Chapter VII: Adil Tells His Story

It was a big leap in the darkness, especially for men half spent by a laborious run. But the three were all strung up, and they had more spring in them than might have been expected.

They dropped into the boat higgledy-piggledy, and immediately Jefferson Arnold and Jai Singh followed.

“Hack away that rope at the bow!” roared Arnold.

Jai Singh, ax in hand, obeyed, just as one of the pursuing natives poised his spear to send it at Chick.

Nick Carter had seen the action in time, however. Although the detective had dropped into the boat all in a heap, he had kept his automatic pistol in his right hand, while holding the now unloaded rifle in his left.

Up went his revolver as the Hindu raised his spear. The pistol roared before the spear could leave its owner’s hand.

The native crumpled up as the bullet reached him. His companions did not press forward quite so fast. They were disposed to be cautious now, although none the less vindictive.

The boat swung out to the middle of the river, as the rowers dug in their oars to save the yawl from yielding to the strong current made by the falls a little distance below.

As the coolies bent to their work, two spears flew at them. One went clear over their heads, but the other caught the stroke oarsman in the forearm, making a nasty, jagged wound.

The injured man rowed on doggedly, only glancing carelessly down at the great red scar in his brown arm, as if to see how bad it might be. He seemed satisfied that it would not disable him, and the shrug with which he took his eyes off it told how little he cared for what did not seem such a trifle, after all.

The river was wide at this point. So, five hundred yards farther up, and about that distance from the shore, Nick Carter directed Jai Singh to let go the light anchor they carried.

As the tall Hindu obeyed, the boat swung gently around to her cable.

In the after part of the boat there was an awning of bamboo, thatched with palm leaves. At Nick’s suggestion, lanterns were lighted under this awning, so that they might look themselves over and see what damage had been done.

First of all, Nick took a roll of antiseptic bandage from his pocket and bound up the wound on the arm of the stroke oar, putting on some salve that he always carried in his “first-aid” kit.

The man submitted in stolid silence while Nick examined the arm. When it was bound up, he said “Thank you!” in English. That was all, except that he looked rather curiously at the barbed head of the spear which lay in the boat where it had fallen.

The detective picked up the spear and made a close examination of the barbed point.

“No poison, I should say,” he remarked briefly. “If there were any, it would show in a sort of sticky glaze. Still, the antiseptic salve I’ve put into that gash on the arm won’t do any harm. Besides, it will help to close the wound quickly.”

The patient went back to his seat, and Nick glanced at Jefferson Arnold, who was speaking to Adil, as the young man lay, still nearly exhausted, on a blanket under the awning.

“What does he say, Mr. Arnold?” asked Nick.

“He has told me something about my boy,” answered Arnold, in shaky tones. “Carter, we’re going to catch up with him soon.”

“One day’s journey,” put in Adil, in a feeble voice.

“Who are those fellows who had you, Adil? And how did you come to be where you are?” asked Jefferson Arnold.

“We came to them farther up the country. Sahib Leslie wanted to hunt tigers, and he told me to be ready. I did what I was told.”

“Who else was with my son?”

“Sahib Pike.”

“Ah! He went tiger hunting, too?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“We had gone far up, near the head of the Brahmapootra, when Sahib Pike he go away. Sahib Leslie he sorry, but nothing could be done. He was afraid Sahib Pike got hurt, but he did not know.”

“I’ll bet he didn’t get hurt,” threw in Patsy Garvan wisely. “This Pike person was working a frame-up on Leslie Arnold, for a dollar.”

“There seems reason in your opinion, Patsy,” nodded Nick Carter. “But we haven’t heard it all, remember.”

“I don’t see where we want to hear much more,” growled Jefferson Arnold. “It’s a pretty clear case, I think. I’ll fix Pike when I meet him. It is all his doings. I am confident of that.”

“You haven’t told us how Leslie Arnold got into the power of these men up in the hill country,” Nick Carter reminded Adil.

“We were in camp one night, when Pike called out that there was danger. Sahib Leslie was asleep, in his blanket, to keep off the snakes that go about at night in the forest. We had a fire, but it had gone down.”

