CHAPTER X.
HOW THEY FOUND PIKE.
When Chick darted away from the remainder of his party in the public square, he did not feel any too sure that he could get to the house without being seen.
It was worth a trial, however, for the whole success of their enterprise in coming to Shangore at all hinged on their getting control of Pike before he realized that he had been pursued into the very heart of a country in which he had imagined he must be free from pursuit.
“We’ve got to find out what his position is here,” muttered Chick. “It does not seem as if he can be a prisoner. Unless he is shut up in that room where we saw him.”
Chick was inside the house by this time, and he came to the conclusion, as he saw stone steps in front of him leading to an upper floor, that wood was rather a scarce article in this country.
He had observed that the flooring of the rooms in the palace were all of stone, and that the fronts of the houses were of the same substance.
This made the houses all strong, and when he had got to the top of the flight of steps—which were built about the same way that wooden stairs are made in America—he was not sure whether this building was a prison or not.
It was a little dark on the landing, and he stumbled over something soft that lay in a dark corner. It was the body of a man.
As Chick’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he saw that two other men, in the uniform of the guards, were also stretched out, senseless, on the stone flooring.
It did not take Chick long to understand.
“The Arnolds have come up here and surprised them,” he muttered. “Now, where are the Arnolds?”
The answer came in an unexpected way.
A door at the end of the wide corridor in which he found himself burst open, and a man came dashing out at full speed, holding to his breast a sack full of something that he seemed to prize very highly.
On the instant, Chick drew from his pocket a flash lamp and sent a strong white glow into the face of the fleeing man.
“By George! If it isn’t just what I suspected!” exclaimed Chick. “It is a white man, and I guess he must be——”
“Pike!” bellowed the voice of Jefferson Arnold. “It’s Pike! Stop him! Kill him, if you must! But don’t let him go!”
“I don’t intend to,” was Chick’s prompt reply, as he flung himself in the way of the fugitive.
It was a “low tackle” that Chick used to stop the fellow, and it proved effective. Stooping so that he was nearly on the floor, Chick flung both arms around William Pike’s legs, and down he went, with Chick on top of him.
“That’s right! Hold him! The blackguard!” roared Jefferson Arnold, dashing forward. “Leslie!”
“I’m coming,” responded Leslie. “I was looking after the other fellow. Have you got him?”
“Of course I have!” was the millionaire’s answer. “Here’s Chick, too!”
“Hurry, dad!” cried Leslie. “We’re liable to have a dozen of those fellows up here at any minute.”
“No fear,” replied Jefferson. “We laid out the three outside guards, and the inside one is tied up. Let’s take him in again and see what we are going to do.”
“It’s a good thing I happened to meet this fellow, I guess,” observed Chick. “He was making for the stairs.”
“Yes, and if ever he’d got out, he would have raised an alarm that might have settled this business at once.”
They hustled Pike back to the room from which he had just run, and Chick was surprised to note that it was luxuriously furnished, and that the two windows, looking out on the square, were a little way open, so that any one could easily get out that way if he wished.
“There are no bars to the windows,” thought Chick, “and it isn’t far to the ground. Not much of a prison.”
They hustled the sullen Pike into the room, and Chick closed the door.
The door was not thick, and there was nothing complicated about the lock. It was just such a door and lock as might be on any ordinary room in New York.
Pike was not a prepossessing man now, with his clothing disordered, his hair rumpled, and a smudge of dust across his cheek. But Chick, accustomed to sizing men up at a glance, decided that he would pass for a very respectable type of business man under ordinary conditions.
“I suppose you know I could have raised an alarm and brought the whole city down on you, if I’d liked,” growled Pike, as he suffered himself to be shoved into a large easy-chair behind the big table. “You have broken into my private room, after murderously attacking my servants outside, and you have injured this poor fellow who acts as my secretary.”
The secretary was tied to a chair hand and foot, and a handkerchief had been fastened over his mouth, gagging him effectually. He looked like a Bolongu, for he had the rather light yellow complexion and the general appearance of all the people Chick had met in this strange country.
