CHAPTER V.
A ONE-EYED BEAUTY.
Nothing occurred to disturb the supper which Nick Carter and his two assistants enjoyed later.
Phillips oscillated between the dining room and the kitchen regions, bringing the dishes himself.
He would not trust any one else to do this work, and Nick Carter learned afterward that he had superintended the preparation of all the viands, besides being careful that the quart bottle of red wine served had never been tampered with since its importation from Spain.
“Phillips thinks they are going to dope us, I reckon,” observed Patsy, in a whisper, to Chick.
“I shouldn’t be surprised if they did try something like that,” was Chick’s answer. “I suppose you know that Jason was around here to-night, and that he isn’t alone.”
“Gee! Is that so?”
“It certainly is.”
“Does the chief know it?”
“Yes. But he can’t show that he knows it. You must not forget that he is Prince Marcos, and princes leave the guarding of their royal persons to their followers,” replied Chick solemnly.
“That’s all right!” observed Patsy. “We can guard this prince. I’d just like to see this Jason start something.”
The bedrooms to which they were shown were on the upper floor. There were three of them, all opening out on a narrow and rather stuffy hall.
Nick Carter, as the guest of honor, in the person of Prince Marcos, was assigned to the room overlooking the dusty road. In the next apartment, which communicated with his own, were bestowed Chick and Patsy. They had separate narrow beds that never were made for a person to run around in.
Phillips was in a smaller chamber at the back.
The door of Nick Carter’s room leading to the hall was locked, and a bolt inside was secured. His window had iron bars across it.
There had been a great many brigands in the mountains in times gone by, and it was not considered wise to leave any house unprotected by bars at the windows and strong fastenings on the doors.
This hotel had at one time been the home of a wealthy miner, when gold and platinum had been plentiful in the neighboring mountains.
The valuable ore had gradually been dug out till there was no more in sight, and when the owner of the mines died, the industry died with him.
His home had been empty for several years, and then Mala, seeing that the rush of motor cars gave promise of a paying trade for a hotel, took the house, and had found it fairly profitable for a person of his lazy habits.
Nick Carter was tired from driving the car all day, and he slept soundly during the first few hours of the night.
It was pitch dark when he awoke with a start. He had the curious, indescribable feeling that a stranger was in the room.
Softly he stretched out his hand, to get hold of the automatic pistol in the pocket of his coat that hung on a chair at his bedside.
Instead of getting to his pocket, his hand fell into the grasp of a large hand, with thick fingers, which closed tightly about his own. At the same moment a pillow was pressed against his face, and several men—he could not tell how many—lifted him from his bed.
Not a word was spoken, but it seemed as if the men all knew exactly what they were to do. They carried him noiselessly in the darkness till he felt the cool air of early morning blowing upon him.
He did not yield without a struggle. But there seemed to be so many men that he could not release himself, and continually there was the pressure of the pillow upon his face so that he could hardly breathe.
Down the stairs and out to the open he was carried. The increasing coolness told him he was clear of the house.
He had on only his pajamas, and when he was placed in a motor car, he wondered whether his clothes had been left behind.
Somebody loosened the pillow from his face, so that he could get his breath a little more freely, but it was still kept in place by a rope fastened around his neck. A pair of slippers much too large for him were slipped on his feet.
By this time the car was moving at a fast clip, and from the way it bumped at intervals, he knew he was not on the road by which he had come to this little village, but was hustling along a rough trail, that never had been laid out for motoring.
Nick Carter’s thoughts were busy as he rushed through the air. But he possessed the great gift of patience, and since he knew he could not help himself at present, he was content to await developments.
“I wish I had on my clothes, and that I knew whether they have taken my pistol,” he muttered behind the pillow. “There is one comfort. I am pretty sure who the rascals are that are doing this. How was it they did not disturb Patsy or Chick?”
He was soon able to answer this question for himself, as he reflected on the incidents immediately preceding their going up to bed.
“I didn’t drink any of that fellow Mala’s coffee. The other three did. Phillips was watching everything in the kitchen. But it does not take long to slip a few drops of a narcotic into a coffeepot, or even to mix in some powders of the same kind. I guess that was it. Perhaps I am wrong, but I can’t account for their sleeping through it all in any other way.”
He estimated that he had been traveling for more than an hour, when the car slowed down easily and came to a standstill.
Hardly had it stopped when he was lifted out of the car, the pillow still over his face, and led up a steep path which he found was plentifully strewn with bowlders.
There were so many hands on him, and he could hear the tramping of so many feet, that he judged it would be well to wait a little longer before making the fight for liberty that was in his mind from the first.
When he stopped walking, which was not till he had climbed the rough path for ten or fifteen minutes, he felt a difference in the atmosphere. The breeze ceased, and a dampness crept through him.
The pillow was whisked off, and he put his hands to his eyes in the endeavor to see what was around him.
He was in a cave, lighted only by the daylight that found its way in by a tunnellike entry, and six men stood around.
With the exception of one, whom he knew at once to be his old acquaintance, Jason, they were strangers to him. A second glance told him they were of the brigand type which is by no means uncommon in the wilder parts of Central and South America.
They were roughly dressed, with lightweight calico shirts, high-laced boots, and broad-brimmed hats, which slouched over their evil faces.
