034 - The Fantastic Island PDF

THE FANTASTIC ISLAND
A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson

Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine December 1935
The Fantastic Island

was but a small volcanic outlying island of
the Galapagos Archipelago; but when Johnny
wrecked on it and Doc Savage went to his
rescue, the island spawned a plot as
gigantic as it was small
A Complete Book-length Novel
By KENNETH ROBESON
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Chapter I Harper Littlejohn, who was better known as

SHIPWRECKS TO ORDER “Johnny,” and his expedition.
The Seven Seas was now about to
THE disappearance of William slam headlong into more trouble than those
Harper Littlejohn attracted no public attention aboard would ever have believed possible.
whatever. The reason for this was simple.
The public never learned about it.
William Harper Littlejohn was a very THE Seven Seas was riding a radio
famous man. It was impossible that, if ten beam radiated, by special courtesy on the
average men on the street should be stopped part of the powerful United States Naval
and asked who William Harper Littlejohn radio station, from the Panama Canal Zone.
was, they would not have had the slightest This beam simplified navigation, and they
idea; but, in his field, William Harper were riding it straight for the Galapagos.
Littlejohn was tops. His field was archaeology
and geology. Wherever men are interested in
such things, he was known.
William Harper Littlejohn’s
disappearance was simple. He had chartered
a ship and was taking an archaeological
expedition to the Galapagos Islands, below
the equator in the Pacific Ocean. The
Galapagos are said to be the world’s
strangest islands. William Harper Littlejohn
simply disappeared. The ship vanished also.
The whole expedition, too. Brigadier General Theodore Marley
It could not have been that their radio Brooks stood on the dripping deck of the
merely failed. There were three radio Seven Seas and stared into an immensity of
transmitters on the expedition ship. No, there black sky and blacker water. Occasionally he
was some other reason. It was strange. scowled anxiously upward at the radio
Just how strange it was, no one had rigging. Water slapped and phosphoresced
any idea at the beginning of the thing. around the bow.
William Harper Littlejohn happened Right now, the yacht was rolling in a
to be one of the five men associated with that huge ground swell, rolling alarmingly. Rivets
remarkable man of mystery, Doc Savage. strained and bulkheads creaked. There was
Word of his disappearance reached Doc at least half a gale blowing, and it made
Savage at his New York headquarters. Doc noises in the rigging like the sighs of dying
Savage acted promptly. men.
Two of Doc Savage’s aids—he had Brigadier General Theodore Marley
five of them altogether—were on a vacation Brooks was commonly called “Ham,” a name
cruise in the yacht Seven Seas, which which he did not like. He now frowned darkly
chanced to be off the coast of Panama, in the and made his way to the pitching bridge.
Pacific. Aboard the yacht also was Patricia “This is dangerous,” he snapped.
Savage, a remarkable young woman, whose “We may run onto a reef any minute.”
relationship to Doc Savage was that of “Don’t I know it?” a surprisingly
cousin. Pat had gone along for the trip, she childlike voice retorted from the
claimed; but it was to be suspected that she semidarkness of the bridge. “This ground
was looking for excitement. swell is bad—mighty bad. When it piles up
If she was looking for excitement, like this, it means the water is getting
she was certainly destined to find it. shallow.”
Doc Savage, man of bronze, Ham snapped, “But I thought you
individual of mystery, mental wizard and said—”
physical marvel—to quote the newspapers— “Something screwy,” piped the
sent a radiogram to the yacht Seven Seas childlike voice. “According to your log, we’re
headed for the Galapagos to look for William supposed to have more than a hundred miles
between us and the nearest land.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx THE FANTASTIC ISLAND xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 3
A young woman joined them on the And the United States government station is
bridge. She was a very striking young woman transmitting the beam to us.”
to look at, having not only a lovely face, but
hair of a very unusual bronze color and eyes
which actually looked golden. She was THE word exchange had the rather
Patricia Savage, who loved excitement. unexpected effect of throwing Monk into what
“I wish you’d ask your old ocean to looked like a very violent rage.
behave,” she requested, cheerfully. “I’ve “You tellin’ me, you courtroom fop?”
been thrown out of my bunk three times in Monk growled belligerently at Ham.
the last fifteen minutes. I gave it up.” “Don’t get tough with me, you
“Something is wrong, Pat,” Ham told missing link,” Ham snapped. “I’ll make shark
her. “We’re getting into a big ground swell. bait out of you!”
That means we are near land, or at least in
shoal water. And that is very much
impossible.”
Monk pushed back from the radio

apparatus and squared off threateningly
before Ham.
“Who says I’m wrong?” he
demanded in a voice no longer mouselike.
“I did, you ape,” Ham snapped.
Pat walked over to the second man “You’re a liar besides bein’ a shyster
on the bridge. “Just what is the trouble, lawyer,” Monk bellowed. “I’m right, and you
Monk?” she asked. know darned well that I’m right!”
The man addressed as “Monk” sat in Pat said dryly, “I wonder if you know
the shadows, hunched like a bulky Buddha what you’re quarreling over.”
over an audio-frequency amplifier. His thick The two men pretended not to hear.
hands indicated the apparatus containing Ham and Monk seemed always on the point
vacuum tubes for increasing the voltage and of taking each other apart violently. The
power of radio beacon signals. mildest word from one was likely to set the
“These direction-finding doodads other off in a rage; but it was only on rare
have gone plain haywire,” he insisted in that occasions that their enmity extended beyond
small squeaky voice. the talking stage.
Ham joined them and listened to the Patricia Savage cast an idle glance
signal pulsations coming from the around the horizon. She started violently.
loudspeaker. He said, “The beat frequency is “Look!” she cried. “Ahead there, a bit
sounding just as it should. We are certainly to port. Green and red lights!”
not off the course as broadcast to us from the “Huh?” Monk jerked around.
government radio beacon in the Canal Zone.” “Channel lights that sounds like.”
“We’re right in the beam, all right,” Ham stared intently, forgot himself
Monk grunted. “The A wave is jammed with and his feud with Monk. “Channel lights they
the N waves so you don’t hear any dots—just are, but they were not there a minute ago.”
a blur of dashes. We can’t be off our course, Monk’s small eyes blinked rapidly. “It
but we must be.” ain’t possible.”
“Impossible!” snapped Ham. “Our “Some mistake,” Ham muttered. “No
goniometer, with its new type amplifier lights are indicated on the chart.”
developed by Doc Savage himself, insures Pat pointed at them and said, “There
that the direction finder couldn’t go wrong. they are,” with inescapable feminine logic.
Ham and Monk crowded forward for

another inspection of the charts. They offered THE yacht was caught in a choppy
a strange contrast in appearance, these two cross-current now, and the wind was rising. It
men. Ham was meticulously attired in a blue no longer sighed like men at death’s door. It
marine uniform, a blue cap with its insignia in wailed and howled.
gold set jauntily on his head. He carried a Ham went to the end of the bridge
slender black cane. He was handsome, lithe, and clung to the railing to keep from being
and wore his clothes like a fashion plate. pitched off the violently tilting craft into the
Monk, on the contrary, wore a not boil of black water around them. In spite of
too white pair of duck pants, wrinkled across the wind, the night was oppressive, muggy,
the thighs and bagged at the knees. An with a faint sulphurous smell. Suddenly a
enormous green-and-white-striped undershirt flickering glow, as of sheet lightning, sprang
fitted around his barrel chest like a circus tent into life, tingeing the low-hanging clouds.
slipped on over an elephant. Rusty hair stuck Ham made a mistake. He dismissed
out on his bulletlike head like mashed bristles it at first as ordinary lightning. Then he saw
on a wire brush. The hair grew low down on that there was something different about
his forehead, half burying his ears, almost these luminous flashes. They were weird,
meeting his scrubby eyebrows. His homely unearthly. They stained the low-hanging
face was mostly mouth and flat nose. His clouds a bloody red.
body was nearly as wide as it was long and Ham heard a rasped breath behind
his fists hung down almost to his knees. In him and was startled into whirling. It was
fact, he did not look like a man. He Monk.
resembled an amiable ape. “Red lightnin’,” Monk uttered,
It was a mistake to judge either of hanging on against the fetid, sulphurous wind
these two by appearances. Ham was no fop. at the deck tip. “That’s funny-lookin’, ain’t it?”
He was one of the most astute lawyers Again the gory light mushroomed out
Harvard had ever turned out. And Monk, as under the clouds. It was more sustained,
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, brighter this time, and it showed them things.
was recognized as one of the greatest, living, Off to one side bulked a shore line; but this
industrial chemists. did not strike them with terror. Pat called
The greatest claim to distinction of attention to the thing that did.
these two men, however, was that they were “Look!” she screamed. “Look! All
members of Doc Savage’s group of five around us!”
remarkable aids. That alone made them “Hard alee!” Monk squalled. “Engines
unusual, for each of the bronze man’s five reversed!”
aids was a master of some particular The fantastic red light went out.
profession. “Did you see?” Ham gasped in the
Pat went over now and disconnected silence that followed. “There must be two
the robot control which had been steering the dozen ships, big and little, wrecked all
ship. around us.”
“Shall I hold to the channel lights?” “And the devil only knows where we
she asked, swinging the wheel slightly over. are,” Monk gulped. “I’m gonna back this boat,
“I don’t like this,” Ham said, uneasily. turn around, get outta here an’ wait for
“There should be no harbor at all near us, daylight.”
least of all a lighted harbor, even a lighted “A whole graveyard of wrecked
channel. But there is nothing else to do.” ships,” Pat gasped. “Red lightning that smells
“Why not?” Monk demanded. “We of sulphur!”
don’t have to go in that channel, do we?—if Pat’s voice sounded, it seemed,
there is a channel.” rather cheerful.
Ham snapped, “It’s worth “You always did like trouble, didn’t
investigating. That is what I mean.” you?” Monk grunted at her.
It looked as if their perpetual quarrel “And mystery,” Pat added. “I eat it
were going to break out again. up.”
Pat solved the problem by turning There must have been a tide that
the Seven Seas toward the channel markers. carried the Seven Seas to one side, or
something. They were in reverse, exactly
retracing the course they had been sailing, his shirt. The cane was in reality a formidable
when it happened. weapon—a sword cane. Its innocent-
A curling wave lifted the bow of the appearing exterior sheathed a length of
Seven Seas high in the water and hurled it gleaming steel, the point of which had been
down. The yacht shuddered with a wrenching impregnated with a chemical capable of
shock that knocked Monk and Ham sprawling producing almost instant unconsciousness.
on the wet deck. There was a nightmare of Under the red lightning glare, surf on
grinding and scrapings as steel plates were all sides broke against hidden reefs, churning
wrenched from the hull by jagged coral. the water to a bloody froth. But Pat and Ham
Caught fast on the submerged reef, came through the barrage of wave-dashed
the craft did not rise with the next wave. She rocks and reeled, half drowned and gasping,
heeled half over instead, with a groaning of onto a mangrove-studded beach. Monk
tortured steel; and the wave washed in an swashed ashore close behind them, holding
avalanche of water over the deck. the squirming Habeas Corpus under an arm
Ham and Monk were battered with difficulty.
against the anchor winch. They staggered
up, half drowned, to claw their way toward
the bridge.
“Aid Pat, if she needs it,” Monk
bellowed. “Me, I’m goin’ for Habeas Corpus!”
Habeas Corpus was Monk’s
cherished pet pig. He never went anywhere
without the animal, much to Ham’s disgust
and frequent infuriation.
A streak of light, blue-white, darted
from the Seven Sea’s bridge, knifed across
the rock-fanged water.
“Turn that searchlight off,” Ham
shouted to Pat, as he went down again under
a drenching cross-wave. “That hog’ll kick a rib out for you
“It’ll help us see to swim ashore,” Pat some day,” Ham warned, breathing hard.
protested. “Lay off Habeas Corpus,” Monk
“It’ll draw sharks,” Ham snapped, as gasped, “or I’ll be kickin’ out some ribs on my
he caught the life preserver Pat threw him. own account.”
“So you’re afraid of sharks,” Pat said. The red luminance bloomed again
But she switched off the searchlight against the clouds. It crawled and writhed,
and joined Ham at the submerged rail. Monk disappeared, and blanketed out again like a
appeared on deck an instant later with the bloody mist floating in air.
squealing, kicking armful of razorback hog “What is it?” Pat demanded,
that was Habeas Corpus. shivering in spite of the sultry night.
Habeas Corpus had a snout like a “Nothing supernatural,” Ham
wood-rasp, flopping coal-scuttle ears, long explained. “You notice the color on the
ungainly legs. The special life preserver clouds does not seep through from above.
which Monk had previously fashioned for The light is reflected from underneath—”
Habeas did not improve his appearance. It “There’s an active volcano
added to his buoyancy, however. Monk somewhere on the island,” Monk summed
jumped into the water with the wet pig. up.
“That hog’ll draw sharks,” Ham Pat pressed water out of her
yelled. drenched hair. “Do you suppose here’s
“Habeas, he fights sharks!” Monk where Johnny is?”
roared back. “Come on!” “We’ll have to find out,” Ham said,
grimly.
“One thing I’d like to clear myself on,”
PAT and Ham went overboard, Ham Pat said earnestly. “The shipwreck. I was
still holding tightly to his slim black cane holding dead in the middle of the channel
which was almost as much a part of him as when it happened.”
“Yeah,” Monk agreed, “it wasn’t your aroused snake. Pat, pressing forward behind
fault.” them, scooped up rocks from the beach and
“This shipwreck was arranged,” Ham threw them as fast as she could. Even
said, ominously. Habeas Corpus did his part, squealing and
“Some one on this island set those grunting and gouging his sharp tusks into
lights so we’d run slam on the reef, you every foot and ankle that came within reach
mean?” Monk muttered. of his wood-rasp snout.
Ham said soberly, “Some one drew The varied strategy was too much for
us a hundred miles off our course and the attackers. They thought Ham’s sword
wrecked us. We’re up against something cane was dealing out death, and they broke
really sinister.” suddenly, with hideous yells, to go crashing
“Kinda wish Doc was here,” Monk away and disappear in the black recesses of
announced. the mangrove sink.
The next moment he was wishing it Monk picked up Habeas Corpus and
even more violently. Attracted perhaps by swung him lustily by the long ears, much to
the blue-white searchlight beam which had the pig’s squealing delight. Monk grinned,
lanced out from the Seven Seas a moment and the action lighted up his unbelievably
after she had gone on the rocks, shadowy homely face, making it very pleasant to look
man-figures loosened from the darkly at.
entwined mangrove thicket and bore down There was a little light now from the
upon the castaways, brandishing short clubs stars. Ham was making a quick examination
and shrieking a harsh unintelligible gibberish. of the anaesthetized victims of his sword
cane.
They were of different races and
Chapter II colors—and all wore loin cloths. Their necks
ISLAND OF HORROR were encircled with copper-studded collars
made, seemingly, out of lizard hide.
THE dimly seen attackers, twenty or A great blast of noise riveted Ham’s
more, rushed out of the mangroves in a solid attention. It was only Monk laughing.
wave. Ham and Monk thrust Pat behind, then “What’s the matter, you hairy ape?”
met the attack—Ham with his sword cane, Ham demanded, suspiciously.
Monk with his granite-knuckled fists. “I was thinkin’ how you’d look in the
Ham dropped two of the assailants costume of the country—a loin cloth and a
with deft thrusts of the sword cane. He was dog collar.”
careful not to allow the valuable cane, tipped Ham bristled and gripped his sword
with the unconsciousness-producing cane tighter. “You wide-mouthed macaw—”
chemical, to be struck; in fact, Ham was he began.
more regardful of the cane than of himself. Pat silenced him with tight-lipped
Unexpectedly, there was an ugly- words. “If you want more fighting, save your
sounding whack, and Ham staggered back strength,” she said. “They’re coming back.”
groggily from a club which had bludgeoned
past his guard. Dazedly, he saw the club lift
again. But it did not descend. Not with any A LOUD plud sounded in the wet
weight behind it. There was a rap of knuckles sand near Ham’s feet. In a second the air
against a jaw as Monk’s long arm jabbed out was filled with heavy missiles. Habeas
and knocked the club-swinger off his feet. Corpus squealed.
Ham recovered his balance and got “They’re heaving rocks!” Ham
his deadly sword cane into use again. shouted.
“Let’s charge ‘em,” Monk squawled. “They can throw more rocks than we
“Righto,” Ham agreed. “We’ll try to can,” Monk growled. “Let’s get outta here.”
break through into the mangroves!” Monk tucked one of the short, thick
Side by side, they advanced into a clubs under his arm, grabbed up Habeas
rain of clubs—Monk’s pummeling fists Corpus by the ears, and lunged into the
working like locomotive driving rods, Ham’s shadowed thicket. Pat and Ham followed
sword cane darting in and out like an closely.
Pressing through the mangrove sink, been laid out originally with the regularity of
they came out upon a height of land that was cells in a honeycomb.”
nothing if not weird. Volcanic rock, black lava As they continued on, the
sharp as broken glass, swallowed them up in honeycomb pattern became more apparent
a welter of fantastically shaped hills and as the pits were revealed in a less crumbling
gullies. Much of the razor-edged glass was in condition.
tilted sheets which were prone to slip and “These were dug later,” Ham
shatter under the weight of a footfall. Giant observed.
cactuses rooted in the crevices and dangled “Yeah,” Monk agreed. “The farther
their spiny pads overhead, like hooded we go, the fresher the pits look.”
cobras ready to strike. “But what are they for?” Pat
They lost all sounds of pursuit. wondered. “Say, this all gets queerer and
The low-raking clouds lifted and the queerer. What’s it all about?”
three pressed on under the pale white light of
equatorial stars.
“I hope we get somewhere quick,” “LISTEN,” Ham said, tensely.
Pat said, appalled. Wafted on the miasmatic breeze
“They speak of the Galapagos came sharp, cracking sounds. There was
Archipelago as the ‘world’s end,’“ Ham unearthliness about the sounds, as though
remarked. they sprang from the air of their own volition.
“They don’t miss it much,” Monk “What is it?” Pat asked uneasily.
grumbled. “How we’re goin’ to find Johnny in “No animal ever made a sound like
this volcanic scrap heap, I dunno.” that,” Monk blurted.
“Did either of you get the Suddenly through and above the
impression,” Pat asked suddenly, “that our cracking sounds, came a long-drawn wail
League-of-Nations attackers were being which quavered up and down the scale in
careful not to kill us?” agony so appalling that a trickle of icy water
“Yeah,” Monk admitted. “Even those seemed to be loosened on the back of each
rocks were not thrown too hard.” of the three listeners.
“They wanted us alive, I guess,” Ham Pat gasped: “I never heard anything
supplied. like it. Horrible!”
“My guess, too. But why?” “A dying animal of some kind,” Ham
“That’s anybody’s guess.” said.
“We could sure use Doc Savage “Dying man!” Monk corrected, grimly.
about now.” “Come on,” Ham said, gripping his
Climbing higher up the glassy slope, sword cane.
they passed through a belt of cold volcanic As they pressed forward, the pits in
pits and cones, where, ages before, the the rocklike ash actually became as sharply
molten rock had bubbled like mush and delineated as the cells in a honeycomb. A
cooled in scabrous pockmarks. giant honeycomb. These pits were about ten
They came out on a wide plateau feet in diameter, and some ten feet where
where nothing grew, not even the cobra-head they were not filled with loose earth. The
cactus, and where the pits were smaller, mysterious cracking noises sounded louder.
clogged with earth and so close together that “Ahead there,” Ham rapped under
it was necessary to skirt the region to make his breath. “Look!”
any forward progress. “Shadows!” Pat gasped. “Like men
Monk stopped suddenly. moving!”
“These pits are all in geometric The three worked closer, holding to
order,” he declared. “They’re not volcanic pits the concealment of the fringing thicket.
like the ones below. They’re manmade.” White-pointed thorns tore at them, viciously
Ham stared. On the plain, the glassy shredding their clothes and piercing flesh.
rock had given way to a kind of reddish clay, But they succeeded in approaching opposite
or hard-packed volcanic ash. the place where the shadows moved, and
“Right,” he clipped. “The pits are from where the cracking, cutting noises
crumbling away now and mostly buried under issued. Here the plain stretched on, but the
loose earth. Hard to tell, but they must have advancing line of pits came to an end.
They crouched down, watching. back as he swerved around. A shrill squeal

