Transcriber’s Notes:
The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been retained,
with the exception of apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.
Text in Italics is indicated between _underscores_ whereas bold text is
denoted by =equal signs=. Text in small capitals has been replaced by
regular uppercase text.
* * * * *
NICK CARTER
STORIES
_=Issued Weekly.= Entered as Second-class Matter at the New York Post
Office, by_ STREET & SMITH, _79-89 Seventh Ave., New York_.
_Copyright, 1915, by_ STREET & SMITH. _O.G. Smith and G.C. Smith,
Proprietors._
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=No. 135.= NEW YORK, April 10, 1915. =Price Five Cents.=
STRAIGHT TO THE GOAL;
Or, NICK CARTER’S QUEER CHALLENGE.
Edited by CHICKERING CARTER.
CHAPTER I.
THE MESSAGE OF THE SPEAR.
A spear shot into the midst of the camp, and stuck, quivering, in the
ground!
Patsy Garvan and Chick jumped to their feet, rifle in hand, and looked
inquiringly at Nick Carter.
The detective had not moved. He was sitting with his back against a
rock, a cigar in his mouth, and silently contemplating the small fire
that he had consented to have made.
When the spear came sailing over the bluff, at the foot of which was
the little camp, he merely glanced at it, as if it were a rather
curious visitor, but not one to cause untoward agitation.
There were other persons around the camp fire besides Nick Carter and
his two assistants.
Jefferson Arnold, the millionaire shipowner of New York and Calcutta;
Jai Singh, the high-caste Hindu, who had proved himself so valuable an
ally to Nick Carter, and Adil, also an East Indian, the body servant of
Jefferson Arnold’s son, Leslie, all were sitting there.
The men started up when the spear came sailing over the rocks and
buried its heavy metal head in the ground just before them.
“That thing might have hit some of us,” cried Jefferson Arnold. “Better
look out! There may be others.”
“I hardly think so,” was Nick Carter’s calm response. “That is a
message only, unless I am much mistaken. Don’t you see there is
something tied around the wooden shaft just below the head. Looks like
a bit of cloth.”
He stepped forward, and, with a sharp tug, drew the spear from the
hard earth. Then he unwound from it a silk necktie of a rather unusual
pattern.
“It is Leslie’s!” shouted Jefferson Arnold wildly, as he held out his
hand for the tie. “I never saw one like it except on my son. He had it
on when we were in that city yonder.”
“I remember it,” answered Nick, looking at the curious combination of
colors thoughtfully. “It struck me as unique, and yet in perfect taste.
Still, probably there are others like it in the world.”
“Perhaps. But it isn’t likely others would have these initials
embroidered on the back of it,” rejoined Jefferson. “See! ‘L.A.’ No,
Carter, this is my boy’s necktie, and he is in the hands of those
rapscallions over there.”
The father buried his face in his hands, and rocked to and fro
convulsively.
“Well, even so, what is the meaning of the spear coming over the rocks
like this?” asked Patsy.
“There can be only one meaning,” returned Nick Carter. “Calaman, the
high priest of that strange city, Shangore, sends us this necktie to
let us know he has Leslie Arnold a prisoner.”
“Why did we ever come away without making sure he was safe?” groaned
Jefferson Arnold. “It was my fault. My boy will think we have deserted
him.”
“No,” contradicted Nick. “He will know better than that. He will
understand just how it was. In the darkness, when we escaped from that
city, we thought he was with us. You will remember we had quite a
tussle on the drawbridge, and got off only just in time. It looks now
as if Leslie must have been caught when they pulled up the bridge.”
“I suppose so,” assented the millionaire. “But what are we going to
do?” he wailed. “What do you suppose this message means? Do you think
the necktie was sent just to taunt us?”
The agony of this usually self-contained man was pitiful.
An answer came in an unexpected way at this moment. Another spear
dropped upon the rocks a little way off and lay flat. It had not been
so skillfully discharged as the first one, but it also bore its
message—this time in writing.
The characters were more like those of ancient Greece than the letters
used by English-speaking people to-day, and the spelling was phonetic.
But it was possible to make them out, with a little study.
“This says ‘You are all invited to Shangore,’” announced Nick Carter,
after examining the note for a few minutes. “Here is a small sketch of
the head and face of Calaman in the corner. In lieu of a signature, I
suppose. It is written on some kind of parchment. Probably the people
of Shangore have not mastered the art of making paper.”
“Many letters are written on skin of this kind,” remarked Jai Singh
quietly, as he took the scrap of material from Nick Carter’s hand and
rubbed it between his fingers. “And yet paper is made in many parts of
India, too.”
“That is all unimportant,” interrupted Jefferson Arnold impatiently.
“What are we going to do about it? How are we going to save my boy?”
“What do you want to do?” asked Nick.
“Go,” was the prompt reply.
“That’s what I say,” put in Patsy. “If Leslie is in that heathen city,
we’ve got to get him out.”
“It may mean death, remember, Patsy!” suggested Nick Carter.
His impulsive young assistant actually jumped in the air and cracked
his heels together, as one of his ancestors might have done at
Donnybrook Fair, generations before, when a challenge was thrown out to
them.
“What do we care for that?” howled Patsy. “We’ll make it hot for them
first. Anyhow, I don’t think it would mean death or anything like that.
But we’ve got to get Leslie Arnold.”
Jefferson Arnold reached across to shake hands with Patsy.
