CHAPTER VI.
ARMED FOR THE RUSH.
“It is against Calaman that our stroke will be directed,” declared Lord Slava sternly. “He and his followers. I will tell you in brief why we hate him.”
“You need not unless you wish it,” returned Nick Carter. “We will fight him hard without knowing that. He has injured us enough to give us cause for battle.”
Lord Slava took no notice of the detective’s words. He seemed to be thinking of other days, and as if he had forgotten where he was or to whom he was talking.
“In years gone by,” he went on, “we were a fighting race, ruled over by princes, and we cut out a path for ourselves with our swords and spears. This was the way it was for generations. Then, little by little, the priests gained power, and we of the Golden Scarab fell more and more under their domination, until now no man dares call his life his own.”
“I’ve seen that already,” commented Nick.
“The priests have established a custom to make all who have offended them die the death of the Scarab on the occasion of the annual festival. There is no escape. They pick out the most powerful of the nobles—those who have the ear of the people—as well as the common malefactors. Last year Prince Tillo, my uncle, was one of the victims. The only reason I myself have escaped is that I am one of Calaman’s officers.”
“That’s lucky for you.”
“Perhaps!” replied Slava, with a shrug. “But now word has gone around that there is to be a great killing. In addition to you strangers and the other white prisoner you have come here to carry away, they have seized my brother and seven others of the chief nobles of the land. They had to capture these last in secret, for Calaman and his creatures fear the nobles.”
“Well, but what are we to do about it?” interrupted Nick Carter, rather impatiently. “This killing will not be allowed to go on, will it?”
“Not if it can be prevented.”
“Well, it can,” interposed Chick, who had been listening indignantly to Lord Slava’s narration.
“I have gathered together certain of my followers,” explained Slava, “and we are sworn to rescue our friends or die.”
“Of course!” snorted Patsy Garvan. “What else? That’s the only sporting thing to do.”
“We are some three hundred, all told,” went on Slava. “The priests outnumber us six to one. But the people, I believe, are on our side, if we can stop the first rush.”
“We shall have to stop it,” was Nick Carter’s remark.
“I believe we can, with your help, stranger. With your strange weapons—your death sticks—we might turn the tide in our favor. We might even slay the Golden Scarab itself. In that case, the whole nation would thank you.”
“This Golden Scarab is alive, then?”
“Yes.”
“Big?”
“Very.”
“Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know. Nobody does—except Calaman and those who are very near to him. The creature is seen only once a year at the festival. Where it goes for the rest of the time I cannot tell you.”
“Queer!” mused Carter. “It doesn’t sound natural, somehow.”
“Perhaps it isn’t,” returned Lord Slava. “However, you will see it this afternoon, and judge for yourself.”
“Has anybody ever tried to kill it, or find out what it really is?” asked Nick.
“Often. But always without success. It is useless for us to talk about it. You will admit that when you see the thing,” added Lord Slava, shaking his head. “I can count on you and your friends, can I?”
“You most certainly can,” answered Nick Carter. “I shall be glad to see this Scarab. And I don’t think it is going to set us all at defiance successfully. I have a feeling that we shall get the better of it to-day.”
“Its bite is certain death,” Lord Slava warned him solemnly.
“So is the bite of my rifle,” returned Nick dryly. “If I can get hold of it before I meet this insect, I shall not be afraid of its biting me. If I don’t have the rifle, then I will try what can be done with an automatic revolver and a thirty-eight cartridge or two.”
“Or a club,” put in Chick.
“I’ve hunted tigers when they’ve been pretty savage, and I’ve been in close quarters with them,” put in Jefferson Arnold. “They never got away with me yet, and I guess I won’t back down before a thing like this Scarab, especially with Nick Carter and the others to back me up.”
“Those priests grabbed all our guns and things,” grumbled Patsy. “But if I can get hold of one of their spears, blowed if I don’t try what I can do with it when I run out of cartridges for my revolver.”
Chick smiled at his comrade’s persistence. He knew very well that Patsy would do what he said, if there were nothing better.
“You won’t have to make shift with Bolongu weapons,” said Lord Slava, with a smile. “Look!”
He pointed to a corner of the tunnel in which they stood. There were all their rifles, the opened case of cartridges which had been used when Nick Carter and Chick fired at the mummified head in the public square, and Jai Singh’s spear.
The tall Hindu was the first person to make a swoop upon the collection. He had his beloved spear in his hand almost as soon as Lord Slava had turned his finger in that direction, and was flourishing it as joyously as a boy might play with his toy sword.
“Ugh! Good!” ejaculated Jai Singh.
He rubbed his face all over the shining metal head, and passed his fingers affectionately along the long shaft.
He could hardly realize that he had again the weapon that had been such a friend in many a hard-fought scrimmage, as well as often in the jungle, when he had stood off wild beasts that only an exceptionally brave man would dare to face.
Nick Carter slipped cartridges into his rifle until the magazine was full—taking them out of the opened case, rather than from his pocket.
His example was followed by all the others. When the party got on the move again, each member of it had the means of killing a dozen or so of the enemy right in his hands.
“How did these things get here?” asked Nick, when he saw that all his companions were properly equipped.
“I did it,” smiled Lord Slava. “Certain of my men had charge of them, so I had them conveyed to this place. Though, I will confess, they seem to me very dangerous to handle. When I had the death sticks where I could put my hands on them, I made my way to the cell where they had put you. I hoped to have your help in the enterprise I have in view.”
“I’m glad you thought of us,” interrupted Nick Carter earnestly.
“Yes. I came secretly, by this tunnel. It has not been used for very many years. You see, it leads directly from the temple to the great arena itself. It is in that arena that the killings will take place.”
“It is a wonder they didn’t have the tunnel locked up—if there is any way of doing it,” suggested Nick.
“There is, but I got the key of the outer door by drugging one of the priests with wine. After that, there was no difficulty save in finding out which one of the cells they had put you in.”
“I couldn’t believe we were to stay there without somebody coming to help us,” said the detective. “It would be too much bad luck in a small package.”
“See!” broke in Slava. “The people are gathering in the arena. The festival will soon begin.”
“Queer name to give a wholesale butchery,” remarked Chick. “A festival.”
“It’s only a revival of the big festivals of the ancient Romans, after all, Chick,” his chief reminded him.
“That may be. But this is the twentieth century, not the first—or whenever it was they used to kill people in the Colosseum,” was Chick’s rejoinder. “Baseball is more in my line.”
Lord Slava pointed out of the doorway, and the others all stared out, with strange feelings of mingled interest and indignation, as they thought of the attempt that was to be made on the lives of Leslie Arnold and themselves.
It was a wonderful sight, regarded purely in the light of a spectacle.
They found themselves looking into an immense circular amphitheater of soft sand. It measured some five hundred feet across, and was surrounded on all sides by tier upon tier of stone seats, as symmetrically made as if each had been the work of a finished artist.
Many of these seats already had occupants, although it would be some time before the exhibition would begin. Dimly seen, ghostly forms they were, as they came up from below and slid silently into their chosen places.
There was a high wall at the bottom of the tiers of seats, so that those who would take part in the performances in the arena would not be able to reach the spectators. In a general way, the place looked like a bullfighting theater.
The lower seats, next to the top of the wall, were handsomely decorated. They were reserved for the nobles and other people of importance. The upper ones, and by far the greater number, were given over to the populace.
Directly opposite the special seats for the nobility was a stone archway, with a gilded, barred gate.
“It is by that gate that the Scarab comes for his victims,” explained Slava. “From that other gate, yonder, the victims are driven out, or dragged away, as the case may be.”