Stars dripped pale light. And suddenly a sounded.
close, bulking mountain disgorged a red Monk clamped his huge hands over
glare into the sky. Bathed in the baleful light Habeas Corpus’s snout to smother the
of volcanic fires, huge-muscled men could be affectionate squeals of the pig which had
seen moving ceaselessly up and down at the burst away from Ham and had run straight to
edge of the honeycombed ground. The men Monk.
were clothed as those others had been—in He throttled the squeals. But the
loin cloths and leather collars. They carried damage was already done. Whip-cracking
long whips, which they swung over their overseers jabbered sharply at each other and
heads and cracked down into the row of pits. clumped forward to investigate the
Hideous groans and jabberings disturbance.
issued from the unseen depths of the pits. Monk’s squat bulk reared upward.
The whip-crackers, their half-naked bodies in Brandishing his stout club, he lunged forward
the red volcanic glare sleek with glistening to meet the attack of the nearest man. But
sweat, looked like satanic apparitions come before Monk could close in, a deadly swish
to earth. sounded. Monk’s enemy was still six or eight
“Back on the yacht I said maybe we paces away, but Monk felt his knees gripped
were headed for hell,” Monk muttered. “Now, as though by iron hands, jerked tightly
I know it!” together and pulled out from under him. He
“The cracking noises we heard were fell, striking the ground with stunning force.
from the whips,” Ham observed. Monk knew what had thrown him,
“What’s in the pits, I wonder?” Pat and his hands raked down to jerk away the
asked, in a hushed tone. lead-tipped thong which had whipped out of
Monk was already edging forward, the night murk and entwined his legs. Before
crawling on his stomach. he could free himself, his assailant was
“Hold Habeas Corpus,” he whispered standing over him, the weighted whip handle
back. “I’ll find out.” raised high to crash against Monk’s head.
“Blast your hog,” Ham complained, Ham’s sword cane slithered in that
but he held the pig. instant, dropped the overseer, and saved
As he muscled to a position where Monk from the blow. But another whip
he could look down into the pits, Monk swished out of the night, wrapped around
gasped with grim surprise. In every one of Ham’s legs and hurled him to the ground on
the circular holes, as far as he could see top of Monk.
down the long line, stakes were driven, and Clubs battered them both to
to the stakes were attached chains, and to unconsciousness before they could claw free
the end of the chains were fastened men. from the knee-binding thongs.
There was one man with a shovel in
each pit, digging. The diggers wore loin
cloths only, lacking the lizard-leather collars WHEN they came to, a few minutes
worn by the whip-cracking overseers. These later, they found themselves bound and lying
collars Monk correctly assumed to be on the ground at the edge of the line of pits.
emblems of authority. Ham focused his groggy glance at the
Each of the pit-men was digging a nearest pit worker. The man had sunk his
hole of a circumference allowed by the length hole about five feet down, so that his face
of his chain. The holes, extending across the was practically on ground level. That pain-
plain in a straight line, were of uniform racked face was almost within hand’s reach
width—about ten feet. of Ham.
Under the lash of the whips, in the Ham started violently. In a red
hellish red volcano glare, the chained men volcanic flare he had recognized the man as
were actually digging their way to death. being one of the members of Johnny’s
expedition.
“Tony!” Ham whispered hoarsely.
SUDDENLY, from behind Monk, A shudder went over the man as his
sounded a fast thudding on the hardpacked crazed eyes turned to Ham’s. His lips
ground. Something thrust hard against his
widened in startled recognition. He said feet. The other guard jumped heavily down,
nothing, but kept on digging. unlocked the iron cuff from the dead man’s
Ham shot a quick glance around, leg, and heaved the limp body out of the pit.
saw that the nearest overseer was intently The guard on top grunted, and
engaged in a bullying cross-examination of pushed Ham roughly over the edge. Ham fell
Pat. Ham squirmed close to the edge of the sprawling. The guard in the pit was ready for
hole, so that his lips were almost at the him. He jangled the chain against the stake,
digger’s ear. grabbed Ham by the foot and slapped on the
“Where’s the rest of the ship’s iron cuff, warm from the dead man’s leg.
crew—and Johnny?” he whispered. He picked up the dead man’s shovel,
“Crew’s in the pits, diggin’,” the man thrust it into Ham’s hands. The overseer
answered in a kind of wrenching sob. above cracked down with the whip. A thick
“Where’s Johnny? Is he alive?” Ham welt bloomed on Ham’s cheek. He started
hung on the answer fearfully. digging.
“Alive, but he won’t be long.” Overseers herded Monk a short
“Where is he?” distance down the line of horror holes, and
“A big guy with a black beard took put him similarly to work.
him away. I don’t know where. I only know
they’re gonna kill Johnny. They’re gonna kill
all of us!” The man’s voice rose to hysterical Chapter III
rasp. PRISONERS OF THE PITS
“Don’t talk so loud,” Ham cautioned,
fiercely. “What have we got into here? Tell PAT experienced a somewhat
me what you know. Quick! While we’ve got different fate from that of the two men. She
the chance.” was consigned to one of the pits; but, though
“I can’t tell you—but I can—” Then she was chained to the stake, she was not
the man’s voice rose in a choking shriek, out whipped, nor was she compelled to dig.
of all control now. It was an insane shriek. She was greatly relieved at this
Plainly, the fellow had broken under concession to her womanhood until, cutting
the tortures he had endured. through the harsh medley of groans, whip-
cracks and guttural cries, she heard the close
voices of two guards conversing in English.
WHATEVER it was he meant to tell, “Make her dig.”
or not to tell, Ham, remained forever untold. “No. The count will surely order her
The overseer rushed forward, mouthing to be brought to the palace. He will not want
unintelligible curses. His arm reared up, and her worn out from digging.”
down. The leaded whip handle struck with “But she could well stand a little bit of
gruesome thump against the crazed man’s whipping—”
head. It was a blow heavy enough to have “No,” the other protested. “In this
dropped anything alive. But the man in the pit case, the count will prefer to do his own
was not exactly alive now. He was a raving whipping.”
madman, mercifully removed from all “Maybe you’re right,” the overseer
consciousness of pain. His whitish eyes growled, and moved away down the line of
rolled madly. Crimson foam bubbled from his pits.
lips. The other guard bent close over the
The leaded whip handle descended edge of the hole. Pat shrank back. All at
again. This time the man slumped, a slack once, the pulse throbbed violently in her
weight in the pit. He was dead before his wrists and in her blue eyes sprang a look of
body hit the bottom. desperate hope. She was recognizing this
The overseer—he was some guard. He was another member of the
unidentifiable Asiatic type—bawled orders in expedition that had disappeared with Johnny.
harsh gibberish. Two guards shoved forward. “Aren’t you—” she started to
One was a giant brown-skinned man; the suggest.
other a paunchy Caucasian of indeterminate “Al Fredrickton, first mate,” he
race. The brown man bent and commenced supplied.
ripping the thongs from Ham’s hands and
“But you—that whip!” line of working pits. The horse was a

“I have to whip to keep from being quivering black shadow under the wan
whipped,” he whispered, savagely. “I’m on starlight, and the rider was a shadow
top today. Tomorrow they may yank the proportionately huge and black.
collar off my neck and pitch me in a hole. I’m With virulent curses, the rider urged
just as much a prisoner as these poor devils the plunging horse in among the cowering
digging.” overseers. He leaned far out of his saddle,
“But what is it all about?” Pat cracking heads right and left with a fearful
questioned. instrument—a knout, fashioned somewhat on
“I don’t know any more about it than the order of those used in Imperial Russia.
you do. I only know that men dig and die.” Again and again the knout descended, its
“Dig and die!” she echoed, starkly. woven leather thongs, reënforced with wire
“What about Johnny?” and hardened by a rosin treatment, biting
“He was taken to the palace. He may down deeply and forcing agonized yells.
be alive. Listen: 33 Redbeach Road, Long One of the guards showed fight. He
Island. Can you remember that?” dodged the blow of the knout, flung in close
“33 Redbeach Road—I’ve got it.” against the plunging horse and reached up to
“Boris Ramadanoff, at that address.” pull the horseman from the saddle. The man
“I’ve got it. What about it?” in the saddle only laughed a raw ghoulish
The man’s breath came faster. clacking, pulled a revolver from holster and
“You’re our only hope,” he rasped. “They’ll shot the guard dead.
take you to the palace. Try to contact The horseman kept laughing and
Johnny. Tell him the name and address. driving bullets into the guard’s body, even
There’s a powerful short-wave radio sending after the fellow was slumped in a still, dead
set at the palace. Johnny must get a heap on the ground. After that, no one
message to Doc Savage. Tell Doc Savage to offered resistance.
contact Boris Ramadanoff.” The horseman raised his voice in a
“Yes, but what good will that do?” bawled order. Guards scurried frenziedly into
“Ramadanoff can tell Doc Savage all the pits where Monk and Ham and Pat were
he needs to know to effect our rescue. shackled. They unlocked the leg irons and
Ramadanoff is the brother of the big shot motioned for the captives to climb out of their
here on the island. They quarreled, the two holes.
brothers. And Boris left for New York.” The three were brought before the
“How did you find out all this?” man on the horse. The man spoke in precise
“After our ship fallowed in the false English. His voice was suavely sinister.
harbor lights and was wrecked, we were He said: “It was a stupid blunder of
taken prisoners. The steward and I were my slaves to chain you to the pits. It is only
retained to work in the palace kitchen. The the Asiatic immigrant ships sailing to South
steward heard the brothers quarreling. He America that I intercept for my pit laborers.
learned Boris’s new address and passed it Those, and occasional Ecuadorian
on to me.” fishermen, guano and moss hunters. When,
“Where is the steward?” Pat asked. upon rare occasions, a yacht comes this
“Dead!” said the man. “They way, its occupants are received as welcome
suspected he knew something. They killed guests.”
him.” “How does a guest get off this island
Pat shuddered. “Life isn’t worth much after his ship is wrecked?” Ham asked dryly.
here, is it?” “My dear General Brooks,” came the
precise voice from the darkly-bulking figure
on the horse, “none have ever gotten off.”
SOMETHING happened the next “This lug knows who we are!” Monk
moment to demonstrate anew the fiendish muttered. Then, aloud, he said: “They’re all
ruthlessness of the sinister genius in control on here now, the guests?”
of this island. “They are, my dear Colonel Mayfair,
A drumming beat sounded against though a bit unrecognizable, some of them.”
the ground and a huge horse, ridden hard, Monk bristled. “Johnny better be
snorted to a stiff-legged stop in front of the recognizable.”
“Doubtless you have reference to palace of medieval Slavic type flung its black
Professor Littlejohn,” the other murmured. rock turrets high above the jungle growth.
“He is quite recognizable. I shall take you to Through a drawbridge in the
him. But first permit me to introduce myself. I bastioned wall of twenty-foot thick volcanic
am Count Alexander Ramadanoff.” rock, they entered the bleak palace
Turning to the guards, the count courtyard. The drawbridge swung
barked an order. Men padded forward with ponderously closed behind them.
peculiar contrivances, resembling wicker Pat shivered. She felt as though she
hammocks. They deposited the litters on the was locked out of the world.
ground and stood a little back. “An army couldn’t get through these
The count’s hand waved out. His walls,” Ham reflected uneasily.
sardonic voice sounded: “There is one for “Some joint,” Monk mumbled.
each of you. Recline, and I will conduct you Past the high buttressed towers the
in state to the palace.” “guests” were carried and deposited in front
Monk hooted, “No hospital cot for of a low-arched doorway. The count
mine. I’ll walk!” dismounted from his black horse and waved
“Recline,” the count ordered again, them inside.
and the knout swung menacingly in his hand. “Some joint is right!” Monk said
They took their places on the wicker emphatically, as he stopped inside the stone
litters—Monk grumbling, Ham doubtful, and threshold and stared around.
Pat frankly grateful for the convenience. The room was huge, high-vaulted—
“Hey!” Monk blurted. “We’re forgettin’ an oppressive cavern of black volcanic rock
Habeas Corpus.” and wooden beams. Demoniacal blue flames
“You have reference to the trained leaped within a fireplace large enough to
Arabian pig?” the Count questioned with have engulfed a whole ox for roasting. The
suave politeness. fire shadows swooped on long curtains of
“You know everything, don’t you?” somber ruby red which hung on brass hoops.
Monk growled. “Yeah, I mean my pig.” Silver samovars glowed dully from shadowed
Count Ramadanoff exchanged a few recesses. Ancient icons looked down from
guttural phrases with the overseers, then the walls. The only modern touch in the
addressed Monk. whole vast room was a grand piano draped
“The pig must have escaped into the with costly sea otter furs and brightly
jungle. He will find company more to his illuminated by crystal spangled candelabras
liking there. Wild swine overrun this island.” which shed a yellow light from high
Ham said, “Well, anyhow, we’ve overhead.
seen the last of that hog.” Count Ramadanoff indicated ornately
Monk glowered at Ham. “It’s your gilded, ruby-plush chairs. “Sit there before
fault, shyster. You let him go.” the fire,” he invited, “while your chambers are
“If it wasn’t for you and your pesky being prepared.”
pig, we wouldn’t be in this fix,” Ham retorted. In the light, the count was revealed
Count Ramadanoff cut short their as a magnificently proportioned man, broad-
quarrel by ordering the litter bearers to shouldered, muscled, well over six feet in
proceed. Through a narrow path hacked in height. He was dressed in black—black
the vine-matted jungle growth, they jogged riding boots, black breeches, black coat,
along, the count, on his horse, bringing up black satin string tie. His Czar-of-Russia
the rear. beard was black too, and his black eyes
They came out on a strip of rocky smoldered with a sinister light which it was
coastline and the “guests” stared with impossible for him to conceal.
astonishment. Pat sat on the edge of her high-
“Blazes!” Monk gulped. “Blazes! backed chair and mentally chewed her finger
Look!” nails because there had been no opportunity
for her to divulge to Monk or Ham the
information she had learned regarding the
RISING sheer, washed by ocean New York address of the count’s brother.
spray on one side and bathed in the blood-
red glare of volcanic light on the other, a
Monk pawed at his bargelike jaw. Savages in the jungle are aroused to an
“Where’s all the other guests you animal frenzy through the beat of their own
mentioned?” tom-toms. In similar fashion, I am impelled to
“Where’s Johnny?” Ham rapped. unspeakable decisions when my fingers
Pat also spilled questions. “What is wander over the keys.”
the location of this island? How did you know Monk and Ham, playing a waiting
us? Why did you wreck us? What are those game, said nothing.
horrible pits for?” Count Ramadanoff spoke again: “I
The count stood with his back to the have now met all except two of Doc Savage’s
fireplace, his fingers writhing before the blue world-famed specialists. It would give me the
flames, which, strangely, gave off little light utmost pleasure to match wits—and
and almost no heat. strength—with this almost fabulous
“Answering your questions in order,” personage, Doc Savage, himself.”
he said in his suave, precise voice, “you “Perhaps,” murmured Pat
would not enjoy seeing the guests.” enigmatically, “you shall.”
“Why?” Monk demanded. A dark-skinned man approached on
“Because, my dear Colonel Mayfair, soundless feet, bowed low before Count
most of them are in various stages of Ramadanoff and motioned toward the broad
decomposition.” stone steps disappearing upward in a
“Huh?” Monk grunted. sweeping spiral into a region of shadows and
“The mortality rate among my guests ruby-colored velvet drapes.
has been regrettably high.” The thin, cruel line of the count’s
mouth seemed not to move, but an abrupt
hissing noise escaped his lips. It seemed to
MONK went directly to the point. be a signal of dismissal, for the slave turned
“You mean you kill ‘em?” and padded swiftly up the stairway.
“Nothing so crude as that,” the count “Follow him,” the count said, shortly.
denied. There was a quality about the count’s “He will conduct you to your chambers.”
voice which gave a menacing, blood-crawling
emphasis to his most casual words.
“What, then?” Ham demanded. UPSTAIRS, the three were shown to
“They were, shall we say, liquidated.” separate rooms.
“Sent to the pits?” Ham had not been alone for more
“Many of them, yes.” than forty seconds before he saw his door
“Why?” latch lift noiselessly. He crouched, the fingers
Fires flared deep in the count’s of his right hand involuntarily clenched, as
fanatic eyes. “Some of them for trying to though he gripped his deadly sword cane.
escape. Some for becoming too curious.” But the cane would have been of no
The man’s cruel, glinting eyes use to him. It was only Pat who opened the
fastened upon Pat. “For becoming too door and eased into his room. In a rush of
curious,” he repeated. “That, I think, my dear whispered words, she told him of her
young lady, answers all four of your conversation with the pit guard who had been
questions.” with Johnny’s expedition.
Pat’s breath drew in sharply. She “The logical place for the radio room
glanced nervously around the oppressive is in the top of the tower,” Ham said,
room. “That’s a beautiful piano,” she said. excitedly.
“It is, indeed,” the count agreed. “But there’s a steel door barring the
“Four men were killed taking it off the boat. stairway to the tower!”
Do you play?” “Let us go talk to Monk,” Ham
“No,” said Pat. “Won’t you play suggested.
something?” When he heard the news, Monk,
Count Ramadanoff nodded. “I regret characteristically, was all for immediate
to say that, later, I most likely shall.” action.
“You regret?” “We won’t get a better chance than
“Yes. When I play, it is always a now,” he declared.
prelude of unpleasantness for somebody. Ham was inclined to agree.
“But that steel door!” Pat protested. HAM sent the key dancing under his
“Come on. We’ll go look at it.” sensitive fingers, as he spelled out the words
Monk eased out into the gloomy hall. of the message. The message read.
For all his simian bulk, he moved with
surprising agility on catlike feet. Pat and Ham PRISONERS ON FANTASTIC
followed. ISLAND IN GALAPAGOS GROUP STOP
“An army tank couldn’t push it in,” CONTACT BORIS RAMADANOFF THIRTY
Monk muttered. THREE REDBEACH ROAD LONG ISLAND
Monk reached the door, felt over the STOP GRAVE DANGER—
steel panels with his powerful hands. The
door was tight in its frame. Unexpectedly, the harsh transmitter
Pat reached up and touched the whining ceased. The key continued its frantic
latch. The door swung open soundlessly. dance under Ham’s deft fingers but the
“Unlocked!” Monk blurted. “Well, I’m electrical power had been cut off; no further
a bush ape!” radio words were flung to the air.
“Didn’t I always say so?” Ham And now, a new sound flooded the
accorded, readily. room. The sound came from everywhere, yet
“You tailor’s dummy,” Monk retorted. from nowhere definitely. It crept and crawled
“Sh-s-sh,” Pat cautioned. “We may and writhed—never loud, but clear,
never get another chance at this. Come on.” insidiously penetrating, eerie, freighted with
The steps coiled upward, like a menace and unseen death, causing hair to
circular stairway in a lighthouse. They were tug at its roots and goose flesh to prickle out
fashioned out of blocks of untrimmed stone. with a shuddering chill.
There was no railing, no light. A single This sound which wafted with such
misstep on the narrow flight would plunge a horrible portent through the high tower room
person down to unknown depths. was music. Piano music.
Closing and bolting the door of “The count is playing his piano,” Pat
ponderous steel behind them, they mounted said in a small voice.
single file in the pitch blackness, feeling with “He said he only played when
their hands, hugging the damp side wall. somethin’ was goin’ to happen to somebody,”
They came out at the top in the tower Monk remembered aloud.
room without mishap. A single alcohol lamp, “How can we hear it from this high
set in a wall niche, burned with a small place?” Ham asked, tensely.
straight flame, casting a glow over the rock- “This radio apparatus makes more
girt room. The floor was constructed of steel noise than a piano,” Pat said, fearfully. “If we
plates. This room was as weirdly unreal as can hear him, he must have heard us!”
the rest of the place. Ham said grimly, “It must be because
But there was nothing unreal about he heard us sending the radiogram that he’s
the banked instrument which glinted softly in playing on his piano.”
the light. Ham and Monk pressed forward, Suddenly the music stopped; but the
their hands touching familiarly the tubes, notes continued to throb their eerie menace
condensers, wire-wound induction coils of a for seconds, it seemed, before quietness
radio sending set as modern as any they had clamped down.
ever seen. “Let’s get out of here!” Monk jerked,
They switched on the juice and breaking the ominous hush.
started tapping out Doc Savage’s call letters. “Do not be in a hurry,” a suave voice
Violet light flashed weirdly from the tubes. interposed.
Pat’s face shone pale in the glare. It was Count Ramadanoff who
“Won’t they hear this noise downstairs?” she spoke. No one having heard that sinister
questioned. voice before could have mistaken it. The
“Not a chance,” Ham said. prisoners stared helplessly, trying to locate it.
“Couldn’t hear a cannon through Then a huge slab of stone in the
these walls,” Monk confirmed. tower wall swung outward. From within a
hidden recess, the count stepped forth. He
carried a modern automatic pistol in his
hand.
“I always plan my radio room with electrical current as efficiently as though you
two entrances,” he purred. “And dictaphones had sat on an electric railway track and
are useful household articles to one such as grasped the third rail. I, myself, as you see,
I. And now, since you have violated my am wearing sandals insulated by thick
hospitality, I must dispense with your valued rubber, and so am immune to the shock.”
company. You are, accordingly, sentenced to He paused impressively.
labor in my pits. Strong-backed coolies “I have just one thing more to say,”
sometimes last a month. A big Frenchman, he continued. “In view of your belligerent
last year, endured for two weeks—” attitude, I have decided not to send you to
Monk’s hand thrust down and the pits, but to keep you here in the palace
squashed out the feebly flaming alcohol under my close observation. Kindly proceed
lamp. In the pitch darkness which flooded the down the stairs and we will join another
tower room, he hurled the glass lamp bowl at member of your group: Professor William
the spot where the count, revolver in hand, Harper Littlejohn—or Johnny, as I believe
had been. you refer to him.”
At the same instant, all of Monk’s Near the bottom of the winding
great muscles acted to wrench his body to stairway, the count requested his prisoners to
one side. The action undoubtedly saved his halt. He indicated a long slot in the tower
life. Saffron gun flame and a bullet blasted wall, which looked out upon an inner
out of the count’s revolver. The lead courtyard. Hemmed in as it was on all sides
slammed so close to Monk that it jerked a by starkly-rearing palace walls, the courtyard
quick breath from his lips. was, in effect, a dungeon pit. A dozen feet
A loud curse from the count indicated above the flagstoned yard, a balcony ran
that the man had been struck by the flung entirely around it.
lamp. Both Monk and Ham leaped forward in “Under the balcony,” the count’s
the darkness to overpower him before he voice sounded in a silky purr, “observe your
could recover from the blow. But not more new quarters.”
than a single step did they take. Then a They looked. Thick iron bars
blighting force seemed to rocket through their extended from the balcony edge into the
bodies. flagstoned floor below, marking off a number
Pat, also, felt the enervating force. It of bare prison cells.
tingled from the feet to the tips of the fingers, Count Ramadanoff spoke again. “Do
freezing the muscles into instant, cramped you observe that bundle of rags in the cell off
immobility. As firmly as though they were to the left? Look closely.”
glued to their tracks, their feet were fastened While they strained their eyes in the
to that steel-plate floor. They could only courtyard gloom, the interminable red
tremble; they could not cry out. lightning rippled out of the island volcano and
sent its ghostly glare over the heavens.
Cleverly arranged reflectors at the top of the
A WHITE beam slashed from the courtyard dungeon directed the hellish glow
count’s flashlight. He barked an order and downward to the flagstoned floor.
out of the same secret entrance through The still bundle of rags in the barred
which he had originally appeared, a shadowy cell was bathed in the blood-red light.
man-figure emerged. The man moved silently “Johnny!” Monk and Ham jabbed,
and slapped handcuffs on the wrists of the fiercely.
three. And Pat echoed it: “That’s Johnny in
The count reached back and turned there!”
off an electrical switch. The numbing force
which held the prisoners fast to the floor
flowed out of their bodies again, and they “YOU will be interested to know,” the
were free to move. count’s odious voice continued, “that the cell
“As you must have deduced,” the bars are movable. They are actuated
count’s suave voice sounded from beyond electrically. I have only to press a button, and
the flashlight, “these steel floor plates, in they rise out of the floor to allow a prisoner to
alternate strips, are wired to take charges of step out into the courtyard—or to allow the
electricity. You were rooted to the floor by the
prisoner to be visited by an inhabitant of the be greatly interested by our little friend in the
courtyard.” courtyard.”
“What inhabitant?” Pat asked quickly,

