Chapter XI: Nick’s Most Powerful Weapon

“They were taking me up in the hills,” explained Leslie Arnold, in reply to a question from his father. “I broke away two days ago, and have been wandering about ever since.”

“Without food?”

“No. I managed to get enough of the cakes they use over there in Bolongu to keep me alive. I took them from my guards when they were sleeping. Only half of them were ever awake at one time. Generally they left five or six to guard me, while the others rested.”

“Must be a tired lot,” remarked Patsy, as he peeped a little way out from the rocks to see what the enemy was doing.

“Who took you up there, and how was it?” went on the elder Arnold. “Was Pike in it?”

Leslie Arnold clenched his teeth and drove one fist hard into the palm of his other hand.

“Yes. The scoundrel! He took the money from the business, and he is over there, in Bolongu.”

“The Land of the Golden Scarab,” put in Jai Singh quietly. “It is also called Bolongu. I did not tell you.”

“If you had, I should have known a great deal more about it,” remarked Nick Carter. “Bolongu is a comparatively familiar name to me. I had heard of the Land of the Golden Scarab only occasionally. Pike is up there, is he?”

Leslie Arnold would have answered, but just then there came a concerted howl from above that indicated an intention on the part of the enemy to do something and to do it quickly.

Adil had been scouting without the knowledge of any of the party. He returned now, with a grave face.

He turned toward Nick Carter, as if to tell him something, when he caught sight of the face of Leslie Arnold. With a cry of pleasure there could be no mistaking, he rushed at his young employer and grasped both his hands.

“Adil!”

“Sahib!”

“Where did you come from, Adil? I thought they’d killed you.”

“They tried. But Sahib Carter would not let them. The medicine man died by a snake. The others ran away when Sahib Carter and the others from America bade them. But you, Sahib Arnold? How is it?”

“I got away four days after they took you down into the hills to offer you as a sacrifice in the land you came from. That was to make the sacrifice good for that part of the country,” answered Leslie.

“Gee! These people from Bolongu, or the Land of the Golden Crab, or whatever it is,” put in Patsy, “never overlook any bets. I suppose if they were going to sacrifice me, they’d frame it up in the Bowery or Union Square, so as to make it stick in New York. They make me sick.”

“What have you found up there, Adil?” asked Nick Carter, who had been waiting with what patience he could command to question the young Hindu.

“They are coming down all at once. They have been commanded to do it, even if some are killed. I heard them talking.”

“In English?” asked Chick.

“Yes. They use the tongue of the white man all over India,” supplied Jai Singh. “Even in Bolongu, which is outside the pale, they still carry on the language they learned from the white man two hundred and fifty years ago. The tribes over the Himalayas have all been in Lower Hindustan at different times.”

“I know that to be true,” remarked Nick Carter. “That is why they are so dangerous. Always, when Oriental races pass under the influence of the Caucasian, they must be kept in close communion with him ever after, or they will forget his civilization, and retain only his cunning.”

Patsy Garvan had heard this with some signs of weariness. He wanted action, not dissertations on the white and Hindu races.

“Are we going to try out those guys up there, chief?” he asked.

“We shall have to hold them back. Where are the four men of Jai Singh?”

“They are here, sahib,” returned the tall Hindu composedly. “I called them while I hung over the rock.”

“Gee! There’s nothing slow about Jai Singh,” observed Patsy. “He’s as slick as Jay Gould ever was.”

“Are the boys all here?” asked Nick Carter.

“They are here,” was the grave response.

“They’ll have to fight,” put in Jefferson Arnold. “Have we guns enough to go around, with one for my son?”

“He can have my rifle,” answered Nick Carter. “I will depend on my revolver. It is a weapon I am used to, and I have more confidence in it than in a rifle, especially at close quarters.”

Leslie Arnold took the rifle with a smile and word or two of gratitude. As he handled it familiarly, making sure that the magazine was properly supplied with cartridges, Nick had no fear that the young man would not give a good account of himself if there should be a mix-up with his late captors.

The detective, having seen that his party were all properly armed, determined to reconnoiter before going out to meet the enemy.

Even with everybody counted in, including the two Arnolds, Adil and Jai Singh, the four coolies, himself, and his two assistants, he could muster only eleven.

Captain, the bloodhound, had been left to guard the boat. He would have made the twelfth, and Nick rather regretted he had not brought the faithful animal with him.

“Captain always makes good,” said Patsy Garvan emphatically. “He could lick six of those Bolongu citizens, and then put a crimp in the hide of the Golden Cat, to make it more binding. I’d bet on good old Captain every time.”

