CHAPTER VIII.
THE PRIEST SHOWS HIS POWER.
“What do you suppose his game is?” asked Jefferson, glancing cautiously about him.
“To get our rifles and cartridges,” replied Nick briefly.
“What could he do with them, even if he had them? He doesn’t know anything about firearms. You can see that.”
“It would not take him long to learn. These Bolongus are quick-witted and able in every way. That is apparent by the style of those big buildings over yonder. Then you must not forget how scientifically they embalm their dead. You haven’t forgotten what we saw in the old witch doctor’s cavern, have you?”
The millionaire shuddered.
“Indeed, I haven’t, Carter. I——”
“I have that embalmed head in my pocket now,” went on Nick, smiling mischievously. “Want to look at it?”
“Keep it out of sight,” growled Jefferson Arnold. “If you bring it out, I swear I’ll hurl it at that old priest’s head. Then the fat will be in the fire.”
“All right!” laughed Nick. “I won’t show it. But I saw in Calaman’s eyes that he was after our guns and cartridges. He’ll learn to use them if ever he gets them. Don’t make any mistake about that. Our plan is to keep quiet for the present. Pretend that we don’t suspect anything.”
“I hate to do that,” put in Chick, who had overheard. “Why not make a rush? We could capture all this gang, because we would have them terrorized by what they call our death sticks. Then we should be in a position to dictate to the others in the city, and get hold of Pike without trouble.”
The boldness of the proposition made Nick Carter shake his head with a smile.
“It wouldn’t do, Chick,” he returned. “I don’t believe they’d think about our guns if that priest gave orders to them. They are blindly obedient to them, as anybody can see. No, my boy! They’d be all over us before we could strike an effective blow.”
“But——” began Patsy, who had forced himself into the whispered conference.
“That will do, Patsy,” interrupted Nick. “Don’t talk. They’re suspicious of us already. This whispering won’t do. See how they’re hedging us in on every side. That priest knows his business. He has had his men get control of every cartridge we have except the few we carry on us. What could we do without ammunition?”
Though Calaman certainly was suspicious, he did not permit it to show in his manner. Bringing his mule closer, he smiled and talked pleasantly as they moved along.
He paid particular attention to Nick Carter.
“You have learned something of our secrets,” he admitted. “I do not know how you came to find the path here. It has not been used for many years. The priest you killed was one of those ordained to prepare the bodies of our principal men, and he was at work in his cave on that of Prince Tillo.”
“We saw it,” remarked Nick coolly. “But it had no head.”
“That is according to our custom,” returned Calaman. “When important Bolongus die, they are embalmed by an ancient and secret process. Then they are wrapped in finely beaten gold and placed in the temple. We were on our way to get Prince Tillo’s body when we encountered you. The Festival of the Golden Scarab is soon to take place, and we wanted to have the prince’s body in its niche in the temple before that day.”
“That sounds like the worst kind of rot to me,” whispered Patsy to Chick. “It seems to me as if most of the guys in this country are nutty.”
“Hush!” reproved Chick. “Listen and look—and say nothing. You ought to know that that’s the right thing by this time.”
Just then one of the guards who was carrying a box of cartridges stumbled and dropped the box with a crash on the rocky path.
Calaman, with a terrific scowl, stopped his mule. The other soldiers shrunk away from their unfortunate comrade.
“See, now, strangers,” broke out the priest, in metallic tones, “I also have the power to kill. I cannot do it from afar, like you. But, on the other hand, I use no weapon. Watch!”
Turning to the guard who had dropped the box, he stared at him steadily.
“Dog and son of a dog!” he thundered. “Look!”
He thrust forward the amulet which hung from his neck by a gold chain. The doomed man fastened his eyes upon the thing. His eyelids did not move.
“Hypnotized!” whispered Jefferson Arnold.
“Yes,” assented Nick. “But look.”
For a full two minutes the man stood staring at the amulet, rigid as a wax figure. His swarthy face had become the color of dirty lead, and his nostrils were distended as if he had been petrified at the moment of drawing a deep breath.
Suddenly he began to shiver, his teeth chattered, and his eyes rolled inward, until only the whites could be seen.
“Now!” snapped Calaman.
He dropped the amulet from his fingers, and it fell back against his chest with a faint tinkle.
There was a momentary pause. Then the guard blinked, like a man moving in his sleep, and slowly drew his sword from its scabbard.