impelled by a foreboding curiosity. “I don’t
see any.” But the next instant she did.
A bulky shadow stirred from the
flagstones, propelled itself out into the red
volcanic glare.
Pat gave a little choked cry of sheer
horror, and started back. Ham leaned
forward, his fingers clutched so tightly on an
imaginary sword cane that the knuckles were
white splotches on his skin. Monk crouched,
Monk . . . in the pitch darkness which flooded the tower room . . .
his simian bulk frozen.
hurled the glass lamp bowl at the spot where the count, revolver
“Blazes!” he gulped. in had, had been standing.
The courtyard below had an
incredible inhabitant. Monk, Ham and Pat, all
three, possessed what is commonly called an
Chapter IV
“iron nerve.” Yet the thing below aroused in RADIO TRAP
them absolute horror, a feeling of
desperation. They seemed hardly able to AS a matter of fact, some very
breathe as they stared at it. interesting things were, at that moment, on
“It ain’t real!” Monk choked, at the the point of happening to Doc Savage.
same time knowing he was mistaken. In the skyscraper section of midtown
“It is quite real,” murmured the count New York, a man so thin that at first glance
They stared, as fascinated as birds he seemed to be walking sidewise, and who
suddenly confronted by a snake. Suddenly, had a skin so white that it rivaled the pallid
Pat emitted a low, strangled cry, spun, waxiness of a lily, strode along with a
covered both eyes with her hands. She briskness which belied his fragile physical
trembled. appearance.
“Your chief, this famous Doc The man—”Long Tom,” or Major
Savage,” the count droned, “would no doubt Thomas J. Roberts, electrical wizard, as he
was known to the world at large—was
another of Doc Savage’s aids. Long Tom’s
specialty was electricity, of which he had elevator starter and disappeared within the
profound knowledge. Electrical patents recesses of his trousers leg.
recorded under his name were legion. The elevator starter was an active
young man, who liked to practice tap steps
when no one was around. He was rather
good at it. But the dance routine he went into
when that grayish-blue streak flowed up his
pants leg was like nothing executed on a
stage or ballroom floor.
Long Tom grinned at first, watching
the young man’s epileptic antics. But
suddenly he quit grinning and started forward
with great strides.
He had caught a glimpse of the
Long Tom looked like a man on his elevator starter’s face. The young man’s
last legs. But appearance in his case was a features were knotted in stark agony. A shrill
terrific lie. His chalk-white face did not cry broke from his writhing lips. His knees
indicate ill health. He happened to be one of bent under him. He fell, arms gyrating wildly.
those rare individuals who, no matter how Long Tom caught him before he
much they expose themselves to the sun’s struck the floor and bent over the shuddering
rays, cannot get a tan. There was incredible body, his hands patting frenziedly over the
strength in his fragile-appearing body. young man’s trousers leg, attempting to
Long Tom turned in at a building crush that unseen thing responsible for the
which towered, a sheer mountain of gleaming fellow’s tragic condition.
stone and steel, nearly a hundred stories into
the sky. The entire eighty-sixth floor of this
building constituted the New York “STAND back,” Long Tom warned,
headquarters of Doc Savage. as men and women in the lobby surged
Past a phalanx of elevators in the close, curious.
skyscraper lobby, Long Tom strode, and They paid no attention, of course,
paused before Doc Savage’s own private crowding in and staring, asking aimless
elevator shaft, fishing in his pocket for a key. questions. New Yorkers invariably behave
This speed elevator was of Doc Savage’s thus, when one of their number acts in a
own ingenious designing, and it maintained manner slightly deviating from the normal.
lightning passage between that eighty-sixth “Get a doctor,” some one advised.
floor and the main lobby, as well as the “Stand back,” Long Tom warned
basement where, in a subterranean garage, again, sharply. “Something bit him. There’s a
Doc’s remarkably equipped motor vehicles poison snake, or bug, or rat or something,
were housed. loose in here. You’re all in danger!”
Fitting the peculiar key to the hole, Even that did not move them. With
Long Tom gained access to the speed new recruits continuously pressing in from
elevator. behind, the crowd swelled closer. Curiosity
He jumped wildly just after he was an emotion more rampant than fear.
stepped into the lift. There was blurred Then something happened which did
movement as something—it appeared to be move them. They became all at once
an amazingly elongated mouse—scurried conscious of a man approaching. He neither
between his feet and disappeared around the spoke nor shoved, but there was such quiet
corner in the lobby. mastery in his face and manner that,
Long Tom popped his head out of instinctively, they looked at him, and then
the elevator to get a better view. All he got with a kind of awe, pressed back to allow him
was another impression of blurred motion. free progress through the crowd.
The thing, strangely, did not seem to be The man was a giant. His strong
running on legs, nor did it writhe like a snake. features, kilned by tropic sun and arctic wind,
It flowed, seemingly. and held under superb emotional control,
Like a grayish-blue streak it flowed seemed to be molded in bronze. He topped,
against the shiny black oxford of a uniformed by fully a head, every man in the lobby. And
yet, so perfectly was his huge frame sound, a kind of musical trilling which ran up
developed, prodigious muscles molded in and down the scale, softly, fantastically, as
perfect symmetry, that it was only the though the sound emanated from the air
manner in which he towered above the close- itself. It was suggestive of the sibilant slipping
pressed crowd that revealed him as the giant of an evening wind through palm fronds, or of
he really was. the call of some golden-winged bird out of an
His crisp hair seemed made of Arabian Nights fairy tale.
bronze only a shade darker than his skin. His This sound came from Doc Savage
great neck sinews, only slightly less hard himself. It was an unconscious part of the
than metal, showed decidedly above his bronze man, a thing he did in moments of
collar. Cables of the sinew ridged his hand. stress or at times of great surprise.
The most remarkable feature of all Doc Savage spoke to his aid, Long
about the bronze man, was his eyes. Strange Tom. The bronze man’s voice was arresting,
eyes they were, hypnotically compelling; like deep, pleasantly resonant.
pools of flake-gold, stirred with restless life, He said, with impressive simplicity,
as though tiny whirlpools kept the fine gold “We will take him upstairs.”
flakes continually in boiling suspension. Doc lifted the unconscious man with
For an instant after the bronze giant noticeable ease. The crowd made a path for
was discovered in their midst, a hush settled them to the elevator.
over the lobby. On the eighty-sixth floor, Doc
“Doc Savage!” some one said. Savage and Long Tom entered the
Others took up the name. From lip to headquarters reception room. The room, with
lip, the murmur flew: “Doc Savage!” . . . “Doc its great comfortable chairs, deep-piled
Savage!” oriental rug, solid table exquisitely inlaid with
ivory, reflected the power and solid dignity of
Doc Savage.
Doc examined his patient more
closely and administered a hypodermic.
Long Tom hovered close. “Will he
come out of it, Doc?”
“He will,” the bronze man said,
quietly.
Doc listened then attentively, while
Long Tom related what he knew of the
elevator starter’s injury.
“Did you identify the thing which
attacked him?” the bronze man queried.
Long Tom shook his head. “I only
glimpsed it. It seemed to flow along the floor
so fast, I saw only a blur. It didn’t appear
again, after attacking this lad. I think it must
have been trampled under the feet of the
crowd.”
Doc pointed to the parallel rows of
DOC SAVAGE was bending over the lacerations on the patient’s leg. “Only one
unconscious form of the elevator starter. thing could have left such marks.”
Cabled fingers which could, without “Centipede?” Long Tom hazarded.
exaggeration, twist a horseshoe into a “Correct,” Doc said. “Judging from
straight line, rolled up the trousers leg of his the angle in which the anterior legs, or
patient with gentle deftness. On the calf of modified fangs, have dug into the flesh, and
the leg, two rows of blued holes were the space between lacerations, and the
revealed. There was no swelling, no immediate effect of the creature’s poisonous
inflammation, just that double row of tiny bites, I should say one of a species of giant
lacerations. centipedes indigenous to the Galapagos
Suddenly, penetrating the many- Islands.”
mouthed murmur in the lobby, came a weird
“The Galapagos! That’s where Monk home, then jump in your car and join me at
and Ham and Pat sailed, looking for Johnny!” the Long Island address.”
“They have arrived,” Doc said grimly. Doc descended in the private
“And they found trouble.” elevator to his subterranean garage, the
existence of which was known only to a few
people outside the immediate circle of his
LONG TOM stared. “How do you five aids. From among the number of
know?” specially built vehicles, Doc chose a low-
“This message came in over the swung coupé of gunmetal finish and expert
short-wave set, a few minutes ago.” streamlining. The car was, in reality, a rolling
Doc handed Long Tom a copy of fortress, with bullet-proof glass, armored
Ham’s and Monk’s message, reading: body, chrome-steel fenders, and bulletproof
tires of cellular rubber construction.
PRISONERS ON FANTASTIC The garage doors, actuated by
ISLAND IN GALAPAGOS GROUP STOP photo-electric cells, opened silently as Doc
CONTACT BORIS RAMADANOFF THIRTY eased the car forward; the doors closed
THREE REDBEACH ROAD LONG ISLAND automatically behind him as he rolled along
STOP GRAVE DANGER— the ramp into the stream of uptown traffic.
Toward Queensboro Bridge and Long Island
Long Tom whistled. “I’m beginning to he headed, the powerful motor under the
get it! It’s a long arm that reaches from the beetle-backed hood propelling the car with
Galapagos to New York City. This centipede silent, flowing motion.
was meant for you, Doc! It was introduced
into your elevator as an attempt upon your
life.” SEEKING 33 Redbeach Road took
“Perhaps,” Doc Savage admitted, Doc Savage to a semi-deserted tide-flat
“though the immediate intent was probably to region on Long Island Sound. He turned in at
render me unconscious, as the first step in a a brush-grown lane. Swirls of fog were rolling
kidnaping plot.” in from the Sound. An ancient brick house
“How do you figure that?” with sagging porch roof and rusted rain
“A centipede’s bite is rarely fatal. But spouts loomed through the mist. The place
we all seem to be under the thousand- had evidently once been a fine estate, but it
legger’s shadow. Consider: Johnny was first gave every evidence of having been
apprehended; now Ham and Pat and Monk deserted for a long time.
are taken. And almost paralleling their Doc parked under a dragging-
message of distress, comes this Galapagos branched elm which dripped water from
calling card in the form of a centipede.” leaves sodden with condensed fog. He did
Long Tom was silent for a moment. not get out on the steering-wheel side of his
As a result of their unceasing war upon the car. He slid over to the opposite side,
most ruthless and cunning forces of criminal stepped to the ground and disappeared in a
adventurers, Doc and his aids lived always in grove of wet birches.
the shadow of danger. But at the moment, Doc had no reason to doubt the
they had no active case under investigation. authenticity of the Galapagos radiogram. He
The developments of the last few minutes was not expecting trouble. But it was his
had struck with stunning suddenness. policy never to take unnecessary chances.
“What do you make of it, Doc?” Long After a few minutes of
Tom questioned, uneasily. reconnoitering, he approached a side
“Frankly,” said Doc, “I don’t make entrance to the decaying mansion and
anything. It’s a complete mystery.” knocked. There was a long silence. Doc
“That address in the radiogram; we knocked again. Still nobody came.
ought to turn up a clue there.” Doc Savage, through years of patient
Doc nodded soberly. “I was on my training, had perfected his hearing to an
way to 33 Redbeach Road when I ran into animal keenness; he could hear sounds
the excitement downstairs. Let me suggest above and below the scale audible to the
you see about getting this young man to his average person. Within this house which
appeared to be as deserted as a snatched
grave, he could hear movement—hurried, machine-gun fire. Echoes crashed flatly.