“There are twenty against us,” observed Nick.

“At least that,” nodded Leslie Arnold. “There may be two or three over that number.”

“So that they have odds of at least two to one,” observed Chick. “Well, that isn’t bad. They haven’t any guns--have they?”

“They have their bows and arrows,” answered Leslie. “Their marksmanship is something that we cannot afford to despise, either. They have been shooting with bows and arrows for many centuries, and they get what they aim at.”

“Funny they never took to guns,” remarked Patsy. “They must know about them.”

“Of course they do,” returned Leslie. “But they despise them. At least, the fighting men do. I dare say there are people back in their cities--wise people, too--who would not know a gun if they saw one.”

While talking thus, they had been busy getting ready for the charge Nick Carter meant to make. He had seen that they did not mean to let Leslie Arnold go if they could help it, and that there would have to be a fight to keep him out of their hands.

“What are they so anxious to hold you for, Leslie?” asked his father.

“They know that you are a very rich man,” replied Leslie briefly.

“Well?”

“Pike has told them they can get many sacks of gold from you for me.”

“I see!” grunted old Arnold. “A plain case of holdup, eh? Brigandage and ransom? Well, we’ll see.”

Jefferson Arnold grimly examined his rifle and pistol, and looked at Nick Carter inquiringly.

The detective said nothing. He stepped away from the others, and, concealing himself behind a huge bowlder, managed to get a good view of the rascals who were perched about the rocks above them, ready to make a concerted rush at the command of their leader.

“Come on!” whispered Nick to his party. “We’ll steal as near them as we can, and then let fly at them all together!”

“That’s the stuff!” chuckled Patsy.

Cautiously, Nick Carter went forward, with Chick and Patsy close behind. Then came the other two white men, with the four coolies. Jai Singh and Adil brought up the rear.

They had managed to advance until they were within about fifty feet of the big rock behind which Nick knew the advance guard of the Bolongus was stationed.

There were four in this group, and Nick intended to overcome them first if he could, thus paving the way to the next lot.

If once he could get the weapons away from these twenty odd, he could safely leave them where they were, or send them down the river, bound, in care of the four coolies. Then he could take his own time about coming back with the Arnolds, unless they should determine to follow Pike over the mountains.

Whatever plans Nick Carter might have formed, they were quickly knocked aside by the fact that the whole twenty-four--which was the number of Bolongus ahead of them--came rushing down at once, while another party, whose presence they had not suspected, surged up from below, hemming them in.

“Let drive!” commanded Nick. “No quarter! It is fight or die now!”

He laid low two of the rascals who were preparing to drive their spears into them. Then he caught another who had taken his bow from his shoulder and was fitting an arrow to the string.

Chick and Patsy made good use of their pistols. Then they rushed forward, with a yell, to clean out everybody in front of them.

The skirmish became lively at once.

Nick Carter soon perceived that Leslie and Adil had either made a great mistake in the number of the men who had been bringing them down from the other side of the Himalayas, or else that the party had been unexpectedly augmented by other Bolongus that he had not thought were in the neighborhood.

In any case, it did not take him long to realize that they were surrounded, and that there must be lots of determined fighting if they were to get out at all.

“Keep close, Patsy! Mind they don’t get in between you and Chick, or me,” he warned, as he continued to pump bullets into the enemy. “Keep your heads low, both of you! They can’t send their arrows near the ground, because the rocks are in the way.”

“I noticed that,” returned Chick, as he shot down a big rascal who was about to hurl a spear at him point-blank. “Their spears are worse than their arrows, it seems to me.”

“Look out, Carter!” suddenly bawled Jefferson Arnold. “They’ve got Leslie again!”

This was true. In some ingenious way, the dusky warriors had contrived to get Leslie separated from the others, and were forcing him to their rear.

“Come on, boys!” called out Nick Carter.

That was all he said, but both Chick and Patsy knew, from the tone, that it meant business.

Disdaining cover, the detective jumped into the middle of the path and rushed into the crowd of dark-browed Hindus who were shooting hatred from their black eyes as fast as they were sending arrows on their vain mission of death.

“Club your rifles and knock them down,” was Nick Carter’s order.

He swung his heavy revolver--he had no rifle--and brought down the foremost man like an ox struck by a sledge hammer. Then he darted forward until he was by the side of Leslie Arnold.

Two powerful natives were holding the young man by the arms, but in his right hand he still gripped the repeating rifle which he was no longer able to use.

With one blow of the revolver, Nick sent the man on Leslie’s left to the ground, and shooting out his left fist almost simultaneously, he caught the other fellow and laid him flat by the side of his comrade.