“Look into that bag and see what there is,” directed Jefferson, without taking any notice of William Pike’s words. “You do it, Leslie. You know what we’ve lost.”
Leslie emptied the bag on the table. It had been full of gold coins, with some Indian bank notes for large amount, besides letters, invoices, and other papers stamped with the names of the Arnold Company.
“Can you tell how much there is there?” went on Jefferson.
Leslie Arnold ran through the heap of coins and flipped the Indian bank notes through his fingers with professional skill, and announced that there was the equivalent of more than a hundred thousand dollars in American money.
“That about settles it, I guess,” was Jefferson’s comment. “I don’t think we shall have any difficulty in proving our property. Now, what shall we do with Pike?”
“What is he doing here?” asked Chick. “Is he an official of the Shangore government?”
“That’s what I am,” broke in Pike savagely. “And it will be a costly thing for you when you’re caught. If you had not done what you have, I might have saved you, because Calaman and the other big men of Bolongu hold me in high regard. I am at the head of their war department.”
“Oh, you are?” put in Chick. “Then you must be about the most important man in the city, outside of the high priest himself?”
“I am,” replied Pike proudly. “You’ll find that out when I report this outrage.”
“Wouldn’t it be well to kill him right here, before he can get into mischief?” asked Chick of Jefferson Arnold coolly, and ignoring the presence of Pike. “We will take our money then and go away without trouble.”
“How do you suppose you will get out of the city?” snarled Pike.
“We’ll get out,” was Chick’s calm answer. “Still, if you care to save your life by helping us, perhaps Mr. Arnold would be willing to give you a chance.”
Chick winked at Jefferson Arnold over Pike’s head, and the millionaire took his cue at once.
“I might consider that,” he remarked casually. “Although my only intention was to give Pike up to the authorities here and have him punished. He says he is at the head of the war department of this country. Perhaps he is. But evidently he does not know that we are honored guests of the great Calaman.”
The look on Pike’s face assured Jefferson that he was on the right tack, and he continued:
“We have come at Calaman’s invitation to show him how our guns are used, and it will mean that we can command the whole war department if we choose, because we shall teach the people of Bolongu how to use weapons that have been strange to them heretofore.”
“That’s nothing,” sneered William Pike. “I showed them my gun weeks ago, and they decided it was no good.”
“Perhaps it was you who were no good,” retorted Chick. “Calaman admits that he had seen a trial of a rifle before we showed it to him, and that the white man who did it was unable to prove that it was superior to spears and bows and arrows.”
“If that were so,” rejoined Pike, “it would not prove that you could do any better.”
“Look out of the window and see for yourself,” advised Chick.
He had been watching the proceedings of Nick Carter in the public square while talking, and now chose a particular moment to let Pike look out.
Nick had refused to kill the three malefactors. But he had induced Calaman to have a slab of stone set up at two hundred yards’ distance for a target. In the center of the stone had been placed a splash of mud for a bull’s-eye.
Just as William Pike was allowed to look from his window, Nick Carter sent three bullets, quickly, one after the other, in the very center of the mud splash on the white stone.
Calaman descended from his mule and made a ceremonious salaam to the detective.
“Are you satisfied, Pike?” asked Jefferson Arnold, as he pulled the prisoner away from the window.
“What do you want me to do?” was William Pike’s surly response.
“To see us safely outside the walls of the city. We shall take the money with us that belongs to us, of course. When we are outside, you will escort us to the pass on the other side of the valley. Once we are among the rocks, we can take care of ourselves. Then you can come back to Shangore and continue to bluff the people here as much as you like. In consideration of your taking us out, I shall not prosecute you.”
“And if I refuse?” asked Pike.
Jefferson Arnold whipped a revolver from his pocket and placed the cold metal ring of the muzzle against Pike’s forehead.
“That’s answer enough,” cried Pike, with a sickly smile. “I agree.”