secretive, man-movement. Then a new noise broke with a harsh
Doc’s bronzed features remained drumming. It was a fearful sound. Doc
immobile. He simply waited there by the Savage recognized it as the bullfiddle bellow
door, and after a while the knob turned from of one of the superfiring pistols carried by his
inside the curtained room and the door aids.
opened. A foreign-appearing man with short- The superfirer was one of Doc’s
cropped hair stood within the dimly lighted inventions. It resembled an overgrown
interior and invited him in. automatic, and pumped out a withering
“You are Doc Savage?” he stream of so-called “mercy bullets,” hollow
questioned in broken English. “I have been shells filled with a drug which, upon the
expecting you. I am Boris Ramadanoff.” slightest penetration of the skin, produced
instant unconsciousness. It was Doc’s code
never to take a human life when he could in
DOC stepped inside, but, because any way avoid it.
he had been made wary, the thing which Wafting on the hooting echoes of the
happened next was no surprise to him. With superfirer, came a sharp, urgent sound of a
all his senses alert, he caught the creak of man calling.
shoe leather against the carpeted floor, the “Doc! Doc!”
virtually imperceptible movement behind a The bronze man recognized Long
curtained alcove. Tom’s voice. He could guess what had
The bronze giant crouched and happened. Long Tom, according to
whirled, as men flung in at him from three directions, had driven up and he had run into
directions. His cabled hands streaked out, a machine-gun ambush as he stepped out of
closing with a grip of iron on the shoulders of his car. Fierce fighter that he was, Long Tom
two of his attackers. He lifted them both from would never call for aid unless the
the floor, crashed them against each other emergency was dire.
and let them drop. The safety of his men was a thing
They fell, stunned, in an octopus that Doc Savage put before every other
tangle of arms and legs; and Doc, with consideration. On the instant, Doc gave up
smoothly synchronized effort, struck out with the advantage which he held over his
his appalling fists at two other of his enemies in the room. He wheeled, wrenched
attackers. open the door, and plunged out into the fog,
Just once with each fist, he struck. his great thewed legs carrying him in giant
One man went down, wailing, his face strides to Long Tom’s aid.
altered. The other, jarred into instant Doc still held the automatic which he
unconsciousness, went down, too, and never had taken from the man who had said he
knew until an hour later that his jaw was was Boris Ramadanoff.
broken.
Doc swerved as he caught a glint of
the revolver drawn by the man with the DOC SAVAGE carried no revolver or
cropped hair who had represented himself as superfirer of his own. It was the bronze man’s
being Boris Ramadanoff. contention that dependence upon such a
With a leap that in its force and weapon robbed a man of ingenuity, made
precision could be compared only to that of a him helpless in the face of danger should he
Nepal tiger, Doc landed halfway across the chance to be deprived of the accustomed
room. The short-haired man smacked the weapon. Therefore, Doc depended upon his
floor with a solid thud, and Doc was standing own strength and cunning to pull him out of
there with a firm grip on the revolver. desperate situations. Where strength did not
He was absolute master of the suffice, he resorted to some chemical or
situation. There were ten men in the room mechanical trick, which was usually effective
besides himself. Most of them lay stunned as and always baffling.
the result of Doc’s rough handling; the others Doc did not scorn the use of a gun,
cowered back, afraid to try another move. of course, when emergency put one in his
From outside the house, in the hands. He used one now. Pushing out
direction of the roadway, sounded a burst of through the dripping birch leaves, he came
upon Long Tom who, behind a meager rock the fifth of Doc’s five aids, boomed out of the
shelter, was caught in a threatened cross-fire diaphragm.
of submachine gun lead. “Renny” was doubtless speaking
As the machine gun swiveled down from the skyscraper headquarters.
to rake Long Tom, the automatic in Doc’s Doc lifted a microphone from a
hand barked. The single bullet damaged the concealed hook. “Listening,” he said.
hand of the gunner. The man squalled and Renny’s voice roared: “Better get
let his weapon clump to the ground. The back to headquarters quick, Doc. There’s the
second machine gunner swung the snout of devil to pay!”
his death-dealing gun on Doc, holding down
the trigger, slicing a leaden pattern through
the fog-drenched birches. Chapter V
But the gun cut out before the leaden RUSSIAN TEA PARTY
stream reached Doc. Another coolly directed
bullet from the bronze man’s automatic took AS the bronze man hurled his car
care of that. The gunner cursed, let his down the driveway, he spoke back through
weapon drop and wrung his injured hand. the microphone—the radio apparatus
From behind the brick house, now functioned while the car was in motion, of
lost in the fog, sounded the throaty roar of course.
two automobile motors exploding into life. “What, precisely, has happened?” he
There was a grinding of gears, clashing shifts asked over the air.
into second, then a rapidly diminishing sound Renny’s voice bawled out of the
as the cars rammed into distance. loudspeaker: “That queer centipede that
“Watch this pair,” Doc called to Long disappeared after clawin’ up the elevator
Tom. starter—well, it showed up again.”
Doc’s prodigious strides carried him “Did you manage to kill it?”
in a matter of seconds back to the house. As “Yes, but too late. It attacked another
he had feared, all ten of his attackers were man.”
gone. He searched the house. It was empty. “Yes?”
The uninjured men had loaded the “The man died, Doc!”
unconscious members into the cars and “Are you positive the victim was
decamped. killed by the centipede’s bite? Except in the
Doc did find one thing—a hastily case of the aged or infirm, death rarely
scrawled note, signed: “Boris Ramadanoff.” results from—”
The note read: “Nothing aged or infirm about this
victim, Doc. He was a thirty-year-old, two-
Next time it will be different. We will hundred-pound cop, and he took about six
use more than our fists. breaths—that’s all—after the bug got him,
and died in my arms.”
Long Tom came up with two “That was too quick for a hypodermic
prisoners. to have done any good. Watch yourself,
“Stay here and watch this place,” Renny.”
Doc directed. “Move your car up close to the Doc spoke quietly, but Renny
house, where we can keep in touch with understood that the bronze man had
each other through the short-wave radio set delivered a warning that an ordinary man
while I tail those vanished cars.” would have yelled.
But Doc did not chase the autos. “Is there anything else?” Doc Savage
The bronze man’s coupé, each car used by questioned.
his aids, and their eighty-sixth floor “No—except there’s a guy here
headquarters as well, was fitted with short- waiting to see you.”
wave telephone receiving-and-transmitting “Who is he, Renny?”
apparatus. As Doc flung inside his car, he “Some Russian-sounding name—
clicked concealed switches under the dash. Boris Ramadanoff.”
Static crackled from the radio loud- From his radio speaker, Renny heard
speaker, and then the excited voice of a weird note—an almost soundless musical
Colonel John Renwick, renowned engineer,
trilling. He thought it was some static meant he was happy. His fists swung
manifestation at first, but almost instantly he restlessly at his sides. Huge fists they were,
identified the sound as that subtle emanation larger than Monk’s, rivaling the flint-padded
peculiar to Doc Savage in moments of stress claws of a Kodiak bear.
or surprise. The big-fisted man was “Renny”—
“Doc,” Renny thumped, “what is it?” Colonel John Renwick—an engineer who
The bronze man countered with a had possibly built dams and bridges in more
question of his own. “How long has Boris parts of the world than any man alive—and
Ramadanoff been there?” knocked out more door panels with those
“Long as I have, anyhow—ten appalling fists.
minutes.” Renny’s hand waved toward a little
“Describe him.” man who had sprung up from a chair and
“Old-fashioned little guy with a black was in the middle of a courtly bow.
cutaway coat and a black Czar-of-Russia “This is Boris Ramadanoff,” Renny
mush all over his map. Talks with an accent. announced.
What’s the excitement, Doc?” The black-bearded little man
Doc complied: “A man claiming to be continued to make bows.
Boris Ramadanoff sought to kill me, a few “I am prostrated,” he said in precise
moments ago. Sit tight, Renny. We have English. “From the colonel here, I have just
good reason to believe that the lives of learned that you met with trouble from a man
Johnny and all those who went after him— posing as myself.”
maybe our lives too—depend upon what we “Do you have an address on
do within the next few hours.” Redbeach Road?” Doc asked, cryptically
“But yes! The number is thirty-three.”
“Within the last hour at that address,
AS Doc stepped out of his elevator several men, one of whom claimed to be
on the eighty-sixth floor and entered the Boris Ramadanoff, did try to trap me,” Doc
headquarters reception room, a remarkable admitted.
man shifted his towering bulk out of a The little man’s eyes gleamed. “Was
comfortable leather chair and lumbered he a bullet-headed fellow with close-cropped
forward. Alongside any one but Doc Savage, hair?”
this individual would have been considered “The one who claimed to be
enormous. Ramadanoff? Correct.”
“I know of him. I repeat it, sir, I am
prostrate! To think that you should be set
upon by thugs in my own home! The truth is,
I have many enemies. Doubtless they took
possession of my house, their intent being to
apprehend you, m the belief that you could
furnish them with information regarding my
whereabouts. Accept my most profuse
apologies.”
Doc nodded. “You wished to see
me?” he suggested.
“From South America, I have come
to see you!” The little man bowed again, and
with a quick, birdlike motion thrust a leather
folder toward Doc.
This man had a long, puritanical face

that was shrouded in gloom, as though he “THIS establishes your identity,” Doc
had lately returned from a funeral and said to Boris Ramadanoff, as he handed
contemplated going to another. As a matter back the papers. “And now—”
of fact, the expression was habitual “I seek your aid, sir,” Boris said
whenever he was expecting action, which earnestly. “I need it desperately. Lives hang
was most of the time. Queerly enough, it in the balance. I will come quickly to the
point. In the Galapagos Archipelago there is Doc put another question to Boris
an unknown island upon which my brother, Ramadanoff. “You have charts which will
the Count Ramadanoff, has set himself up as enable us to fly directly to the island?”
master of life and death over every living “But yes. They are at your disposal.”
thing, causing ships to be wrecked, and “How soon can we see them?”
forcing the seamen to dig the circular pits.” “At your convenience. Immediately, if
“Why the pits?” Doc questioned. you wish.”
Boris shrugged eloquently. “That is a “The sooner the better,” Doc said.
profound mystery to me. The Count Ramadanoff bowed. “My thought
Ramadanoff, my brother, transported all his exactly. Perhaps you will be moved to
worldly possessions from our native land to accompany me now to my hotel apartment?
this island before the revolution. He brought We will go over the charts—perhaps plan a
with him artisans who built a castle. But of course of action—we will have tea.”
that original company, I alone remain. He has Doc assented. As he and
killed them all. His real motive for such Ramadanoff were leaving, the bronze man
horrible deeds, I do not know.” advised Renny: “Best stay where you can
“Precisely what do you want of me?” keep in touch with Long Tom and myself.”
“I want you to go with me to that
island in the Galapagos and help free scores
of poor devils—shipwrecked seamen— IN Ramadanoff’s apartment—the
digging their way to death in the honeycomb apartment was like a thousand others in the
pits.” metropolis—Doc sat studying charts, while
“Purely an appeal in the name of Boris Ramadanoff, in the next room, brewed
humanity?” tea.
“Yes; although, in freeing those Soon the little man came out smiling.
others, you may also be in time to save one “The day for me is not complete without my
of your own men, Professor William Harper tea. You will join me, no?”
Littlejohn, who is also a shipwreck victim of Doc nodded shortly, and fired
my mysterious brother!” questions relative to directional bearings on
The little man had meant this to be a the unknown island. The other answered
smashing climax to his appeal. But, if he concisely; then, excusing himself, he left the
expected Doc to show surprise over the room and returned with a silver tray bearing
information, he was disappointed. two crystal glasses two-thirds filled with pale
Doc said merely, “How do you know tea, and a steaming china-lined silver pot.
about this?” “Please,” he said, holding the tray
“I was on the island at the time my before Doc.
brother caused your aid’s boat to be Doc took one of the glasses and
wrecked. Since then, I escaped.” touched his lips to it. There were two reasons
“You have come directly to me?” why he did not drink more. One reason was
“Yes—and thereby saved my life!” that he did not commonly indulge in
“How do you explain the Redbeach stimulants of any kind, reserving them only
ambush?” for their proper emergency use. The other
“I arranged for the house some time reason was that his acutely developed taste
ago, without seeing it, expecting eventually to warned him of a foreign substance in the tea.
make it my permanent New York address.” “You do not care for it?” Ramadanoff
The little man’s eyes closed weakly. A asked, solicitously. “It is made in my own
shudder coursed over him, tremoring the samovar which I carry with me always. But
very tip of his beard. perhaps you do not like the flavor of the
“My fiendish brother anticipates Galapagos herbs which I add to the tea to
every move I make! His hand is long—and give it its unusual tang?”
ruthless. He caused the trap to be set for me Doc’s gold-flecked eyes bored
at Redbeach Road. He caused the centipede steadily at Ramadanoff. “It is not the herbs to
trap to be set for me here, thus bringing which I object. It is the poison.”
tragedy to those two: the policeman and the “What?” The little man’s hands,
elevator starter.” holding the tray, started shaking so that tea
splashed from the spout of the silver pot.
“Poison,” Doc repeated. Chapter VI

“Poison?” Ramadanoff gasped, THE PLATINUM PACKET
incredulously.
He sat the tray on a low table and DOC’S action, when that mocking
reached out for Doc’s glass. “Allow me,” he voice filled the room, was in marked
murmured. contradiction to Ramadanoff’s. The bronze
He raised the glass to his nose, man sat perfectly still, relaxed.
sniffed cautiously. His face went white to the Out of the dead hush, his voice
roots of his beard. The glass slipped from his sounded—controlled, compelling.
trembling hand and crashed on the floor. “Come and join our tea party,” he
He slumped in a chair, then roused suggested.
himself to lean forward and sniff at his own Another crawling hush followed Doc
glass. He slumped back again, weakly. Savage’s calm pronouncement. Then the
“They are, indeed, poisoned!” he closet door burst open. A man shouldered
said hoarsely. “We have, sir, very narrowly out, cuddling a submachine gun. The man
escaped death.” was the same bullet-headed, hair-clipped
“Do you recognize the active agent?” individual who had posed as Boris
Doc asked, quietly. Ramadanoff at 33 Redbeach Road.
“Yes, since you have called my While he kept Doc under the
attention to it.” machine-gun muzzle, the man’s gutteral
“What is it?” voice chopped orders, and two men, armed
“A vegetable poison known, to the with automatics, sidled in from the next room
best of my belief, only to that Galapagos and two more machine gunners came in
madman, my brother!” through the French windows from the fire
Doc Savage continued to hide his escape.
reactions behind a mask of bronze The five guns covered Doc and
immobility. “You can explain?” he asked. Ramadanoff in a close, deadly ring.
Ramadanoff covered his face with The bullet-headed man’s blond face
trembling hands. Two gems on finger rings was a fiery red from the excitement of his
flashed a weird menace against his white triumph. His blue eyes glittered with cold
hands. One of the gems was an emerald, malignity as he looked at Doc.
thicker than a man’s thumb. The other was a “I promised you,” he gloated, voice
ruby of equal size and fineness. thick with his foreign accent, “that, the next
“No,” the little man moaned, “I cannot time, we would use more than our fists. And
explain. As you yourself are aware, I left the I promise you now that at the slightest sign of
room where I was preparing the tea for only a resistance, you will eat lead from five guns!”
moment.” “Interesting,” Doc said quietly,
A new voice sounded, mockingly, in remaining relaxed in the chair. “What do you
the still room. “The moment was ample!” want of me?”
At sound of the voice, Ramadanoff The man with the close-cropped hair
stiffened in his chair as though an electric scowled. “I’ll do the questioning. You figured
current had jolted through his body. He we were here, didn’t you?”
jerked his head from side to side, peering, Doc nodded. “You made some slight
with a groan, through spread fingers. He saw sounds. And there was your bodily odor,
nothing to explain the mocking voice. which carefully trained nostrils could detect.”
His writhing lips wrenched words. The other snarled nervously, “Why
“It is our doom—the Devil’s didn’t you do something about it, if you knew
Honeycomb!” He husked the meaningless you were on a spot?”
phrase again: “The Devil’s Honeycomb—” Doc started stretching his arms,
His tortured voice trailed into silence. leisurely. “I intend to.”
Only his long, tapered fingers “The devil you do!” The machine gun
moved, digging in agony into the flesh of his jerked. The bullet head jerked, too. The thin
face; and the gems on his fingers protruded lips barked an order. “Rats, the handcuffs!
from the whiteness of hands like baleful Get the big one first!”
eyes.
A thin man with ratty eyes—one of their guns making ruddy flashes in the smoke
those carrying an automatic—wrestled as they drove their bullets.
handcuffs from his pocket and approached Doc Savage was in the clear. At the
Doc. He walked warily, his swarthy face instant of the smoke explosion, he had
apprehensive. rammed forward from his chair, ducking low,
Doc, sitting in his chair, continued his one thewed arm reaching for the spot where
leisurely stretching until his arms were he knew Boris Ramadanoff to be, the other
straightened out from his body in the form of arching upward like a scythe toward the
a cross. The rat-eyed man with the handcuffs bullet-headed leader’s neck.
stared helplessly, with panic gripping him as Doc’s packet had contained an
he found himself so close to those great, organic chemical held under pressure. With
cabled fists. the bursting of the packet, the chemical had
“Don’t go chicken, Rats,” the bullet- expanded instantly in a gaseous state.
headed leader snarled. “We can put enough Moisture in the air had acted to cause partial
lead in him to sink through the floor.” To Doc, combustion of the chemical, thus generating
he ordered: “Hold your wrists together for the the instantaneous cloud of smoke.
cuffs.” Then the unexpected happened.
“All right,” Doc said. “And when I do, Boris Ramadanoff was not where he should
you watch what happens.” have been in the chair, and the short-haired
Slowly, like the wings of an eagle leader had shifted his position.
closing, Doc swept his arms to meet in front Doc Savage moved about very
of him. The eyes of every man in the room silently, endeavoring to find Ramadanoff.
were on those closing arms. Doc meant that “Open the windows and let this stuff
they should be. There was purpose in his out,” rapped the chief of the raiding party.
dramatics. “Everybody be perfectly still, so we can hear
While he was centering their the bronze guy if he moves.”
attention on his arms, the toe of his right foot They could think quickly, these men.
was deftly disengaging a novel metal packet They had taken the one course which would
from within his left trousers cuff. It was a most quickly result in disaster to the bronze
packet scientifically designed to withstand man. Doc Savage changed his position,
the utmost in internal pressure, fashioned out using the utmost stealth. Even his eyes could
of an alloy stronger than any other known not penetrate the smoke.
metal. Some moments passed in utter
The instant Doc succeeded in silence. Then, outside, police sirens began to
releasing the packet from the cuff, he kicked wail in the streets. Neighbors must have
it away from him. The bullet-headed leader, heard the shooting, the excitement, and
alert for tricks, caught the movement out of summoned officers.
the tail of his eye. “The cops!” ripped the man with the
“Watch his feet!” he snarled. cropped head. “We gotta blow!”
With that, they made a concerted
charge for the door. Doc Savage moved
IT was too late for anybody to watch swiftly, but chanced to brush some one.
anything. A sharp, cracking explosion There was a pale burst of gunfire and deep
blended with an unnameable sound, a sw- crash of gun noise near his ear. His hands
oo-sh reminiscent of blanketing fire damp streaked through the smoke, knocking the
gas ignited in a coal mine. Almost gun out of the man’s grasp and clamping a
instantaneously, the room was choked with a hold on the fellow’s neck.
yellowish smoke so dense that it appeared There was more shooting in the
black. room, wild shots.
For the space of a rasped breath, “Out!” the mob-leader was howling.
there was silence. Then bedlam. Shrieked “The law is comin’!”
curses; splintering wood and crashing glass Then, amid a great rush of feet, they
as automatics barked and machine guns were all out of the room. They slammed the
clattered. In their panic at Doc’s nerve- door. A number of shots were driven into the
racking maneuver, the men butted blindly, panel from the hallway outside, to discourage
pursuit.
Carrying the man he had captured Doc replaced his microphone on the
under one arm, Doc Savage hurriedly hook and turned his attention to the captive
searched the rooms. he had lugged into the car with him. He was
Boris Ramadanoff was gone! “Rats” Hanley, the scrawny-chested, rat-eyed
individual who had been going to clip the
handcuffs on Doc.
DOC SAVAGE carried his prisoner to Doc put pressure on him and learned
the fire escape, hurriedly descended. His from him that the bullet-headed man was
purpose was to watch the rear of the Jans Bergman, and that Bergman worked for
apartment building. The police, by now, were some one higher up. Gaining this
around in front. They would take care of the information, Doc put Rats to sleep by
entrance. pressing on a hidden nerve. Later, Rats
Doc Savage, noting that from the would be sent to Doc’s “crime college” in
spot where he had parked his coupé he upstate New York. There, by surgical means,
could watch the court that gave to the rear the crook would be cured of his criminal
entrance of the apartment, hurriedly carried tendencies.
his prisoner to the car. It was just as well to Doc’s coupé crossed the
get the fellow out of sight of the police, thus Queensboro Bridge over the East River and
avoiding the delay which explanations would, continued along the Sound. Sea fog still hung
necessarily, cause. heavy over the run-down estate, the
The radio was still turned on in the decaying red brick house at 33 Redbeach
coupé. Static crackled from its loud-speaker, Road, as Doc swerved his car in at the gate
and mingled with that was the frantic crackle and rolled silently up the brush-grown lane.
of words. There was no sign of Long Tom.
Doc recognized the voice. It was
Long Tom, no doubt speaking from the
transmitter of his car at the Redbeach Road THE bronze man spent no time in
address where Doc Savage had left him on reconnoitering. With Long Tom’s life
guard. The electrical wizard’s voice came in threatened, even seconds were important.
frantic bursts, almost inarticulate. He leaped from the car, traversed the short
“Doc—centipedes—killing me—” distance to the house in great bounds. He
The words suddenly ceased coming. tried the door. It was locked. He used
That changed Doc Savage’s whole Renny’s pet method, and one of his fists,
plan of action. Any danger to Long Tom propelled by prodigious arm and shoulder
transcended in importance what might have muscles, crashed through the solid oak
happened to Boris Ramadanoff. Doc panel.
switched the coupé’s engine on; with a Like closing vises, his hands caught
squalling of tire rubber, it got under way. The the splintered wood and wrenched. He tore
car rocketed down the street, siren squalling. the door half down, then walked through the
The use of the siren was permitted Doc by rest of it with forward-pressing force which
the police department. Doc depended upon shattered the entire door frame.
it, of course, only in dire emergencies. In the dim interior, he moved around.
While he wheeled along, Doc called His footfalls sounded hollowly throughout the
through the coupé’s radio, attempting to ghostly house. The place seemed to be
renew connection with Long Tom; but he got deserted. He whipped out a flashlight,
no response. snaked its searing rays over floor and walls.
He shifted his call back to Renny at Black corners leaped into white life.
headquarters. Renny was listening in, In one room, he found evidence of a
feverishly awaiting directions. furious struggle. Furniture was overturned.
Doc said, “Better get over here to Still-wet scarlet was on the carpet.
Ninety-seventh Street and stand by. Try to The crimson was not the most
avoid trouble with the police. Leave your alarming thing. Scattered over the floor were
radio switched on in your car, so we can the crushed bodies of fully a dozen
keep in contact.” centipedes. Hairy legs on some of the broken
“Right, Doc,” Renny answered. segments were still writhing.
While Doc’s flashlight poked its white

