Chapter IX: Over the Precipice

With the boat hidden in the reeds which grew along the river shore, and everybody carrying some of the baggage that Nick believed might be required, the party plunged into the foothills and slowly arose toward the lower ridges of the mountains.

All the rifles had been cleaned and oiled by Nick Carter and his two assistants. Then the former had inspected them all carefully.

“It would be awkward if some of these guns were to jam just when we were in the middle of a scrimmage with the people over there,” he observed, after he had pronounced them all right.

They came to a belt of forest where the ground rose sharply. On the other side of the thicket was a bare, precipitous rock, which formed a natural barrier to the mysterious land where the rites of the Golden Scarab threatened the existence of Jefferson Arnold’s only son.

They were traveling in the daytime now. The fierce heat of the lower country had become tempered by the breezes from the mountains, and Nick Carter desired to have the benefit of the light now that they were in a region that even Jai Singh did not know very well.

They were obliged to skirt the bare rock for several miles. The silence was awesome, and the glare of the sun on the rock became more and more oppressive as they went on.

Ahead of them was the opening that Nick divined was the entrance to the upper passes. The little party swung in to get to it as quickly as possible.

It was lucky that they did swing in, for at that instant an arrow whizzed by them and struck with a sharp ring of metal against the face of the rock.

“The people of the Golden Scarab use the weapons of their fathers,” remarked Jai Singh calmly. “Their arrows kill when they strike.”

“Poisoned?” asked Nick.

The tall Hindu shrugged his shoulders, as he repeated, in a significant tone:

“I have said that they kill.”

Nick Carter, Chick, and Patsy had all thrown up their rifles almost simultaneously with the passing of the arrow. But Jai Singh called out:

“Don’t shoot! There may be more of them. Keep under cover! If you shoot, the sound would carry far, and would bring the others down on us. I saw the one who sent the arrow. Leave him to me.”

“I’d like to get that fellow myself,” grumbled Patsy.

Nick Carter motioned him to lie down close against the rock, where the others had already thrown themselves, and Patsy had to obey.

But Chick broke through restraint. He simply could not lie there while an exciting incident was in progress in which he felt he could take a useful part. So, while Nick Carter was holding Patsy down, Chick followed Jai Singh over the rocks and into the heart of the mountain.

Chick carried his rifle, and his revolver was in his pocket. Jai Singh had his spear--a weapon which, in his capable hands, was equal to any firearm--and he kept it ready in his muscular fingers, ready to hurl it when a foe should appear.

The fellow who had sent the arrow was too cunning to allow himself to be seen. When he had drawn his bowstring he was some eighty yards away, and above the party headed by the detective, and he had kept out of sight.

Jai Singh and Chick had covered a good half of that distance before the foe could notch another arrow to the string.

Just as the two pursuers showed themselves above a ledge of rock, an arrow flashed toward them.

It was like a striking snake, and the “whang” it made sounded to Chick as if it were right in his ear.

But there was another flash just as the arrow came. It was Jai Singh’s spear.

He swept it sideways just in time to prevent the missile burying itself in Chick’s chest. There was a sort of snapping sound, followed by the tinkle of metal on stone.

Jai Singh had cut the arrow in two with one stroke, and it was the barbed-iron head falling upon the rock that had caused the tinkling Chick had heard.

The barbed arrow point had been so near to Chick that the side of it had grazed his shoulder, tearing the white linen of his coat, but not breaking the skin below.

“Go ahead, Jai Singh!” sang out Chick. “We’ve _got_ to get that fellow!”

The Hindu and the detective dashed up the rough slope until they came to a narrow, slanting ledge about two hundred feet above the narrow chasm in which the rest of the party were standing.

They were jammed against the side, so as to be out of reach of possible arrows or spears.

Jai Singh forced his way ahead of Chick and was at once almost on top of his man on a path where there was hardly room to turn around.

Just as Jai Singh was about to seize the fugitive, the latter dropped to his knee, holding the point of a spear aimed at the chest of his assailant, while the butt of the weapon rested on the ground.

Jai Singh could not stop himself. He had the choice either of hurling himself upon the spear or falling over the precipice.

“Wait a moment!” shouted Chick. “I’ll get him!”

He had his rifle poised, but he could not shoot while Jai Singh was in the way.

There was little time for consideration.

The latter had already decided what to do, and, as Chick rushed forward, determined to close with the enemy at any cost, Jai Singh disappeared into the abyss.

Chick could not look to see what had become of him. Urged on by his own impetuosity, he was flung upon the man with the spear.

How he managed to avoid the point of the weapon he never could tell. But he did it somehow.

The sudden disappearance of Jai Singh over the precipice disturbed the Golden Scarab warrior, and his spear dropped almost to his side.

He did not hesitate to fight, however.

It was a desperate combat in which Chick found himself. Even without the threatening spear, there was peril enough to have satisfied the most reckless searcher for adventure.

Chick noted, even as he grasped the fellow’s two arms in his strong hands and forced him backward, that there were certain points of resemblance between the dark, scowling faces before him and those he had glimpsed in the forest when the poisonous snake had made an end of the fanatical “holy man” who had tortured Adil.

“It’s one of the same gang,” thought Chick. “Those fellows weren’t down the river for nothing.”

He and his foe were both on the very brink of the precipice. The ledge was only a few feet wide. To make it worse, the ledge sloped slightly toward the great chasm, and Chick instinctively drew back as he felt himself slipping toward the edge.

“One of us has to go over,” he muttered. “I’ll try to prevent the pair of us taking the leap. But--”

There was a sudden movement by the native, as he glared evilly into Chick’s face, and Chick felt himself going past his enemy and slipping!

For one wild moment he glanced about him, to see whether there was hope of rescue anywhere.

He saw that Nick Carter, Patsy, Adil, Jefferson Arnold, and the four natives of the party were gazing at him anxiously, and he knew that Nick had waved to him, while saying something that Chick could not make out.

“It’s no use!” he groaned. “This is where I pass in! Well, I’ll take this brute with me!”

He struggled frantically to keep on the sloping ledge, while holding tightly to the other man’s arm.

“You go!” grunted the native, in laconic English. “You go!”

“Wonder whether that is all he knows of United States,” thought Chick.

It may be wondered that Chick would pay attention to such a triviality as this Hindu’s knowledge of English at such a time, when inevitable death seemed to stare him in the face.

The answer to that is that, in moments of awful danger, the mind will often run on things that are of no importance. Many a soldier in a wild bayonet or cavalry charge goes to his death humming ragtime without knowing what he is doing.

“You go!” repeated the tugging, straining man from the mountains.

As he said this again, Chick’s foot slipped from the sloping rocky ledge, and he was hurled into space!