and especially to the dark men you have with you. But you do not belong to Bolongu, and the people will be told that you are all noble in your own countries.”
He turned away. As he did so, several of the guards led them through a low archway, down a flight of steps, and into a cell beneath the floor of the temple.
They were bolted in, and left in pitch darkness. Moreover, the air was hot and oppressive.
The first silence was broken by Patsy.
“Well, chief, what now?” he asked. “Of course, we have to get out of this somehow.”
“Keep quiet, Patsy,” admonished Chick. “Be ready to take orders.”
“That’s what I always am,” retorted Patsy. “I’m only asking.”
“If we could get our hands free!” muttered Nick Carter, as he struggled with his bonds. “There would be a few less priests of the Golden Scarab in the world the next time any of them came.”
“Bully!” broke out Patsy.
“Can’t we untie each other’s hands?” suggested Jefferson Arnold.
“I’m afraid it can’t be done,” was Nick’s reply. “The knots are too firm, and they are all behind us. No, all we can do is to wait. There is one thing not to be forgotten, and it may be of considerable help to us.”
“What’s that?” asked Chick.
“We all have our pistols and some cartridges in our pockets. They did not seem to think of them when they took our rifles.”
“If I had my spear, I should not want anything else,” lamented Jai Singh.
“So we can have one good fight before the end comes,” continued Nick. “If I don’t drive a few holes into Calaman, it will be because all my cartridges miss fire.”
Patsy Garvan chuckled in the darkness. It was seldom that his chief made such threats. It told Patsy that there would be action after a while.
It was about half an hour afterward when the door opened, showing half a dozen men in the vestments of the priesthood.
Some carried lanterns, while others bore dishes of fruit and meat and wine in great flagons.
These they set upon the one rough table that was in the prison. Then two of them loosened a hand each of the prisoners, so that they could help themselves to food and drink, while behind each stood a tall priest, with drawn sword, ready to strike at the first sign of resistance.
The hand of Patsy Garvan stole to his belt, but Nick Carter shook his head, and his young assistant attacked his food like the rest.