beam around the shambles of the room,
there came a sound from the hall of a floor “THERE is only one way you could
board creaking. Doc whirled, crouching a have gotten here so soon,” Doc said, quietly.
little, the light from his flash snuffing out. “One way,” Bergman agreed, with his
He glided to the wall and waited, heavy foreign accent. “In the luggage
frozen close. The creaking from outside the compartment of your coupé.”
door sounded louder. It paused, started up “You are clever,” Doc said.
again, paused a second time within the “You had a lot on your mind,”
doorway. Doc could hear the cautious Bergman said grimly. “That helped. Stowed
breathing of the stalker. away in that compartment, I heard the radio
The unknown took a wide step to S O S that came through from here.”
clear the bare floor and land soundlessly on “How did you leave everybody on
his feet on the carpet. He got his foot on the Ninety-seventh Street?”
carpet, all right—then his whole body left the “Pretty badly shot up. It was a nice
floor. With his feet as high as his head, he fell trick—the smoke. Your last trick, I think.”
heavily on his back. Doc straightened.
Doc had taken advantage of “Hold your hands high!” Bergman
opportunity, when the stalker took his wide slashed. “Keep them wide apart! The fingers,
step, to pull the carpet from under him. even—keep them open.”
The man’s trigger finger started Doc complied.
jerking spasmodically. Plaster showered and “And the feet—step them wide
the room rocked to gun thunder as orange apart.”
flame stabbed the gray light. Suddenly, the Doc moved to stand wide-legged.
echoing uproar stopped. There was a “That’s better,” Bergman said. “You
metallic clatter and a hollow thump. Doc, with don’t trick me this time.”
one leap, had landed in the middle of the Doc stared with a certain grimness
room, knocked the gun to the floor with one into the slitted eyes of his enemy. He spoke
hand and whacked the man’s head down what he was thinking.
with the other. “But few men have opposed me
He looked at the man he had before, and risked another meeting.”
knocked unconscious. There was enough “I,” Bergman bragged, “am a bold
light to reveal features. The man was no one man.”
Doc had seen before. “Perhaps only foolhardy.”
But the next moment, Doc was “You are the foolhardy one, if you
looking upon a face which he had seen think you can outsmart Jans Bergman.
before. It was one of the few times in Doc’s Maybe you’re wearing bulletproof clothes.
life that an enemy succeeded in actually Don’t depend upon them. My machine-gun
surprising him. lead will push your face out the back of your
A floor board creaked in the skull.”
doorway. Doc looked up to find himself Doc shrugged, asked evenly, “Now
covered at deadly range with a submachine that you have the bear by the tail, what do
gun. The gunner had been able to advance you propose to do?”
without being heard because of the uproar Bergman stared, slitted eyes
the pistol shots had made. glittering. “I’ll keep holding the bear by the tail
The smooth skin of the man behind until—until a very few moments. Do you hear
the submachine gun gleamed with pale what I hear?”
menace in the half light. The wide mouth Outside the house, an auto was
opened. Thin lips writhed in triumphant droning up the driveway. The sound throbbed
grimace. close, died. Car doors slammed. Feet
The gunner who stood there scraped across the wooden porch, entered
threatening quick death was Jans Bergman, the house.
the man with the close-cropped hair whom Bergman yelled, “This way, you
Doc had left on Ninety-seventh Street, guys!”
Manhattan, in an apartment with a squad car Foot scufflings, muttered curses
of the police department closing in. sounded closer.
“Inside here,” Bergman ordered. “Get While his enemies were milling
a line on him from four angles. If he moves a about, cursing, shooting, gradually getting
finger a quarter of an inch, let him have it—in vision back into their eyes, Doc Savage
the face!” plunged out into the hall. He slammed the
Four men, black shadows in the gray door behind him, streaked through the
gloom, eased inside the room and took shadowed house and outside into the sea fog
positions within a yard of Doc, machine guns which still rolled in from the Sound.
poking for his face. The bronze man made for his coupé
Bergman bent, placed his rapid-firer in the driveway, got there in time to hear
on the floor, and approached Doc with Renny’s frantic voice trying to raise Doc
handcuffs in one hand and an automatic in through the loud-speaker. There was no way
the other. of telling how long Renny had been calling.
He said hoarsely, to cover his “Doc!” Renny was rumbling urgently.
nervousness: “Now you will see how we treat “Calling Doc Savage! Important!”
the bear we have caught by the tail.” Doc grasped the microphone and
Something happened then and Jans said into the apparatus: “Listening.”
Bergman was jolted by surprise greater than “Doc,” Renny thumped, “I am
any which had come to him in his active life. shoving off in my car—gonna join you. I’ve
learned something. Boris Ramadanoff! Holy
cow—he—”
DOC SAVAGE did not move his feet. A grinding crash blasted from the
He did not move his hands. He did not even microphone.
move his fingers. But, suddenly, there was a It was a noise such as might have
sound that might have been explosion in been made by two cars crashing together at
slow motion. high speed.
There was superwhite light, too. It “Renny,” Doc called in alarm, “are
was an undertone of blue, and looking at it you all right?”
was something like looking at the arc of an “All—right—Doc,” sounded Renny’s
electric welding operation. It did things to the voice, faintly.
eye. In fact, it brought blindness that was “Quick—what did you find out?”
momentarily complete. A new voice jumped from the
Doc Savage had his own eyes microphone, harsh, mocking.
closed tightly, and thus escaped the blinding “The same thing you’ll find out,
effect of the flash to a great degree. He Savage—after it’s too late!”
ducked for safety as lead spurted with ear-
shattering clatter.
Jans Bergman began bellowing for Chapter VII
his men to quit their suicidal shooting. More SUBWAY SEIZURE
than any of them, Bergman came near
understanding what had happened. He had DOC trod the starter of his car; but
caught the flash of Doc’s wrist watch an the great motor under its long hood did not
instant before the flash came. He had throb into life. It remained as cold and
realized the bronze man had expanded wrist unresponsive as the water-dripping trees
muscles so as to split the case and release which loomed through the fog.
the contents. He dived out and lifted the hood. He
Jans Bergman, of course, knew could see at a glance what was wrong.
nothing of the chemical composition of the Wiring had been torn loose and ignition parts
powder which had been in the watch and, smashed. Jans Bergman, obviously, had
when released into the air, had ignited used a monkey wrench before entering the
instantly by spontaneous combustion. Nor house.
did he know that the powder was one which, The gunfire had ceased inside the
when burning—it burned like ordinary flash house. But it soon cracked from close
light powder—gave off those rays of light outside. Lead skidded off the armor plate of
most destructive, over a temporary period, to the gunmetal coupé, mushroomed against
the delicate nerve mechanism of the human
eye.
the bulletproof glass. Hoarse shouts “O. K., D-Doc Savage,” the other
sounded. stuttered. He had recognized the bronze
Doc Savage, a bronze flash, man. He would brag about this experience
streaked from the other side of the car and for the rest of his life. So would the truck
melted into the fog. Bullets came hunting driver.
him, chopping through wet branches. Doc The brakes squealed like stuck pigs,
twisted, running low, changed his course, tires slithered, as the sedan buckled in
crashed on through fog-drenched trees and toward the curb.
came out on the automobile highway. “Thanks,” Doc flung, and plunged
A truck headed toward New York down the subway stairs.
City pounded past. The bronze man left the A second afterward, Jans Bergman’s
ground in a headlong leap and got a grip on car, rubber smoking, careened to the curb.
the endgate of the wheeling truck. He Bergman stayed in the car, but three of his
crawled over the gate and made his way men burst out and followed Doc down the
forward. stairway.
From behind, he had been sighted
by his enemies. Machine-gun slugs crashed
out of the gray murk, but fanned harmlessly THE automatic steel doors of a
past as the heavy truck swayed around a Manhattan-bound express train were sliding
curve. Doc reached the truck driver. shut as the bronze man flashed through the
“Faster,” he ordered. subway turnstile. A split-second before the
The driver took one startled look and door hooks caught, Doc’s outstretched hand
jammed the accelerator to the floor boards. fastened on the rubber-cushioned door edge
The truck stepped up to fifty-five, weaving and yanked the door open again. He
ponderously on the wet pavement. They disappeared within the brightly lighted car
covered a mile or two. and let the door slide shut at his heels.
Fifty-five was not fast enough. At that The doors to cars in New York
speed, they could be overtaken by Jans subway trains are connected by a safety
Bergman. A sleek sedan bored from behind, mechanism to the motorman’s controls.
doing a few miles more than the truck. It was When Doc stayed the closing of one door, it
not Bergman. Just a motorist. As the motorist delayed the starting of the train. This gave
swung left to pass around the truck, there Jans Bergman’s men time to squeeze
was a thump on his sedan which gave the through the windows of another car.
driver a badly startled moment. A bigger The train started; it roared its way
moment followed for him when, through the black tube.
unceremoniously, a door of his car opened. The train was crowded. Passengers
Doc Savage had left the truck with a were standing closely packed in the wide
gauged leap, landing on the speeding sedan. aisle, some of them with hands reaching up
“Let me have the wheel,” he ordered. to hold white-enameled grab-irons.
The bulging-eyed driver shot one The cosmopolitan population of New
gasping look at the bronze giant and York City is less observing, perhaps, than the
complied. Doc took the wheel. The citizenry of any other city in the United
speedometer needle went to eighty—eighty- States. People crowd the streets, subways,
five—ninety miles an hour. towering skyscrapers of the metropolis with
They were out of the fog now. Doc blank looks on their faces, immersed almost
looked behind. There was a car tailing them. wholly in their own business. It is doubtful if
Doc recognized it. Jans Bergman’s. The even as commanding a personality as Doc
pursuing car was coming up fast. Savage would have been noticed in the
They were running through traffic closely packed subway, except for the fact
now. Doc did not want to subject pedestrians that the bronze man over-topped by a head
or his drafted driver to the dangers of speed the tallest man in the car.
and machine-gun bullets. People were beginning to murmur, to
He said to the man who had been point, to gasp with recognition, when,
driving, “Slow down ahead there, I’m going to suddenly, there was a crash of sound, a
the subway station. I’m leaving you.” blinding swath of greenish-blue light
enveloping the train.
With an ear-piercing shriek of brake pocket. Before he could draw his automatic,
shoes on wheeling metal, the train bucked to his quicker-witted companion had knocked
a violent stop, flinging many of the people in his hand aside and blurted to the policeman:
the car to the floor. Following the blinding “Subway accident—train stalled—
greenish glare, darkness shut down—the this guy we’re carryin’ out overcome by gas!
darkness of underground places, jet and Lot more of them down there in the same fix.
utter. Acrid smoke fumes drifted through S’awful! You better report it.”
broken windows, causing the panic-stricken Deceived, conscious of his
passengers to shriek and struggle in mad importance in being the first to turn in a
frenzy against each other. report of a first-page headline accident, the
A uniformed trainman switched on a copper rushed for a call box.
flashlight and bawled at the top of his voice: Doc’s captors rushed for a taxi,
“There’s no danger! Short circuit, that’s all!” shoved the bronze man inside.
The light was knocked from his hand One of them clipped to the driver,
by somebody’s thrashing arm, but he kept on “Nearest hospital.” He spoke loudly, for the
bawling to the milling passengers: “No benefit of spectators crowding close.
danger! Take it easy! No danger!”
The New York underground is as
safe as any railway in the world. The IT was not in a hospital room that
passengers knew this. Gradually the panic Doc opened his eyes. He was lying on his
subsided as the hoarsely repeated words: face on a brick floor, his wrists handcuffed
“No danger! No danger!” penetrated through behind him. He turned sidewise, maneuvered
the din to their consciousness. his legs under him, got to his feet. Light
filtered wanly through a sidewalk grating,
illuminating the bare, brick-walled room. The
FOR one person in that car, there place was damp, musty-smelling. A single
was danger, however. This had been no steel fire door, tightly closed, was the only
ordinary short circuit. The unscheduled stop exit.
had been promoted by one of Jans Doc tried his weight against the door.
Bergman’s men. As the subway went back His ramming shoulder attack shuddered the
and the cars lurched to a standstill, Doc’s rusty sheet steel. With time, he might break
great form was jostled to the floor with those through. Then he heard voices outside and
others. But it was not alone the jolting car paused, listening. He could not catch the
which had taken Doc off his feet. In the words, at first.
darkness, two hard swung blackjacks had While the muffled mumble of voices
thudded against his head. approached, Doc tried his strength on the
Before the lights went on, under handcuffs which bound him. Other times in
cover of the confusion, it was a relatively his life, he had broken the connecting link on
simple matter for Jans Bergman’s thugs to lift a pair of handcuffs by utilization of sheer
Doc’s limp body through a window and carry strength and wrist leverage.
it down the black passageway. They cursed Muscles bulged and rippled now as
under their heavy burden and stumbled he bent forward, exerting a terrific tug on the
often, being careful to feel their way by steel cuffs. He tried only once. Then he knew
scuffing their shoes along the cold rail at the what he was up against. His enemies were
opposite side of the track from the hooded taking no chances with him. His hands had
death of the live third rail. been locked behind him with the most
They came to a place where a red modern of tempered chrome handcuffs. A
light glowed, marking an emergency exit in sledge and chisel would not have sufficed to
the massive expanse of dusty, reënforced get the cuffs off his wrists. It was work for a
concrete. Onto the catwalk platform they cutting torch.
lifted Doc, and carried him with effort up the Another appalling feature was that
steep steps. the cuffs contracted, took up slack, when
Out on the street with their limp pressure was exerted against them, forcing a
burden, they ran slam into a stick-twirling saw edge into lacerating contact with the
policeman. One of the men cursed under his wrists. Crimson dripped from his skin, where
breath and his hand jerked toward his coat the steel points had gouged.
The bronze man bent his fingers Bergman spoke again, it was in a hoarse
upward till they could touch the end of his voice, curiously hushed.
coat sleeve. His fingers moved deftly, “We’ve got to kill him,” he said.
unraveling a thread. From a pocket in the “Maybe you’re right,” the other
coat sleeve his hands received a small metal muttered. “But how would we kill him? A
envelope, flexible as lead foil. Doc opened gunshot would bring one of them thousand-
one end of the envelope with his finger nail legged bugs crawlin’ down our necks.”
and carefully maneuvered his hands to pour “A gunshot, yes—but a slit throat
the liquid contents—a few drops only—on the makes little noise.”
handcuff links. “Get close enough to that bronze guy
The talking men outside had now to cut his throat? Not for mine.”
approached close enough to the door that “He’s handcuffed.”
Doc could hear what they were saying. He “Suppose he skins out of them
recognized one of the voices. It was Jans cuffs?”
Bergman’s. The blond, bullet-headed leader “How can he?”
with the skull-tight skin had apparently just “How can he do a lot of things he
come in. His glib pronouncements sounded does?”
strange, when uttered with that foreign “All right, suppose he gets out of the
accent. cuffs? He can’t; but if he does, look at the
Doc heard him saying, “You left his knives. We won’t have to get so close to him
clothes on? You fools—” as you’re thinking.”
A sullen voice answered: “We frisked Bergman tiptoed aside. From under
him—got everything he had.” a litter of boxes and excelsior packing he
“You couldn’t have gotten half of it! lifted two huge knives, bone-handled, with
Savage has a thousand pockets. You could blades nearly half a foot in width and close to
yank out his teeth, shave his head, and pull a yard long.
out his nails and he’d still have enough To Doc’s ears came the gasped
chemicals hidden on him to blow up a words: “Sugar cane knives, ain’t they?”
battleship.” “Right. I’m going to cut Savage’s
The other cursed nervously. “I don’t head off.” The heavy door swung open with
like it—monkeyin’ with this bronze guy.” ponderous creaking and Jans Bergman,
“You’re getting your cut.” followed closely by his companion, advanced
“What good’s heavy sugar, if I croak across the damp bricks toward Doc’s prone
before I can blow it?” form. The assassins walked in a crouch, their
There was a silence, heavy, machetes raised high.
oppressive.
Then Bergman asked, “Has he come
out of it yet?” ONCE in reach of Doc, they paused.
“Look through and see for yourself,” “If I don’t make a clean job with the
the other snarled. “I ain’t even lookin’ at him first stroke,” Bergman muttered, “dip your
any more. He’s like a poisonous snake to own knife in the blood. Then follow me out in
me.” a hurry.”
There was a sharp, metallic rasping The other’s teeth started chattering.
as Bergman slid back an eye-slit in the door The massive knife wavered and he grasped it
and peered through. with both hands.
“I’m practically out on the sidewalk
now,” he husked.
HE saw Doc lying on his back, Bergman’s knife lifted higher, then
feigning unconsciousness. down it chopped, the wide blade glinting dully
“He’s still out,” Bergman said. in the half light.
“He ought to be. We both of us give The first stroke was not enough. It
him a tap that would have busted a cable on was not even a starter. As the blade swished
Brooklyn Bridge.” close, Doc, whose muscles had been tensely
There was another silence, more braced against the floor, wrenched head and
ominous than the one before. When shoulders forward.
Steel met steel with grinding clangor, and the knife aimed
at Doc skittered in the air. . . .
other hand streaked forward and grabbed the