“Get to work with your gun, Leslie!” shouted Nick Carter. “Here come more of them!”

Indeed, it seemed as if there were no end to the evil-looking rascals now.

They came from below, as well as above. There was murder in every one of their fierce, scowling faces.

“It’s no use!” exclaimed Leslie Arnold. “They have us now. We can only try to fight our way down the hill, and get clear if we can.”

“You bet we can!” yelled Patsy Garvan, who had been fighting so hard that he was bathed in perspiration. “We can wipe out the whole works, if we stick to it. Come on, Chick! Watch me lay out that crooked-eyed citizen in front--the one who is swinging the spear.”

Chick had emptied the magazine of his rifle, but the weapon made a splendid club, and he circled it viciously in the air, so that it cleared the way all around him.

But, fight as they would, it was apparent that the small party could not hope to prevail against all these savage Hindus. There seemed to be fifty, at least.

It was now, when the situation looked hopeless, that an inspiration came to Nick Carter.

He saw that his party could not win with ordinary weapons. But he might use something else. It was worth trying, at all events.

With a loud shout of “Look! All of you!” he raised his hand and held before these men from the Land of the Golden Scarab, something upon which the sun shone redly and seemed to endow with life as he waved it about.

For a space while one might count three there was silence. Then, as Nick stepped forward, holding the object, whatever it was, in his hand, and pushing it into the face of the first man in the rank, an awful shriek arose, and the whole crowd turned and fled.

“Holy Gumbert!” cried Patsy. “What’s the answer?”

“Chase them!” ordered Nick. “After them!”

“What’s struck them?” asked Chick.

“Never mind!” returned Nick. “We’ve got those fellows on the run! Keep them there!”

That the whole gathering of Bolongus had been seized with unreasoning panic was perfectly plain.

They kept on running, throwing down their spears and bows and arrows, and still Nick Carter and his party kept after them.

It was well into the night before Nick gave up the chase and called his men together.

“It wasn’t necessary to go after them so far, I guess,” he said. “But I wanted to make sure that they were fairly on their way. We are not quite into their country. But I think we may go there at some future time, if we can get a force together large enough to make sure that we shall be able to get back. For the present, we must be satisfied with having rescued Leslie Arnold.”

“That’s enough for me,” interposed Jefferson Arnold, as he put an arm over his son’s shoulder.

“But what about William Pike?” objected Leslie. “I don’t like the idea of his getting away with all that money.”

“We’ll nail him some time, my boy,” was Jefferson’s cool response. “He can’t stay over there in that wild country always, you know. It is a good place to get to when a man is running away from the law, I have no doubt. But a white man wants to get back to his own kind of people sooner or later.”

“Nevertheless, I’d like to get my hands on William Pike,” replied Leslie. “I’d choke that money out of him before he could spend much of it, I’ll stake anything on that.”

“We are pretty sure to get Pike some day,” put in Nick Carter.

“If you say so, Carter, I’m sure of it,” said Jefferson Arnold. “But, say, what is that thing you have in your hand, that scared them all and sent them flying back just when they seemed to be on top.”

“Here it is,” answered Nick, opening his hand. “It seems to have the most marvelous power I ever heard of in a small, ordinary-looking thing like this.”

“I don’t think it is very ordinary looking,” remarked Chick. “But it certainly has the ‘punch.’ It is the ear of some idol, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is the thing that fell from the hand of that snake charmer. I never supposed it would serve us such a good turn as it has now.”

“When the priests and wise men of Bolongu find that the ear of the great Mashonu is in the hands of a white man, it will most likely mean the death of all those.”

It was Jai Singh speaking, and he swept his arm in all-embracing fashion to include all the men who were racing away in a cloud of dust a mile or more away.

“The ear of the idol Mashonu, eh?” observed Nick Carter musingly. “I have heard of that idol. I did not know I held such a precious relic. Well, I’ll take care of it. Now, everybody! Right about face! Our cue is to get back to the lower country before we have any more trouble.”

“Thank Heaven I am taking my boy back with me!” said Jefferson Arnold, in a voice that trembled with gratitude.

THE END.

“The Secret of Shangpore; or, Nick Carter Among the Spearmen,” will tell you more about the adventures of the famous detective and his assistants in India. This story will be found in the next issue of NICK CARTER STORIES, No. 134, out April 3d.

* * * * *

ON A DARK STAGE.

By ROLAND ASHFORD PHILLIPS.

(This interesting story was commenced in No. 127 of NICK CARTER STORIES. Back numbers can always be obtained from your news dealer or the publishers.)