“Well, let us look over the situation dispassionately before we take
action,” suggested Nick. “We cannot hide from ourselves that Calaman is
a cunning and powerful personage, and that his control of the people of
that city, where they worship the Golden Scarab, is complete.”
“I just want to get my fingers on that old geezer’s throat if he has
hurt Leslie,” muttered Patsy.
“When we went into Shangore yesterday with Calaman and his guards, it
was as his guest,” continued Nick. “We found the rascal Pike, who had
stolen a hundred thousand dollars from the Arnold Company in Calcutta,
and who had taken refuge in Shangore, because he did not think any one
could trace him there.”
“That was reasonable enough for him to think,” commented Chick.
“Shangore, the capital city of Bolongu, is right over here, in the
Himalayas, in a region where few white men have penetrated in many
centuries.”
“I don’t believe any have been here till now,” put in Jai Singh, as he
looked up from polishing his spearhead with a cloth he had taken from
his garments. “At least, not for more than two or three hundred years.”
“That’s as it may be,” observed Nick Carter. “Anyhow, we all know that
it was the intention of Calaman to hold us as prisoners, and perhaps to
kill us all eventually. That was why we got out.”
“The only thing there was for us to do,” growled Jefferson Arnold.
“Now he is trying to entice us in again,” said Chick. “How do we know
Leslie Arnold is in the city?”
“Here is his necktie, sent over to us on a spear,” Nick reminded him.
“Well, what of that? Leslie may have dropped it.”
“No,” interposed Jefferson Arnold. “I saw that necktie tightly knotted
around his neck as we came over the drawbridge. It could not have come
off accidentally. The only way old Calaman could have got hold of it
was by having it taken from the boy’s neck. Leslie is a prisoner in
Shangore.”
“That is my reading of it,” agreed Nick Carter. “We shall have to go
and get him out.”
“I don’t see how we’re going to do that, even if we get into the city,”
remarked Jai Singh. “Those thick walls and the gates that no one can
pass must be kept in mind.”
Arnold looked at the tall, dignified Hindu resentfully.
“What are you croaking about, Jai Singh? It isn’t like you to hold back
when there is to be some fighting. Why do you oppose our going back to
Shangore?”
“I do not oppose it, sahib,” replied Jai Singh, with dignity. “I need
not tell that I am ready to fight. My spear is sharp and my arm strong.
Besides, I have learned to use the revolver I carry in my sash. But I
know of the danger that is behind the walls of Shangore, and it is not
well that you should forget it, either.”
“We do not forget it,” put in Nick Carter. “But we have to bring Leslie
Arnold away, and we must take whatever risks there are. Jai Singh, will
you make them understand that we will go back?”
Jai Singh bowed in acquiescence, and, picking up his spear, was about
to go down the pass through the rocks that led to the valley, on the
opposite side of which the towers and roofs of Shangore glistened in
the early-morning sun.
“Wait,” ordered Nick. “Where are you going?”
“To the cliff beyond, where the men in the valley can see me.”
“I understand. You will give them a sign that they will understand.
Well, tell them we will come at once.”
Jai Singh bowed again, and disappeared, while Nick Carter turned to
give a few last words of advice to those with him.
“We have been here all night,” he began, “and we are rested. We have
had a good breakfast, and are strong enough to fight.”
“You bet!” threw in Patsy Garvan energetically.
“It isn’t likely we shall be called on to do anything of the kind at
first,” went on Nick. “But we shall have to use our brains if we are to
come through this enterprise in safety, and also bring Leslie Arnold
with us.”
“We put a lot of their soldiers out of business in that scrap we had
with them last night,” observed Chick. “It would be bad if Calaman
decided to revenge himself upon us for their loss.”
“No fear of that,” put in Adil, the young Hindu, speaking for the first
time. “Calaman thinks nothing of the lives of his men. As he has said
to us, they are his slaves, and he can do what he likes with them.
He may be sorry to lose their services, but he never would think of
avenging them. They are not important enough, in his eyes.”
“There’s truth in that, Adil,” assented Nick Carter. “We have seen how
he caused the death of one of his guards just because he stumbled and
dropped a package he was carrying. No, I dare say he will pretend to be
friendly with us, as if there never had been a fight.”
“He’s a sly old rascal,” snorted Jefferson Arnold. “But we’ll beat him
yet. We’ve got to do it. We shall be taking a big chance going into
that walled city of his, but I’ve got to save my boy, at any risk.”
“We will start,” announced Nick Carter. “Jai Singh has delivered our
answer by this time.”
There was no particular preparation required before they went on.
The rifles they had laid by their sides were picked up, and the few
fragments of biscuits that had not been devoured were placed in their
pockets with the whole ones that Nick Carter’s forethought had caused
them all to carry with them.
“We have no ammunition,” observed Nick. “But we must get hold of some
of those cartridges of ours that they took from us as soon as we are
well within Shangore. I will get the old fellow to let me show him how
we use these ‘death sticks,’ as he calls them.”
They marched through the crooked pass between the towering walls of
rocks, and came suddenly upon Jai Singh, who was waving his spear about
so that a number of men who stood in the valley, looking up, could see
his movements without difficulty.
“I have told them,” said Jai Singh coolly. “We can go down at once.”
“Very well, Jai Singh,” returned the detective. “Come on, everybody.
And remember, Patsy,” he added to his second assistant, “I will do the
talking.”