It was too late for Jans Bergman to handle.
change his stroke. The frightful blade “No handcuffs!” the other man
slammed past Doc’s head and sank inches shrieked in terror, as he chopped down,
deep in the mortar. holding his knife in both hands.
Before Bergman could pull the blade Doc parried the down stroke with the
free, before his companion could chop down knife he had taken from Bergman. Steel met
with the other knife, Doc sprang an even steel with grinding clangor, and the knife
greater surprise on them. aimed at Doc skittered in the air, glinting like
His arm, free from the handcuffs, water heaved from a bucket, and clattered on
struck out and down, against the back of the the bricks at the other side of the room.
mortar-imprisoned blade, knocking it forcibly “No handcuffs!” Bergman echoed,
from Bergman’s grasp. At the same time, his and the skin was drawn so taut across his
face in his terror at the spectacle of the wooden laths like the ribs of something long
bronze giant wielding that slab of razor-blade dead.
steel that it seemed his cheek bones must On the sixth floor, Doc paused. Here,
poke through. plaster on the hall floor had been ground
The explanation of Doc’s handcuff under many feet. Doc went up another flight.
escape was simple. The liquid he had Here, too, plaster had been crushed
released from the flexible metal envelope underfoot. This building was several stories
had been an acid which made short shift of taller than most of its kind. Doc went up two
steel such as composed those handcuff links. more flights to the top floor, the ninth.
From outside the room sounded There were signs of recent passage
excited voices, approaching footsteps. Doc on the stairway leading to the roof. Doc went
bolted for the door, brandishing his fearful up. At the top landing he had a mild surprise.
weapon in the faces of the newcomers and A fire door of modern steel construction had
scowling ferociously. recently been built in. It was solidly placed.
Doc made no attack on these For the present, Doc contented
enemies. He was looking for bigger game himself with peering through a lookout slit in
now. He took the basement steps in a series the door. His almost inaudible trilling sound,
of bounds. From above, he hurled the weirdly traversing the musical scale—that
unwieldy cane knife down, since he preferred small, unconscious manifestation of Doc
to depend upon his own scientifically Savage in moments of stress or surprise—
developed weapons. tremored in the dead air of early evening as
Locking the solid door at the top of the man of bronze focused his eyes on the
the landing and bolting it against the roof top.
aggregation below, he stalked away in He saw a plane—a gyro of ultra-
search of the master schemer he knew to be modern design—lashed down on the roof
somewhere in the building; in search, too, of under a collapsible silk-cloth shelter. Huge
Renny and Long Tom, whom he surmised silencers were attached to motor exhaust
must have been captured. stacks. The roof had been leveled, patched
It was this last objective which had and reënforced; and a raised apparatus—a
brought Doc to this building. Back in the navy type catapult—erected. There was also
subway, the bronze man had not been a conventional cable device to kill landing
knocked out by those thudding blackjack speed.
blows. He had only feigned That the roof had been used for
unconsciousness, reasoning that the landings was evident by the wheel marks.
quickest way to locate his aids, if they were The district was a mercantile one, virtually
still alive, was to maneuver to get himself empty after business hours. Surrounding
taken to their place of imprisonment. buildings were low. Quite evidently, the gyro
did not operate from this base by municipal
permit, but it must have been able to go and
Chapter VIII come by night, undetected. Luminous paint
THE THUMB-HOLE DEATH markings on the roof were commencing to
glow in the twilight. A clever scheme for night
MOUNTING from the basement, landings.
flight after flight, Doc Savage was not long in Doc turned, noiseless, a shadow in
discovering the type of building he was in. It the failing light, and silently descended the
was one of those ancient tenements, stairs. On the sixth floor, he paused for a
condemned and abandoned, on the upper detailed search. Tracks in the plaster dust led
West Side of New York City near the Hudson to closed doors of several rooms. Before
River. It was a sore spot among the each door Doc paused, listening. He made
surrounding modern buildings, its windows no sound; he might have been a bronze,
blanked out with time-chipped whitewash. floating cloud.
As he raced upward, his senses Suddenly, a screeching, splintering
were alert to catch the faintest sign of human noise crashed through the shadowed
habitation. His footfalls sounded hollowly hallway—a screeching of hinges rent from
against the worn, splintery floor, revealing doors, the splintering of the door itself under
the terrific force of Doc’s lunge.
Doc, listening in the hall, had caught him is a little hole in his temple about the size
the sound of human breathing inside the you could poke your thumb into.”
room. As he smashed through the door, a “What makes that hole?” Doc
man who had been bending over, twirling the queried, curiously.
dials of a modern safe, straightened up with “I don’t know. But I’ll tell you where
a guttural curse. your men are—”
From the crashed-in door, all that In the twilight murkiness of the room
was visible of the man was a bulky body, a leaped a peculiar sound, a kind of fleshy
blunt, close-cropped head. Jans Bergman! crunch. Bergman’s words died in his throat.
His head flopped sidewise. His shoulders
followed it with flowing motion. His head
IN the time it took for Bergman to thumped hollowly against the floor. His body
jerk his bullet head around to look, Doc lay there in a twisted huddle.
Savage had cleared the width of the room Doc leaped from the desk, made a
and locked a steel-thewed arm around the quick examination. His fingers encountered a
man. bone-crushed depression in the left temple, a
Bergman struggled, trying to get at smooth, white wound, in its size and contour
the automatic in his pocket. He was a big the same as a man’s thumb would have
man; during his youth in his native country, made if jabbed into white lard.
he had won recognition as a wrestler. But, Even as Doc looked, the wound
with Doc’s arm holding tighter and tighter, commenced to ooze scarlet in red pin points
strength flowed out of Bergman’s body until, which quickly built up an overflowing red
if Doc had not held him up, he would have puddle. Bergman’s flat ear divided the two
fallen to the floor. streams, which ran onto the floor.
Doc appropriated Bergman’s Jans Bergman’s racketeering days
automatic and tossed it clattering onto the were over. He was a victim of what he had
writing surface of an old-fashioned roll-top called the “thumb-hole death.”
desk. Then he allowed Bergman to slump
into a chair.
Doc indicated the safe. He said, A VOICE sounded in the room,
“Greed brings many men to ruin. You did not precise: “The same thing could have
leave when you had the chance. You came happened to any one—any one!”
back here to help yourself to more money.” No one had come into the darkening
“Yes! Let’s get out of here—while room. There was no one standing outside the
we’re alive!” doorway. There was only that mocking voice
Jans Bergman was staring up at Doc rebounding from the walls.
with panic creeping into his slitted eyes. Doc turned, fastened his gaze on the
Sweat was beading his brow and glistening roll-top desk.
in the close-cropped hair on his head. A laugh floated mockingly into the
“Who is your boss?” Doc questioned. room. “Congratulations, my dear Savage.
Bergman’s thin lips pressed so tightly You have located my voice. Almost any
they disappeared in the stretched second now you may look toward the
smoothness of his skin. He shook his head. doorway where you will be confronted by a
Doc shrugged. “All right. But here is second menace, not so mysterious, but fully
one you will answer. Where are my two men, as deadly as that thing which Jans Bergman
brought here before me?” so quaintly called the ‘thumb-hole death’.”
Bergman’s lips writhed. “I have Shoe scuffling sounded from down
nothing to say!” the hall. Doc turned to see two men loom
Doc settled himself on the large roll- inside the doorway. They were clearly none
top desk, and said, “We will stay here until of Bergman’s men. They were squat Mongol
you talk.” types, massive of shoulder, heavy of jowl.
“Savage, you’re nuts!” Bergman They carried equally heavy, squat
jabbered. “It’s as dangerous for you in here weapons—short guns with stubby barrels
as it is for me! Sometimes a man drops dead flared at the muzzle.
with nobody near him, and what has killed “Meet my personal bodyguard,
Savage,” the voice sounded. “Their weapons
will interest you. They are instruments of my Then the little man with the beard
own designing, combining the features of a demonstrated that he was an amazingly
sawed off shotgun and a blowgun. Each is quick thinker. As lightning strikes, so did the
loaded with slightly more than one hundred realization of something wrong hit him, and
poisoned darts, which can be released en he acted simultaneously. Straight to the door
masse by a trigger controlling an air pressure he flung, to literally fall through it.
mechanism. Your face will be the target, if Doc Savage had been slightly
you make it necessary for them to fire.” crouched, waiting, knowing what was to
A faint whirring sounded and a stout come. The mechanism of the little packet
oak panel in the side of the roll-top desk slid was such that it would open shortly after
hack. A man stepped out into the room, and being detached from his trousers cuff. It held
the panel closed behind him. He stood there, some of the anaesthetic gas which he had
with black glittering eyes—a little man with an developed long ago, and which he used so
Old World manner, and a black Czar-of- frequently—it was odorless, colorless, and its
Russia beard. effects were almost instantaneous.
It was Boris Ramadanoff. Doc lunged through the invisible gas.
Doc evinced no surprise. Holding his breath had saved him from the
Ramadanoff said, suavely, “Why anaesthetic gas.
should you wish to be here?” But where the door should have
“To secure the release of my two been there was something else. Doc collided
men.” with such force against an unyielding surface
As he spoke, the bronze man that he was flung back. He kept his breath in
commenced sliding the toe of his right foot his lungs.
toward the cuff on his left trousers leg. As firmly set as concrete, a smooth,
Ramadanoff’s beady eyes caught the metallic surface was now mysteriously
movement. substituted for the wooden door which he
“Hold it!” he slashed angrily, and had bashed in with his fists. He heaved the
then in throaty Asiatic speech barked an full weight of his massive shoulders, ramming
order to his bodyguard. with all the power of his remarkably
The two squat assassins, Mongol developed body. The surface did not budge.
eyes closing to slanting penciled slits in their From outside in the hallway,
broad faces, moved closer with their fantastic sounded Boris Ramadanoff’s sardonic, if
guns. weak, laugh. His voice filtered in faintly. He
Ramadanoff warned Doc: “Twice you had not gotten enough of the anaesthetic to
have escaped with your tricks. You will not overcome him.
do so a third time. The movement of a single “Just a trick, Savage,” he snarled. “I
muscle will bring you death.” managed to press a button on my way out,
Ramadanoff stepped forward, sliding the steel door into place from within
stooped, ran his fingers quickly around Doc’s the wall. Did you think I had no more
trouser cuff while the two Mongols held a protection for my safety than the wooden
steady bead on Doc’s head with those wide- door you broke down? You can stay in there
lipped guns. In the left cuff Ramadanoff’s and simmer in your own juice, as the
fingers closed on a small metal packet. He Yankees say, or perish in your own gas.
detached it with a quick movement and “I will go back and tell my brother it
stepped back, holding the article as gingerly was a mistake for him to have sent me to
in his fingers as though it were a New York for you. You cannot be controlled.
nitroglycerine cap. He deposited it upon the Very well—then die!”
desk top, being careful not to allow it the
slightest jar.
He faced Doc triumphantly. “Now, no Chapter IX
more tricks. The claws of the tiger are FLAMING FURY
drawn!”
The last words were spoken in a WHILE Ramadanoff’s voice droned
tone somewhat strange. They were jumbled, from the hallway, Doc turned. Three great
as if the tongue that made them was strides carried him to the window. There was
suddenly under the influence of an intoxicant.
a grating sound that would have set a man’s MUSCLES bunched and quivered,
teeth on edge. It was caused by Doc and suddenly his jackknifed knees went
Savage’s finger tips scraping on smooth straight. There was a screeching of rent
metal. The same mechanism which had metal as he pried the desk apart. Doc parted
blocked the doorway with heavy sheet steel the rest of the desk with his hands, making
had similarly actuated a steel window barrier. an opening large enough to squeeze
With both door and window barred to through.
exit, Doc drove his metallic fist against the He found that the sliding panel had
plaster of the wall. It was a futile move. He given onto a secret upward passage,
found that the walls had been reënforced converted from an old dumbwaiter shaft.
with heavy metal back of the plaster. Before plunging in, Doc leaped back into the
Still holding his breath against the room and examined the prone bodies of the
anaesthetic vapor, Doc hurled himself across two Asiatics.
the room. He had one last hope—the He found about what he had
movable panel in the roll-top desk. There expected. Both men were senseless from the
was not time to look for the control key which anaesthetic gas and would remain so for
would open the panel. There was time only to some time.
crash it in. Swiftly, Doc felt out the Turning, Doc bolted for the
boundaries of the stout oak with his sensitive dumbwaiter shaft. His hands closed on the
fingers. rungs of a built-in ladder. He streaked
Then his fists drummed a mighty upward like an islander climbing a palm.
tattoo. Fists were not enough. His shoulders A partition had been roofed across
lunged. He braced himself against the wall the shaft at the next floor level. In the side
and kicked. His hand drifted out and wall in front of him, Doc’s probing fingers
contacted a heavy chair, swung it in a wide found a wooden door. His fists battered, the
arc. The chair splintered in a dozen places, blows ringing hollowly. The door was as stout
and the panel remained unmoved. as the one built into the roll-top desk. It did
Doc was trapped! Not from the gas, not yield.
however. That would become harmless in a But Doc’s pounding occasioned an
few seconds, as it mingled more completely uproar from the other side of the door. Voices
with the air. came through in wild clamor.
Faintly, from an unidentifiable “Doc, is it you—” That was Long
source, voices sounded. The words were not Tom.
articulate, but Doc could recognize the tones. “Holy cow, Doc!” That would be
It was Renny and Long Tom shouting from Renny.
some part of the building. They had heard “Stand back from this door,” Doc
the noise and, aware of Doc’s presence in called.
the building, they were shouting in the frantic He jackknifed his body between the
hope that their voices might direct him to door and the opposite shaft wall, using the
their rescue. same kind of bodily leverage he had utilized
They had no way of knowing that the on the roll-top desk. The door broke in with
bronze man’s situation was as desperate as splintering crash, and Doc was catapulted
their own. inside the room.
Doc could breathe now. The Beyond the Palisades, the sun had
anaesthetic gas had dissipated its powers, gone down. Already Broadway was blazing
due to chemical reaction with the oxygen in under a sun of its own making. A billion
the air. electric bulbs supplied scattered illumination
Doc flung himself upon the massive for the rest of the city. But the room in which
roll-top desk. His attack was not chaotic, but Doc stood reunited with Renny and Long
planned so that he could use every muscle in Tom was dark. Electrical connections had
his powerful body. Wedging himself on top of long since been cut off from the outside.
the writing surface with knees jackknifed in Renny boomed, “The little squirt with
air, feet braced against one end, shoulders the bush on his map yelled at us just before
against the other, he pushed. you came. He said—”
“—he’s firing the building and leaving
us to burn!” Long Tom cut in.
“This trap would go up like a gasoline snap lock caught and held as Doc rammed
tank, Doc.” the panel with terrific force.
Long Tom added, “We’ve been trying After Doc had tried his strength on
to break down the door—” the door that once, he did not waste time on
Renny cracked his big fists together, it again.
wailed, “I’ve nearly wore ‘em out on that From the roof, Boris Ramadanoff
door, Doc! She almost breaks, but not quite.” shouted with raw gloating: “Stay there and
It was evident to Doc that Renny burn!”
considered his reputation at stake, as well as Doc did not hear. He had already
his life. Renny had long boasted—and vaulted the bannister and landed on the
backed up his boast—that his bare fists could smoke-filled floor below. He met Renny and
pound the panel out of any wooden door. Long Tom coming up.
“I smell smoke!” Long Tom gasped. “Down,” he ordered. “Back into the
room out of which we just came!”
Doc’s sensitive nostrils had already “We can’t, Doc!” Renny thumped.
detected the acrid odor of the smoke. “Fire’s already cut us off from that
“This building has been fired,” he floor!” Long Tom cried.
admitted. Creating its own draft, the fire
“Listen!” Long Tom breathed. funneled up the stairway below them. A few
A heart-stopping sound—the flights down, there was a crash as something
seething crackle of flames feeding through collapsed.
dry wooden floors—wafted to them faintly. “Down!” Doc ordered, and led the
“We got to get out of here!” Renny way.
blared. Unquestioning, Long Tom and
“Right,” Long Tom seconded. Renny followed him, shielding their eyes,
“Come on, Renny,” Doc directed. slapping at flames that caught their clothes.
“We will try the door.” “This was our only chance,” Doc
threw out, as they gained the room.
Long Tom’s eyes were seared shut
UNDER the combined fist battering with smoke. “Doc, where are you?”
and shoulder lunging of Doc and Renny, the “This way!”
door shuddered, groaned, then collapsed like They followed his voice, crowding
a hut in a tornado. Smoke billowed in as all into the shaft out of which Doc had smashed
three men burst out. It was slightly lighter in his way a few minutes before to rescue them.
the hall, in spite of the smoke. Splintering wood showered down on their
“Stay close,” Doc rapped, and leaped heads.
for the stairway. “The building’s falling!” Renny
Renny roared. “Holy cow! That’s the roared.
wrong way!”
“The other way is down,” Long Tom
added. BUT it was only part of the building—
Doc, taking the steps several at a the overhead partition which had been built in
time, did not pause to explain. He to seal off the shaftway. Doc had torn it out.
disappeared in the smoke and darkness of Doc said, “Follow me up. There’s no
the floor above and forged on up the next ladder above. We will have to brace
flight of stairs. His flake-gold eyes, ever alert, ourselves, feet and shoulders in the shaft,
had seen something his aids had missed. and shove with our hands. It is only two
Doc had glimpsed Boris Ramadanoff floors to the roof.”
scuttling around the bend of the stair landing “Is the shaft open at the roof?” Long
above. The bronze man’s giant strides Tom gasped.
slashed the distance between himself and “If it is not, we will have to open it,”
the murderous little man. At the top of the Doc replied.
roof flight, Doc was only a little behind. “What good’s it gonna do to get on
Ramadanoff went out on the roof like the roof?” Renny questioned, hoarsely.
an eel. He got the door shut behind him. A “Save your breath,” Doc advised.
“Climb.”
The shaft was not open at the roof. smacked momentarily of the supernatural—
While the fire roared and crackled behind at least, to Ramadanoff. The bearded man,
them, and smoke packed about them like as though bitten by demons, reared up and
black mortar, Doc struck and heaved against plunged overboard from the opposite side of
the roof surface which capped the shaftway. the cockpit.
The bronze man’s metallic muscles His body dropped. He wore a
were more enduring than the planks which parachute and this promptly bloomed,
opposed them. His prodigious hands tore out snubbing his fall.
a hole big enough for his body to follow. Doc reached the cockpit and took the
From the roof, a throbbing drone controls. Back to the burning building, he
reached his ears. It was Boris Ramadanoff’s headed. The crowd in the streets got another
gyro plane. It had taken Ramadanoff a few thrill. They saw the gyro float in through
minutes to clear the airplane of its silk-cloth smoke, blood-red in the reflections of the
covering. But now the machine, its “windmill” flame, and like a gigantic humming bird,
revolving, was wrenched along by the navy- settle out of sight on the roof top.
type catapult for a take-off. The excitement the street watchers