Each man had a belt with cartridges and pistol, and there was a rifle in the hands of the individual who seemed to be in command.
This gentleman, who had a long black mustache and a heavy beard of the same hue, and whose beauty had been interfered with by the loss of an eye, glared at Nick Carter sideways through the eye he had still, and grunted, in Spanish:
“What’s your name?”
“Prince Marcos,” replied Nick Carter composedly.
“Is that right, señor?” asked the one-eyed chieftain, swinging around to Jason.
“It is. But the people of Joyalita are not pleased with him. They want him to be punished.”
This evidently struck all the rascals as a joke, for they joined in a raucous chorus of mirth which made Nick itch to pass around and give each one a hearty raise with his foot.
Only the fact that he had nothing on his feet but the pair of old slippers that probably belonged to Mala made him doubt the desirability of such a proceeding.
“It is the order of Prince Miguel—who, at the council to-morrow, will be chosen by the people to rule them—that Prince Marcos shall remain in the mountains with you until he sends for him,” continued Jason.
“Good! It shall be done,” grunted the chieftain. “Prince Miguel is my friend. Tell him he has the word of Gaspara.”
The big man slapped himself on his broad chest as he uttered this last name, and Nick would have known from that action, if nothing else, that he was the Gaspara referred to.
“You will not let him escape?” asked Jason, as a sly expression of cunning passed over his humid countenance.
“Gaspara’s prisoners never escape,” was the reply.
“Then I will go,” went on Jason. “I have to report to his highness that you will do what he asks. The clothes of the prisoner are in the car. Will you send one of your men with me to bring them?”
Gaspara motioned to a man who had been standing in the background with two others, and the fellow followed Jason out of the cave.
Nick Carter had been counting the men, and he had found that, including Gaspara—whom his men addressed as El Capitaine—there were eight.
The detective had heard of the Gaspara band of mountain robbers, who infested this part of the country, but never had come across them before.
They had attacked American tourists more than once, and thrilling tales of the threats made by the rascals if ransom were not paid had reached New York from time to time.
The detective had taken all these reports with the traditional grain of salt, and had allowed amply for the terror of those who had been captured.
Now that he had come face to face with Gaspara, and had noted his cruel, relentless face, made more hideous by the loss of an eye, he gave more credit to what he had heard about this fellow and his band.
Nick Carter was still reflecting on the crimes he had heard attributed to the Gaspara outfit, when the man who had gone to the car with Jason came back, carrying his clothes.
“Put them on!” commanded Gaspara.
The scoundrel spoke in Spanish, taking it for granted that Nick understood, since he was supposed to be Prince Marcos, who lived in a part-Spanish community.
As a matter of fact, Nick had perfect command of that tongue—as he had of eight or ten others—and he picked up his clothes without a moment of hesitation.
“It will feel good to have a proper pair of soles under my feet, if nothing else,” he thought. “These flopping slippers are a nuisance.”
In about five minutes he was attired in the habiliments which were supposed to be those of Prince Marcos, including the comfortable motoring cap that was part of the outfit.
Mechanically he put his hands into his coat pockets.
To his joy, and rather surprised, he felt his automatic pistol in one pocket and his silver-plated handcuffs in the other, together with his handkerchief, gloves, and other little things he had carried there before he was made a prisoner.
“Strange they didn’t rob me,” he muttered. “But, after all, that is not their object, I suppose. What they want is to keep me out of Penza till Prince Miguel and Don Solado, with the remainder of the blackguardly plotters, have signed that paper which gives Joyalita partly to the neighboring country of Carita, and partly to Prince Miguel. It looks as if they would succeed in that, too,” he added, “unless I find some way to circumvent my friend here with the odd eye and the tarred-rope mustache.”
Perhaps Gaspara surmised that the detective was making uncomplimentary comments on his personal appearance.
He stepped in front of his prisoner, and, transfixing him horribly with his solitary optic, poured out a volume of spluttering Spanish, interspersed with oaths in that language, which Nick would have had difficulty in following had he not been so familiar with the tongue.
“See here, my prince!” snarled Gaspara. “I shall not put ropes on you, or shut you up anywhere. I have no prisons, and I can’t spare cords to tie you. But if you walk out of this cave, you will be met at the outside by two of my men.”
“Well?” queried Nick, as he paused.
“It is very well,” grinned the brigand, showing two rows of white teeth in doing so. “They will cut off your ears.”
“Pleasant!” remarked Nick, aloud—without meaning to do so.
“The second time you do it, they will kill you.”
“There will be no second time,” declared Nick Carter.
Gaspara looked at him as if he did not quite understand what this meant. Then he shrugged his shoulders and stalked heavily away.
He was brought back in a hurry by an involuntary exclamation of dismay from the detective.
“What is it?” he growled.
“I only wanted to ask whether I am to get any breakfast,” replied Nick.
“You will have it as soon as the coffee is made,” promised Gaspara, as again he moved toward the entrance of the cave.
Nick Carter did want his breakfast. But that was not why he had given vent to his sharp ejaculation.
He had just felt in a certain inside pocket, and missed therefrom an article which was worth more than everything else he carried with him.
The Seal of Gijon had been stolen!