“Go on!” ordered Calaman.
The soldier was standing alone, in a bare space, everybody else at some distance. A deep breath could be heard from the spectators, and Patsy Garvan gave vent to a half-uttered ejaculation.
With slow, jerky movements, the guard raised his sword. He seemed to be obeying some other power than his own will.
Now came the decisive moment.
He carefully placed the sharp point of the sword against his throat, and seizing the handle in both hands, drove it in until several inches of the blade showed at the back of his neck!
With a choking gurgle, he fell forward on his face. His hands still clutched the hilt, and the point of the weapon glistened horribly among the hair that hung down over his shoulders.
Calaman looked down at him with calm indifference, as he ordered one of his men to take the remains away.
“You see,” he added, addressing Nick Carter. “The man is dead, yet I used no weapon. Can you better that, my stranger guests? It was my will that compelled him to kill himself, though he did not want to do it. He paid the penalty of his clumsiness.”
Nick Carter was disgusted, and he did not try to hide it. Looking the priest squarely in the eye, he frowned angrily.
“The trick is nothing,” he declared. “There are many men in my country who could have done as much, and more. In my opinion, the punishment you inflicted on that man was outrageous and cruel. It would not surprise me if you were called on to pay as heavy a penalty yourself.”
The priest shrugged his shoulders with a scornful smile.
“I treat my own as I please, stranger. The dog was mine, and when I willed him to die, he obeyed. Moreover, the Bolongus do not fear death.”
It would have pleased Nick Carter to put a bullet into the venerable carcass of the old priest, and see how he would like it. But that could not be done very well, and the march was resumed without further incident.
When, an hour later, they reached the city of Shangore, Nick Carter inspected the great walls with the eyes of an engineer and a military man combined.
They were between forty and fifty feet high, and encircled the whole city. Their thickness was about twenty feet at the base.
“Looks as if this place was built to resist a siege,” observed Jefferson Arnold. “Though I don’t know who they fear. Look at the loopholes in the towers. I suppose they shoot arrows through them.”
“And there are four gates,” put in Chick.
“Big gates, too,” added Patsy.
“I have heard that this city is as strongly fortified as some of those German places we hear of,” remarked Leslie. “When those fellows had me a prisoner, they were blowing about this city of theirs.”
“Those four gates are formidable-looking arrangements,” observed Nick Carter. “There is a drawbridge to each one. The lake washes the walls all along this side where the gates are. The portcullises are mighty strong, too.”
Nick Carter understood the make-up of fortresses as well as most men, and he was struck by the completeness of the defenses of this city so far off in the desert. What he could not understand was why it had been deemed necessary to build such a place out here.
Jai Singh, who had not said much since the journey had begun in company with Calaman and his guards, shook his head as he looked at the great walls, towers, and gates. He did not like them, that was evident.
“Sahib,” he whispered to Nick Carter. “Once let those gates close behind us, and it is the end. We are only seven, outside of the coolies. In that city are many thousands.”
“Well, it can’t be helped,” rejoined Nick.
“Yes, it can,” insisted Jai Singh. “Let me drive my spear into the side of that old scarecrow. Then we will fight to a finish here in the open. We should have only about a hundred against us. We could beat them, with our guns against their spears. Even if we did not, it would be a man’s fight, and we would take some of them with us if we fell.”
“Bully for you!” broke in Patsy enthusiastically. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard to-day. Let’s get at them, chief! I feel fine to-day. I’ll take on three of them at the very beginning. Then I’ll lay them out by threes till the job is done. Gee! Wouldn’t it be a great——”
“Patsy!”
Nick Carter had raised a warning voice, and Patsy subsided.
“You see, sahib,” continued Jai Singh, still warm with his subject. “Inside those walls we should be as helpless as rats in a box. Let us fight while we can, I say.”
“In some ways you may be right, Jai Singh,” conceded Nick. “But we are here for a certain object, and I am going to see it through. We’ll get that man Pike, no matter how far into the city we have to go. If we fought out here, we never should get inside, whether we won or lost.”
“I’d be willing to let Pike go,” interrupted Jefferson Arnold, “if it is too dangerous to go in. Don’t bother about the money he stole. I can get along without that.”
“It is a matter of principle with me,” returned Nick shortly.
Five minutes later the little party and their guards were tramping over one of the drawbridges, the sound of many feet echoing on the thick planks, and mingling with a confused noise of loud voices within the city.