The gyro pitched dangerously to one experienced was not a fraction of the one
side, as it cleared the catapult. The side pitch Long Tom and Renny felt, there on the
gave Boris Ramadanoff a nasty moment, as blistering roof.
the roof tops below tilted dizzily. But the The crowd yelled itself hoarse when
whirling “windmill” blades steadied the plane, the gyro arose again. Most of them thought
and Ramadanoff snatched an easy breath. they were witnessing a sensational fire-
He was totally unaware of the reason department rescue, although a few noisily
for that unexpected side pitch. expressed the opinion that the whole thing
Many curious persons, crowding the was a publicity stunt of some kind.
street to watch the fire, could have told him
the cause. Gasps left many throats as
watchers saw something they could hardly Chapter X
believe. They saw the gyro float up from the EQUATORIAL FLIGHT
roof, glinting red in the lurid, reflected light of
flames. That alone was exciting enough. An WHEN Boris Ramadanoff bailed out
escape by airplane from a burning building! of the gyro, his parachute lowered him into a
The gasps which sprang from a narrow strip of parkway between Riverside
multitude of lips, however, was not Drive and the Hudson River. There was but
occasioned alone by the rising gyro. What one person to witness his landing, that
brought the sound from throats was the individual being a bench derelict, sodden with
figure of a man clinging to the tail skid of the alcohol. He merely stared, wild-eyed,
gyro, causing the “windmill” plane to pitch believing the spectacle of the man crashing
alarmingly and the man’s dangling body to into the underbrush with something like a bed
swing from side to side. sheet fluttering over his head to be a
The spectacle was visible for only an variation of the old “pink elephant” theme.
unreal instant. Then the lifting gyro and the Boris Ramadanoff, therefore, was
man dangling in thin air from the enabled to land virtually unseen. Skinning out
understructure were blotted out by smoke. of his ‘chute harness and scrambling through
If the awed watchers could have the park shrubbery, he scurried up the long
seen what followed they would have received flight of stone steps to the street level and
an even greater thrill. Climbing with an agility caught a taxi on the Drive. On Tenth Avenue,
made possible only by tremendous muscles, directly west of the Times Square district, he
Doc worked astride the fuselage and toward directed the driver to the curb.
the open cockpit of the gyro. “Wait for me,” he called, and leaped
Boris Ramadanoff uttered a hoarse out and ducked into a grimy doorway.
yell when, warned by the behavior of the He was back soon, clutching a stiff
plane, he turned and saw the bronze man object wrapped inside a trailing blanket.
come into view. The presence of Doc on the “West Street!” he barked.
plane after an iron door had slammed in his
face, locking him in a burning building,
Riding toward the river, Ramadanoff demise was not yet known to his men, so it
took the ends of the blanket and wrapped had been no trouble for Ramadanoff to
them more snugly about the object which he arrange for the use of the machine gun.
carried. Doc Savage, Ramadanoff knew,
West Street skirts the Hudson River would waste no time in arriving at the hangar
and is lined with docks. When Ramadanoff to take off for the Galapagos. Of course, Doc
let his taxi go, he walked a block down the would go by plane.
dimly lit river-front street till he came to a But the bronze man, Ramadanoff
large, roofed-over pier. was determined, would never even enter that
The huge, brick building, was smoke- hangar. He would drop before a withering
stained, old-looking. There was nothing to blast of ambush lead.
distinguish it in appearance from any of a After a while, a sedan rolled down
thousand other piers in New York, the street and nosed silently in the Hidalgo
accommodating the world’s shipping. Trading Company’s driveway.
A sign over the corrugated metal Ramadanoff’s pulse quickened, then
door read: slowed. He had expected Doc to stop the car
and get out and open the hangar door. But
HIDALGO TRADING COMPANY the car ran on without slackening of speed,
pointing head-on for the closed roll-down
As Ramadanoff very well knew, there door. At the instant Ramadanoff expected a
was something unusual about this pier. It collision, the door rolled silently upward,
was not, practically speaking, a pier at all. It actuated by a short-wave radio beam
was Doc Savage’s water-front hangar. It transmitted from within the car to a detector-
housed an assortment of heavier-than-air relay device connected to an electric door-
craft as remarkable as the ultra-modern land opening mechanism.
vehicles garaged in the basement of Doc’s Doc’s car disappeared within the
skyscraper headquarters. hangar and the door closed down.
Ramadanoff made no attempt to Ramadanoff’s face was purpled from
force an entrance into the sprawling bulk of his rage at missing the last chance he would
the hangar. He had scouted the locale have to prevent Doc from flying to the island.
before. He knew that the hangar, protected He had a ferocious impulse to empty the
by photo-electric eyes and magnetic fields, machine-gun drum against the corrugated
was as impossible of entrance as a bank metal door in sheer insane frustration.
vault would have been. A moment later, he was glad that he
What he did was ridiculously simple. had not wasted those bullets. Amazingly, the
On each side of the driveway door was head- door opened again.
high, rather scrawny, shrubbery. Ramadanoff Ramadanoff could hear a scuffling of
moved along the dim street until his dark shoe leather against dusty concrete. Then a
figure merged with the shadows of the huge bronze figure became visible in the
shrubbery. door.
Any one watching could have The drowsy quiet of early evening
observed that his figure did not show again was smashed by thunderous, macabre rattle
on the other side of the shrubbery. But there as Ramadanoff held the trigger and swung
was no one watching. The little man his stream of leaden death back and forth.
squirmed into the very center of the Mindful of bullet-proof garments, he aimed
concealing branches and crouched down. He high, for the face. A great many bullets
pulled the blanket wrapping from his parcel, sprayed harmlessly against the corrugated
exposing a submachine gun of non-glinting metal surface of the hangar front.
blue-metal finish. But fully a score were direct face hits
on the bronze man’s figure in the doorway.
There might have been more hits;
WHEN Ramadanoff, weaponless, but suddenly the machine gun silenced. A
had ducked out of the taxi into the Tenth crashing weight had descended into the
Avenue doorway, it was to make a lightning shrubbery, apparently from the clouds,
quick call on one of Jans Bergman’s men grinding the underbrush, the assassin, and
who had a room at the address. Bergman’s the machine gun into the ground.
Ramadanoff’s finger was broken before he “Right,” the bronze man said.
could clear it from the trigger. But the finger Renny and Long Tom shoved their
was the least of his troubles. He felt himself prisoner inside and piled in after him.
lifted and slammed. He knew what had him.
Doc Savage!
Doc had leaped from a hidden door WITH the three supercharged motors
high in the warehouse side, directly on top of delivering their full quota of power, the big
Ramadanoff. Doc dragged Ramadanoff speed plane hurled south through the Atlantic
inside the hangar door and said to Long seaboard darkness.
Tom, “Haul Robbie in and get the door shut.” They caught the slumberous twinkle
Long Tom chuckled. “Robbie will be of early morning lights in Cuba and roared
needin’ a new paint job on his face, Doc.” on, doing better than three hundred miles an
“Yeah,” Renny boomed. “And a set hour as they climbed high and rode the
of new teeth.” stratospheric air currents to the Canal Zone.
Ramadanoff stared, bleary-eyed, as At Colon, they got a surprise.
Long Tom and Renny pushed the huge They set down for refueling. A dark-
bronze figure, which had appeared in the skinned man in a white linen suit popped out
doorway and taken the bullets, inside, and of the directional radio station operated by
closed the hangar door. the department of commerce and ran across
“A dummy!” he ejaculated. the field toward Doc’s plane. The man was
“Sure,” Long Tom said. “A waving a radiogram.
mechanical likeness of Doc. Robbie, the “For Doc Savage,” he called.
Robot.” The dark-skinned man leaned
“And can Robbie take it!” Renny against the low-slung cabin with a hand
rumbled. resting on the ledge of an opened porthole,
“Had his face shot off him four times, and his black eyes were centered in rapt
so far,” Long Tom added. admiration on Doc as the bronze giant
Ramadanoff was muttering profanely opened the envelope and read the
to himself. radiogram.
“Don’t you get it, Whiskers?” Long
Tom demanded. HAVE DISCOVERED BORIS
Ramadanoff scowled. RAMADANOFF IS WORKING WITH HIS
Renny explained sardonically: “Doc BROTHER COUNT RAMADANOFF STOP
likes to coöperate, so he provided the DISREGARD OUR OTHER RADIOGRAM
shrubbery outside for guys that want to pot STOP ALIVE BUT MAY NOT BE FOR LONG
him from cover. Doc ordered the bushes big, STOP BETTER DO THINGS
so as to give plenty of room for a man with a MONK
gun to hide inside.”
Long Tom continued, “And the Doc handed the radiogram to his
bushes are wired so that any one crowding aids.
inside of ‘em will cause a signal to flash.” “Huh!” Renny snorted. “We got
Doc was already penetrating deep Boris’s number before they did, I guess.”
within the hangar. “They’re still alive,” Long Tom said,
“Come on,” he called back. tensely.
Dragging their prisoner, Renny and “Yeah, and we’ll be there in a few
Long Tom hurried after Doc Savage. hours,” Renny thumped.
The bronze man was swinging inside “Watch the plane,” Doc instructed
the cabin of his large speed ship, a three- Renny. “Do not let Ramadanoff out, or let
motor job with streamlined alloy hull. The anybody else come near.”
wings tapered into the fuselage for minimum Doc, with Long Tom, the electrical
wind resistance. It was a combination land- wizard, accompanied the dark-skinned man
and-sea plane and had a speed of nearly back to the broadcasting station to try to get
three hundred miles an hour. a line on what was the matter with the radio
“We taking this one, Doc?” Long beam.
Tom queried, hand waving out to indicate the “A ship carrying one of my aids,
plane before them. while following your beam, was recently
thrown off its course and wrecked,” Doc Long Tom was struck with an idea.
advised. “Stop me, if you’ve thought of this one, Doc—
“The trouble must have been with the but how does the course, as broadcast to us
receiving apparatus,” the dark-skinned man by the radio beacon, compare with the
said. latitude and longitude of the island as given
“Impossible!” interposed Long Tom, you by Boris Ramadanoff?”
who had made the boat’s radio installation “The two check perfectly,” Doc said.
and knew it was as perfect as was possible. “Then Ramadanoff gave us the
“Then examine my layout,” the radio wrong directions, too?”
station attendant invited. “It is almost certain that he did.”
Doc and Long Tom made a careful “Want me to bring him in, Doc?”
examination, then returned to the plane. Renny asked, eagerly.
“What’d you find out over there?” “Yes,” Doc said. “It is time
Renny queried. Ramadanoff talked.”
Long Tom answered, “Everything Renny hurried aft, unlocked a small
was in perfect mechanical shape.” individual cabin, roused Boris Ramadanoff
Refueled, the plane took off, soared out and trundled him forward to Doc. The
high over the feverish Panama jungle, then bronze man turned the plane controls over to
left the lush green for the sparkling blue of the sensitive mechanical arms of a robot
the Pacific as, engines throbbing, it bored pilot, and faced Boris Ramadanoff.
steadily southward toward the Galapagos. “I want the latitude and longitude of
Long Tom was bending over the your brother’s island,” Doc announced.
audio-frequency amplifier. He jerked his head “I gave it to you—”
phones off and held one to Doc’s ear. A dot- “I want the correct latitude and
dash combination in sharp staccato sounded longitude,” Doc interrupted, severely.
plainly. “The one I gave you is correct,” the
“The A wave is coming in too little man insisted, stubbornly.
strongly,” Long Tom said. Doc fixed his gold-flecked eyes on
“Are we off the course?” Renny Ramadanoff while he spoke in brittle tones to
rumbled. Renny and Long Tom.
“We are off the course as transmitted “Get out the rope, Renny, and loop it
by the beam antenna back at the Canal over Ramadanoff’s right foot,” the bronze
Zone,” Doc stated. man said. “Long Tom, open the side hatch.”
“But that’s the right course,” Renny Renny looped the rope over
protested. Ramadanoff’s foot and pulled it tight. Renny
“Is it?” Doc asked mildly. hauled back so exuberantly that he pulled the
bearded little man off his feet. Long Tom
threw open the side hatch, revealing a patch
“IT’S the beam the others were riding of blue—the Pacific Ocean—perhaps a mile
when their ship piled on the rocks,” Renny below.
rumbled. “We want to go where they were “Pull his ‘chute off, Long Tom,” Doc
wrecked, don’t we?” directed.
“Yes,” Doc said. “But this beam may Long Tom slipped the pack-’chute
not be directing us there.” from the little man’s shoulders. The packs,
“I get it,” Renny muttered. “If there’s contrivances developed by Doc himself, were
nothing the matter with the instruments, the not bulky, and they could be worn with no
trouble must lie with that dark-skinned baby more inconvenience than a heavy coat would
at the Canal Zone who is transmitting the have occasioned. Doc and his men, when in
signals.” the air, were usually equipped with the safety
Doc nodded. “He transmitted the devices and, in this case, they had provided
beam so that it put Johnny on the rocks. It one for their prisoner.
may be that now he is laying down a beam Doc looked at Ramadanoff, and said,
which, if we follow it, will land us in the “Renny, here, is going to lower you through
Pacific Ocean with empty gas tanks.” the hole. He will lower you down hand over
Renny snorted, “Thinks he’s sendin’ hand, slowly, till he comes to the end of the
us on a one-way trip, huh?”
rope. Then, if you have not indicated that you his generously proportioned mouth yawning
will speak the truth, he will let go the rope.” wide like a tunnel opening.
Doc looked toward Renny. “Lower “What’s the matter?” Long Tom
away.” called, sharply.
Ramadanoff had been lowered half “Matter!” Renny howled, dazedly. He
of the rope’s length when the bluff worked. turned, dived forward.
He looked up and squalled like a wild cat. “He busted a hole in the floor!”
“I’ll tell!” he screamed. Renny squalled. “He’s jumped out!”
“Hold him there a minute, Renny,”
Doc ordered. He looked down at the cringing
prisoner. “The location?” “HOW could he break out?” Long
Ramadanoff screamed latitude and Tom demanded. “Nobody can break through
longitude down to minutes and seconds. He the alloy skin of this plane. It’s even
had it on the tip of his tongue. bulletproof.”
“How did he do it, Renny?” Doc
asked, quietly.
“WE will let him cool off now,” Doc “That was the compartment where
decided. “Renny, take charge of him.” we had the floor ripped up the other day,
“Will I, Doc!” Renny boomed. Doc,” Renny muttered. “It wasn’t welded; just
Ramadanoff was so giddy from being small bolts set in temporarily.”
dangled on the rope that he could not stand Doc looked at the chart. “It is too late
when he was first drawn back within the to do anything about it now. Doubtless,
plane. Long Tom fitted the pack-’chute back Ramadanoff bailed out over Cocos Island. It
on the man’s shoulders, and Renny dragged is entirely too large an island for us to waste
him ungently aft and locked him in the time trying to locate him.”
fuselage compartment again. The great tri-motored speed ship
The plane ran into a fog bank as it scudded on, riding above the fog bank like a
droned southwest. Doc climbed the plane gigantic water bug skimming the surface of
and came out on top, in dazzling sunshine. quiet depths.
Occasional rifts in the fog showed him the “How’re we gonna locate anything in
blue Pacific below. this fog?” Renny wanted to know, later.
Eventually, a rent showed something “We can get our latitude and
else besides water. longitude above, then go down and land on
“Land below,” Renny announced. “A the water to wait till the fog lifts,” Doc
small island.” explained. “That, of course, may not be
“Cocos Island,” Doc said. “We take necessary.”
our final bearings from here. The next land That logical plan, it developed later,
we sight will be the Galapagos.” was never to be put into execution. At the
“That won’t be long, at the rate we’re present latitude and longitude, given by Boris
traveling,” Long Tom said. Ramadanoff under pressure, the fog became
It was only a brief glimpse they got of strangely reddish in color over a considerable
Cocos Island, then the fog closed in again area. This crimson glow was uneasy,
like swaddling cotton, seeming to wedge the flickering, brightening and dulling as though
hurtling plane against the sky. the leaping fires of hell itself strove to break
“Bring out the prisoner, Renny,” Doc through.
suggested, some time later. “We will try Doc banked the speed plane in a
again to find out something more about this wide spiral around the scarlet-stained sector.
mysterious Devil’s Honeycomb.” “What caused that?” Renny rumbled,
Renny grinned, and went aft to awe making his voice somehow queer.
unlock the compartment door. “Volcano,” Doc decided. “Active.”
“We’ll make him talk,” Long Tom “Let’s ease down,” Long Tom
affirmed, grimly. suggested.
But they did not make Boris They did go down, but not easily.
Ramadanoff talk. An ear-splitting crash sent a
Renny threw open the prison convulsion through the plane, then tilted it in
compartment door and stared, jaw sagging, a mad dip. Accompanying the detonation,
flame sheeted out, enveloping them. They “Probably a radio control detonator,
were stunned, temporarily blinded. actuated by a transmitter below,” Doc
“Whole back end blown off!” Renny Savage hazarded. “The mechanism would
bawled. have been fairly simple for a good radio
“Lost half the fuselage!” Long Tom technician to construct.”
shouted. The bronze man was treading water.
The plane was plummeting, weaving The water all about them seemed to be
dizzily, shuddering and bouncing in the air as swirling, like a furiously running stream.
against something solid. There was a pronounced undercurrent that at
“Jump!” Doc ordered. “Spill air to times nearly took them under.
guide your ‘chutes away from the red portion “Holy cow!” Renny thumped. “Some
of the fog!” swimming pool!”
“A tide rip,” Doc Savage offered. “It
seems to be carrying us offshore.”
Chapter XI Unexpectedly, a streak of
SHREDDED DEATH phosphorescence angled in toward the
bronze man. The streak was preceded by a
THE plane had been very high when water-slashing fin.
the explosion occurred. Their parachutes “Sharks!” Long Tom yelled from near
were larger than the average, so they went by.
down slowly; and because they pulled at But Doc had already seen the racing
shrouds on one side, they skidded through black fin.
the sky. They left the domain of lurid red light “Make for the reef!” the bronze man
behind. shouted to Long Tom.
In fact, lost from everything but each The black fin, swerving close to Doc,
other in the fog, they overdid the skidding a went under in a boil of bubbles and
little. They came down in water. phosphorescence. Doc went under, too. Half
Close over the sea, the fog was thin. a minute later, Long Tom uttered a hoarse
Doc and Renny, releasing themselves from cry and kicked out with his feet. He thought
the parachute harnesses a few feet above he was being attacked by the shark; but it
the water, plunged into the seething gray was only Doc, who had swum under water
expanse within easy hailing distance of each and come up alongside him.
other. Long Tom plummeted down farther to With Doc’s assistance, Long Tom
the left; where the plane hit, they could not gained rapidly in his fight against the current.
tell, although it was probably nearer shore Nearing the coral reef and temporary safety,
and off to the left. a shark slashed in at them.
Treading water and trying to orient “Try to make it alone,” Doc jerked,
himself in the smother of waves, Renny and disappeared under water again, almost
bawled, “What caused that explosion, Doc?” under the chisel nose of the attacking shark.
“A bomb, obviously,” the bronze man The shark dove with the bronze man, rolling.
shouted back. Long Tom made it to the jagged reef,
“But we searched Ramadanoff and a moment later Doc stroked up and
before we brought him aboard,” Renny muscled out of the water alongside him.
pointed out.
“Ramadanoff did not do it,” Doc
returned. “It must have been done at the LONG TOM coughed water. “Playing
Canal Zone landing field—” tag with that man-eater—drawing him
“The dark-skinned guy!” Renny away—you saved my life, Doc
roared. “The one who brought the radiogram “Listen,” Doc cautioned.
out—and stood by while we read it!” The put-put of a motor launch
“Right,” Doc agreed. “The fellow sounded strongly.
evidently had his orders in advance.” “What’ll we do?” Long Tom gulped.
Renny took water, coughed it up and “Could you make it ashore,
sputtered, “But what made the thing go off swimming?”
right when we were over the island?” “Afraid not,” Long Tom puffed. “I was
almost gone when you reached me.”
“Renny might not make it either,”

