Nick Carter Detective Library, No. 1 | Page 9

the conversation, and from
the subsequent remarks made by the men it became evident that Tony
was a strangler.
His reference to India as the place where he had learned the art of using

his peculiar yet terrible weapon was full of meaning.
Everybody knows of that strange wild sect The are as stealthy as a cat,
as determined as Fate, and as deadly as a cobra.
Eugenie La Verde was strangled to death. Could it be possible that
there was any connection between her murder and this gang of men
who made a sloop in New York Bay their place of rendezvous?
Had Nick stumbled upon a clew to the crime in Forty-seventh street,
where he least expected it?
At all events he resolved to have a good look at the man Tony, and to
learn more concerning the purposes of these five men.
CHAPTER VII.
THE STRANGLER'S THREAT.
After satisfying themselves that the detective had made good his escape,
the three men, Tony, Morgan and their companion, who was known
among them as Crofty, returned to the cabin of the sloop.
Nick followed them closely, and reached the hatchway in time to hear
all that was said.
"Well?" demanded the captain when the three men returned from the
deck.
"Skipped," replied Morgan, laconically.
"How?"
"Flew away, I guess. There was not a sign of him."
"See!" and the captain held up his right arm, the wrist of which Nick
had broken in the struggle. "My wrist is broken. He must pay for it. Do
you know who it was, Tony?"

"Morgan told me."
"What did he say?"
"The little giant."
"Right. He could have been none other. I have heard of him often, but
have never seen him before. Tony, he must die."
"At my hands?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"At once. the sooner, the better."
"Tomorrow, then."
"Bah! If you get him foul within a week, I will give you a thousand
dollars."
"Done, cap. He's a dead man. My string never failed me yet. More than
one has gone down beneath it, and oh, how I love to see them gasp for
breath."
"How is the wind?" asked the captain, curtly.
"None at all," replied Morgan, "The rain has knocked it all out. We
could not reach the nest to-night if we tried."
"Then let us go ashore. Sindahr will be there. Come."
Nick waited to hear no more, but went hastily to his boat and untied the
painter.
As he drifted away, he heard the low murmur of voices as the men
came upon deck from the cabin of the sloop.

Soon there came a gentle splash in the water, and he knew that they had
put the boat over the side-the very one behind which he had hidden,
when they were searching for him so eagerly.
That they had some rendezvous on shore near that point, Nick felt
certain, and he resolved to follow them at all risks.
Standing in the stern of his own boat with a single oar, he could force
her through the water as silently as a shadow, while he conjectured that
they would row, and that he could thus follow the sound of their oars in
the water.
He was right.
They were soon in the boat and rowing rapidly away, while Nick
followed them, sculling as fast as they rowed. A long pier stretched far
out into the bay, near by, and they made directly for it.
The noise made by their oars in the water ceased, and Nick paused,
knowing that they had gone beneath the pier.
Presently he sculled cautiously forward.
His boat touched the pier, and drawing in his oar, he used his hands
upon the planking, to force his boat ahead.
When far beneath the pier, he stopped and listened again.
The silence of death and the blackness of the Styx reigned supreme.
Cautiously Nick drew his little dark-lantern from his pocket, pressed
the spring and opened the slide.
A ray of light shot out over the water.
The empty boat employed by the men in coming from the sloop was
immediately before him, but the men had disappeared.
The boat was fastened to a cross-beam of the pier, just where a crib was

sunk into the water.
It was not likely that they had jumped into the river, and therefore it
followed that there must be a way of passing through the crib, or of
reaching the dock from that point.
Nick pulled his boat forward.
He searched the crib and was examining it intently, when something,
he knew not what, caused him to turn his head suddenly.
The act saved his life.
There was a flash and a loud report, and a bullet whizzed past his ear.
Like a shot he turned and leaped toward the point from