“You bet it had gone down,” remarked Patsy Garvan. “I never knew a camp fire that didn’t go down, unless you lay down before it and blew it most of the night.”

Nick Carter and Chick both smiled. They gave Patsy credit for close observation. Both had noticed this peculiarity of camp fires themselves.

“There was a fight, and I believe Sahib Leslie killed some of them,” continued Adil. “We could not tell how many there were. But it seemed as if fifty men jumped out of the darkness and grabbed at him.”

“They wanted to take him prisoner, eh?”

“That’s what they did at last,” answered Adil. “But for a while there was a fight which was good. I stood by the side of Sahib Leslie, and we shot four--five--many men. They had spears like that.”

He pointed to the lance that had wounded the oarsman in the arm, and which lay in the bottom of the boat.

Nick Carter had taken the implement in his hand, and was looking it over thoughtfully.

He had seen at a glance that it was different from any of the weapons used by the Sepoys or other men in the lower part of Hindustan. Still, it was well made, and there were strange figures burned into the iron head with some strong acid.

“The party must have divided, Adil,” he suggested. “You were brought down here a prisoner. But Mr. Leslie went somewhere else.”

“Yes. Those who brought me wanted much money before they went back to their own country. They said they would make me get it for them.”

“I see. You were to be a decoy?”

Adil evidently did not exactly understand this word “decoy,” but he knew, in a general way, what it meant, and he nodded.

“What did you tell them?”

“I would not speak,” replied Adil. “That is why they told the medicine man to make me see clearly what must be done.”

“The blackguards!” ejaculated the millionaire. “They were trying to torture him into obeying them.”

“Say, chief!” interrupted Patsy. “Let’s pull out of this. We ought to get after the gang that have Mr. Arnold’s son without wasting any more time. Adil can take us to the place, can’t he?”

“If he can’t, I can,” boomed the deep tones of Jai Singh. “These men are of the low caste who are servants of the men of the Golden Scarab.”

“What’s a scarab?” asked Patsy. He always liked to get to the bottom of things without loss of time.

“It is a beetle, Patsy,” replied Nick Carter. “Go on, Jai Singh. What do you know about it?”

“I know there is a country far up above the hills where the snows are, and that the Golden Scarab is their god. They are big men, who fight well, and they have cities as fine as any in India, with great temples, on which are signs cut in stone by their ancestors, and where they worship the Golden Scarab. It is in one of those cities that we shall find Sahib Leslie.”

“Holy pancakes!” broke out Patsy. “I feel as if I were going nutty. I’ll be glad when I get back to the good old United States. This India is too rich for my nerves.”

“Keep quiet, Patsy,” admonished Chick. “I want to get at the rights of this thing. So does the chief. What’s the use of you interrupting all the time?”

“Interrupting?” echoed Patsy. “If I didn’t say something once in a while, I’d blow up.”

“Go on with your story, Adil,” requested Nick Carter. “And, Patsy, please do not ask any more questions. I’ll do the cross-examining, if there has to be any.”

“They brought me to the forest over there, where you saw me, and the medicine man passed his hands before my eyes, so that I had to do what he said, and keep on moving about in the clearing. He had made me take off my clothing, except for what I have on.”

“I see,” nodded Nick. “Go on.”

“The medicine man had something in his hand that he kept on putting to his face. It seemed to talk to him.”

“Bosh!” growled Jefferson Arnold, below his breath.

“You picked it up, did you not?” asked Nick.

“Yes. It is still in my hand.”

He opened his hand and revealed the curious object that Patsy had described as a stale doughnut.

Nick Carter took it in his fingers and shuddered slightly. The thing was the ear of some image. It was about twice the size of a man’s ear, carved elaborately out of gray soapstone.

“What is it?” murmured Nick, as a strange feeling, uncanny and enervating, stole throughout his whole being.

“It is the ear of one of the little gods of the Land of the Golden Scarab,” rumbled Jai Singh. “When you find the image it belongs to, you will also find Sahib Leslie Arnold.”