Doc said, thoughtfully. INSIDE the palace, in the huge
The motor launch nosed around a room—that high-vaulted cavern fashioned
wave-laced reef into close view. Men in the from wooden beams and black volcanic
bucking launch waved. Doc answered their rocks—Long Tom and Renny were
signals. welcomed by the Count Ramadanoff in the
Long Tom growled tragically, same suavely polite manner in which he had
“Wrecked just when we could begin to do greeted Monk, Ham and Pat.
some good! Our superfirers, all our weapons, The heatless blue flames leaped as
at the bottom of the ocean! And now we’ll be before within the mammoth fireplace, causing
taken prisoners the same as Johnny, Pat, shadows to dart and vanish throughout the
Monk, Ham and the rest of ‘em.” luxuriantly furnished hall. From high
A bellow of distress reached them overhead, the crystal-spangled candelabra,
faintly through the whipping wind. hanging from its massive chain and burning
“It’s Renny!” Long Tom gasped. fully two hundred candles, shed a yellow light
“Sharks!” which penetrated weirdly to the middle stair
Doc took the water in a shallow dive landing hung with the long curtains of somber
which bounced him to the surface and sent ruby velvet.
him streaking through the short, steep waves Long Tom and Renny, grief-torn as
toward Renny’s voice. they were by Doc’s disappearance after the
The motor launch came on, picked attack by the shark, could not help but feel
up Long Tom and bore down upon Doc and the menace which stalked through the dank
Renny. A boat hook snagged Renny’s collar air of the place.
and drew him alongside. Hands reached The Count Ramadanoff, himself,
down and helped him aboard. appeared as some one not quite real. He
“Sharks!” some one exploded. “Right was a towering giant, almost as large as
alongside!” Doc—this much they realized. With his Czar-
A boat hook probed at Doc. The of-Russia beard, his courtly bearing, he
shark reached the bronze man. Doc and the appeared to be a replica of his brother,
shark disappeared in a welter of churning Boris—a replica fully twice as large.
water. Bubbles streamed up and broke The count bowed, said precisely: “My
whitely on the dark surface. guests have a predilection for arriving here in
But only at first did they break wet clothes. I will have a change of dry
whitely. Very soon, they were breaking red. garments laid out for you.”
The red stain spread over the water, a gory The count’s thin lips writhed back to
blanket around the pitching launch. emit a sharp cobra-like hissing. A wizened
Renny and Long Tom stared at the slave padded forward on bare feet in answer
water in dawning horror. The half dozen men to the summons.
who had come out in the launch crowded the While the count issued orders for the
rails, chattering in queer languages as they preparation of a chamber for his guests,
scanned the surface looking for visual Long Tom murmured an aside to Renny:
evidence of the tragedy indicated as “You see what I do?”
occurring below. Renny grunted. “The slave! He’s a
Blood in the water brought more member of Johnny’s expedition—or was,
sharks closing in. The launch threaded back wasn’t he?”
and forth until the red stain was diffused; but Long Tom nodded. “We’ve got to put
Doc did not again appear. on an act, until we get the lay of things here.
The helmsman swung the launch It’s all queer.”
around and started bucking the currents “And we can’t let this whiskered devil
toward the shore. know we think Doc is dead,” Renny
All the crew were dressed in the whispered.
same fashion—simple loin cloths, and collars The count looked sharply at Renny.
of lizard hide. The launch docked at a pier “So,” he murmured, “the bronze man
running out from the palace of the is dead!”
Ramadanoffs. Renny stared belligerently, aware
that the count must have read his lips.
Long Tom smoothed things over. “Not I,” he whispered. “I don’t know
While Renny’s big fists started swinging you.”
nervously at his sides, Long Tom said, “Downstairs, you did,” Long Tom
“There seems to be a mistake. It’s the shark suggested.
that’s dead.” “That was before he reminded me.”
The count’s eyes glittered. “I hope “Reminded you of what?”
you are right. I am eager to meet personally The man’s voice rasped hoarsely.
this Doc Savage.” “That the Devil’s Honeycomb is a menace
“What we want to know,” Renny put everywhere on the island!”
in bluntly, “is where are Ham, Monk, Johnny “Where’s the rest of your party?”
and Pat?” Renny demanded.
The count answered precisely: “You “I don’t know anything!” the man
have reference, doubtless, to Brigadier mumbled.
General Theodore Marley Brooks, Lieutenant “You mean you won’t talk.”
Colonel Andrew—” The man’s lips whitened. “Anybody
“Yeah,” Renny interrupted, “they’re who tells anything on this island dies!”
the ones! Where are they?” Renny grunted with disgust at the
The count shrugged. “How should I display of fear.
know? This is an extremely remote island in “It ought to be safe to talk here,”
the Galapagos, not an information booth.” Long Tom urged.
Renny’s glance roved fiercely around “It’s safe nowhere,” muttered the
the great hall and fastened for an instant other. “You talk and you die.”
upon the grand piano draped with rich sea- “How do you know?” the electrical
otter furs. wizard insisted.
The count’s cruel eyes flashed. “I “Mister, I’ve been standin’ close
assure you, my dear Renwick, the persons when it happened,” the slave mumbled. “A
you mentioned are not concealed in my little hole comes in your temple, about the
piano.” size you could jab your thumb into.”
The slave in his loin cloth and lizard- “Baloney,” Renny summed it up.
hide collar, padded down the broad stone Suddenly flooding the room, a weird,
steps and prostrated himself before his strumming music vibrated. Fantastic melody!
master. But his eyes, for a flashing instant, It struck the ear with pulsations that seemed
had caught Long Tom’s with a significant to raise goose flesh over the entire body and
glance. cause the hair to tug at its roots.
“You may follow the slave,” the count “What’s that?” Renny demanded,
announced. “When you have changed to dry glaring about, swinging his big fists.
clothing, I will receive you down here.” The man who had become a slave
As Long Tom and Renny mounted was staring with panic bulged eyes. He
the sweeping spiral of the stairs and passed choked out words, “The count playin’ at the
beyond the ruby-colored drape held back by piano!”
the slave, Count Ramadanoff’s voice “So what?” Renny boomed.
followed them with suave menace. “So somebody dies!”
“One thing, remember,” Ramadanoff “Nuts!” Renny rumbled.
intoned: “The shadow of the Devil’s The man rasped stubbornly, “Every
Honeycomb lies everywhere upon this time I’ve heard him play like that, somebody
island.” has died right after! Why, your own men, and
the girl—” He choked off his words with
spasmodic effort.
INSIDE the chamber assigned them, Both Long Tom and Renny seized
the slave bent to take off Long Tom’s wet him and shook him simultaneously.
shoes. Renny reached down and poked a “What about our men and the girl?”
huge thumb and finger under the man’s chin Renny’s great voice was thunder.
and tilted his head up. In the grand hall below, the music
“Don’t you know us?” he asked. had stopped, though faint mocking echoes
The man squirmed, looking at Renny hung about like an exotic perfume.
out of fear-haunted eyes.
“All right!” the man gasped. “I’ll tell “When we get through, you won’t
you! I might die for it; but if I don’t tell you I’ll worry about clothes!” Renny threatened.
die anyway. But first, is it true that Doc “Who killed the man in our room?”
Savage is dead?” Long Tom demanded.
“A shark took Doc,” Renny said, The count smiled thinly. “Your
bleakly. “He didn’t come up.” bellicose manner becomes understandable.
The man wilted. “Then it’s no use! A man has been killed, you say?”
Without Savage we can’t—” “In our room!” Long Tom grated.
“Talk!” Long Tom jabbed. “What The big bearded man queried,
were you going to tell us?” “There is, perhaps, a hole in his temple?”
The man opened his mouth to speak. “If you know that, you did it!” Renny
But it was not his voice which Long Tom and howled, starting his forward rush.
Renny heard. There was a flesh-crawling The count, unperturbed, lifted a
sound—a bony crunch, and the man who hand. “One moment, my dear Renwick. It is
would have talked plunged forward, his head only natural that I should know about the
striking solidly on the floor, his body flopping thumb-hole death. Such deaths occur with
over and lying inert. great frequency on this island.”
While he talked, the count’s white,
tapering fingers toyed with a small object—a
RENNY and Long Tom stared wildly. slim thing of flashing gold.
There had been no visible movement within Long Tom moved forward to look at
the room—just that crunch, then the man the gold thing.
falling limply. “Pat Savage’s lipstick!” he clipped,
Renny, fists swinging, went tearing horrified.
around the room, pulling aside curtains,
banging closet doors, looking under the
beds. LONG TOM’S hand reached out.
He found nothing. “Let me see that.”
With Long Tom, he examined the “With pleasure.” The count handed
limp body. The man was dead from a wound over the lipstick.
in his temple, a hole a bird’s egg might have “It is Pat’s!” Long Tom muttered,
dropped into—or a man’s thumb. examining it. He glared at the count.
All at once, welling with chill “Where’d you get it? You said you hadn’t
mockery, music from the count’s piano seen Pat. Where is she? Snappy, brother,
flowed through the room again. before we give you what is known as the
Renny jerked upright, swerved for works!”
the door. “Ridiculous!” the count asserted. “In
“Come on!” he barked at Long Tom. your United States, lipsticks are mass-
“Come on where?” production articles. There must be upward of
“To punch the count’s face out from half a million of this identical design.”
between his pointed ears!” Renny roared. “There aren’t half a million of these!”
“We’ll settle all this mystery now!” Renny’s voice sounded in a bawl of hoarse
“It’s a good idea,” Long Tom agreed, triumph, as he rushed to a corner and seized
and plunged out after Renny. a slim black malacca cane, held it up.
Past the hanging ruby drapes on the “Ham’s sword cane!” Long Tom
middle landing and down the wide stone echoed.
steps, three at a time, they rushed. The count Renny faced Count Ramadanoff.
rose from his piano to confront them with “Here’s Ham’s cane! I want to know where
suave dignity. Ham is.”
“Why do you hurry, gentlemen?” he “You are making yourself utterly
questioned, dark eyebrows arched. ridiculous,” the count asserted.
Momentarily disarmed by the count’s “Brother, you asked for it!” Renny
quiet manner, they slowed their precipitous roared, and rushed the count, striking out
descent, came forward slowly. with his great fists.
“But you have still your wet clothes The count made no attempt to
on, gentlemen!” the count chided. dodge. He stood and took it—and in return
laid his fist against Renny’s jaw in a blow threatened to expand to such a bulk that it
which rocked the big engineer back on his would fill the whole courtyard.
heels. “What is it?” Long Tom gulped.
Renny blinked dazedly. He had “I don’t know,” Renny said, suddenly
never met opposition like this in his life. He hoarse.
could almost believe that it was Doc “In observing this Gargantuan
Savage’s powerful muscles that had just put monstrosity,” the count’s odious voice broke
those staggering blows across. in, “do not overlook the cells under the
Long Tom was helpless to aid, balcony—your temporary abode. I say
because, at a nod from the count, a slave—a ‘temporary’ because the cell bars are
squat Mongol—had appeared from behind a movable, actuated electrically at my desire—
wall drape and nudged Long Tom’s ribs with my desire being dictated to a large extent by
the flare-lipped muzzle of a diabolical poison the humor of the creature you are observing.”
dart gun. Again the count sounded his
Renny tried everything—science, ghoulish hiss, and Long Tom and Renny
brute force, but he might as well have been were hustled down the stairs, out onto the
fighting a shadow, for all the impression he circular balcony which ran all the way around
made. the courtyard dungeon and thrust
Finally, the count grew weary of the unceremoniously through a trapdoor in the
sport. Eyes glinting, thin lips drawn back to a balcony floor. They landed heavily ten feet
thin line, he put over a haymaker. Then he below on the flagstoned floor of a cell.
stood over Renny, callously kicking him back Through the heavy iron bars they
to consciousness. could see clearly in the courtyard. The
“I will always regret that I did not monster had retreated out of sight into its
meet your Doc Savage,” the count said den.
gloatingly, and sighed. “It appears that I must Opposite them, on the balcony, the
live all my life without meeting a foe worthy of count looked down. “The creature has
my efforts.” enjoyed itself for the day,” he informed. “He
He hissed again and the slaves will sleep before he needs diversion and
bound and dragged the two prisoners out of exercise again.”
the main hall and part way up the tower Suddenly, Renny and Long Tom
steps. Before the same slot in the tower hall reached out and clutched each other,
which Doc’s other aids had been forced to trembling. They had seen the same things
look through, Renny and Long Tom were almost at the same instant.
halted. There, almost under their feet, were
“Observe your playmates,” the count four shapeless, mauled bodies. The flags of
directed. the court were stained a ghastly red that did
not come from the reflected volcanic light.
Remnants of clothes clung to each torn body.
THEY looked through the slot, and in And Long Tom and Renny were recognizing
that courtyard dungeon, hemmed in by those remnants!
starkly rearing palace walls, they saw the They were the claw-and-teeth-
same unbelievable monster that Monk, Ham shredded garments of Johnny and Ham and
and Pat had witnessed. Monk and Pat.
“Holy cow!” Renny breathed. “And the shark got Doc Savage,” the
Squatting in the middle of the count remarked, looking down from his
flagstoned pit, bathed in the red volcanic balcony.
glare, was a creature that had a ridge of
toothlike horns running down his scabrous
back and tail. Chapter XII
Swinging its armored head upward, it THE HONEYCOMB HORROR
snorted two streams of vapor from its
nostrils; then it drew in air, and its sides THE Count Ramadanoff was
swelled out until, to the horrified glance of somewhat mistaken.
Renny and Long Tom, the loathsome thing
The shark did not get Doc. The red They talked among themselves in
smudge which had bloomed on the water brittle Asiatic gibberish.
was not occasioned by the shark’s flat, One of them clacked suddenly in his
pointed teeth tearing at the bronze man, but native tongue, “That flat rock out there,
came from wounds inflicted by Doc’s where did it come from?”
slashing knife on the shark itself. The volcanic fire died down before
After beating off the shark’s attack, his companions could look.
Doc swam under water and came up out of “I remember no rock out there,” one
sight of the launch, behind a jutting coral of them said.
reef. He waited until the boat had churned “Then look the next time the glow
away through chopping waves, then struck comes,” the other suggested.
out in the long, hard swim for the island. Momentarily, the lurid lightning
Doc had touched shore on a lava- sheeted out again.
strewn beach, waded through a belt of brown “Look!” the sharp-eyed one
sea weed, and plunged into the obscurity of exploded.
shoreline vegetation—wind-bent trees “Look where?” the other snapped.
bleached white with ocean spray, and “I am looking,” a third said. “I see
dangling, cobra-headed Peruvian cactus. nothing.”
Doc drove on through the thorn- “Are you trying to fool us?” the fourth
studded undergrowth and came out on a remarked. “There is nothing there.”
broad, well-defined game trail. He recognized “But before, there was a rock!” the
it as an age-old path used by the Galapagos first guard growled, stubbornly. “I am sure—”
tortoises as they butted through the jungle In the blanketing darkness, the
between their feeding grounds and watering man’s voice was cut off with a muffled gurgle.
places. “What’s wrong with you?” a
It was evening and the volcano was companion asked, sharply. “Did you swallow
blinking its red light over the island when Doc a bug—”
reached the high plateau, pocked by those There was another muffled gurgle as
mysterious, man-made honeycomb pits. He this man ceased speaking in the same abrupt
forged forward, keeping to the jungle fringe manner as the first.
until he arrived near the active workings. Together the other two men clacked
From a cactus covert he watched, in alarm: “What is the matter—”
gold-flecked eyes weirdly alive, while the They never learned what it was. Two
overseers strode up and down before the gurgles sounded simultaneously; and after
long line of pits and cracked their whips over that came silence. For, all evidence to the
the backs of the chained slaves digging their contrary, it might have been the equatorial
way to death from exhaustion in the strange darkness, pressing malignantly close, which
honeycomb pattern of circular holes. had choked all four watchers into
The bronze man watched for a insensibility.
chance to maneuver closer and examine the Volcanic light gleamed again over
pits. But, since the disturbance created by his the honeycomb pattern of pits on the high
aids on the day they had been wrecked on plain. The light revealed the four guards
the island, the guards had been doubled. sitting silently upright, their backs to the
Doc had no opportunity to get close enough stockade—while inside the stockade a giant
to look down. bronze man moved, selecting a digging
instrument, a wedge-pointed pick.
The light went out, then flared again
AHEAD of the advancing line of pits, and revealed a lump that might have been a
perhaps fifty yards distant on the high bronze-hued rock on the plateau, halfway
plateau floor, loomed a small stockade between the stockade and fringing
containing surplus working tools; it was underbrush. But the next time red light
guarded by four men, beefy-shouldered, rippled out, the stone had vanished—and
swarthy fellows, their seminude bodies Doc Savage, under cover of the thorny bush,
glistening with a hard burnish whenever the was creeping toward the line of pits with the
volcano lighted up the sky with its hellish red wedge-pointed pick in his hand.
glare.
He had silenced the guards by deft “We only sent one, Doc—to New
pressure exerted on nerve centers at the York,” Monk grunted.
back of their necks with his cabled fingers. It “The second message sounded so
would be hours, perhaps, before the guards legitimate that it deflected my attention
regained consciousness. enough for Count Ramadanoff’s agent to get
a time-bomb in our plane,” Doc said, grimly;
“which, of course, was why the radiogram
DOC passed by the front line of pits was sent.”
in which the chained slaves were digging, “Did you crash here, Doc?” Monk
and watching his chance, crawled over and demanded.
dropped inside one of the worked-out cells “Offshore. Renny and Long Tom are
immediately behind the active front row. prisoners. Where are the others?”
Doc crouched with pick in hand and “Ham’s chained in the pit next to me,
commenced rapidly digging a hole in the and Johnny is in the one beyond that,” Monk
circular walls. The wall separating the cells advised.
was thin. In a matter of minutes, Doc had Doc breathed, “And Pat.”
picked a hole large enough to let him look “As far as I know, the count’s got her
through. cooped up in his palace. We got to get her
It had been Doc’s intention to contact out. The count’s got a man-eatin’ beast there
one slave after another in this manner, until as big as a mountain. I know it doesn’t sound
he came upon one who could furnish sane, but all of us saw the thing. Whew!”
information regarding the fate of his aids. As Doc asked, “You were imprisoned for
he looked through the fist-sized hole he had a time at the palace?”
dug, his trilling sounded faintly. “Yeah, but when old bush-face saw
The chained slave heard, and how tough we were, he sent us here to kill
stiffened visibly. This slave was an ourselves diggin’, instead of feedin’ us to his
astounding individual, with a massive hairy critter,” Monk growled. “That man-eatin’ thing
torso, neck nearly as thick as his broad head has even got teeth on its back, Doc! You
and long, gorilla-like arms extending almost wouldn’t believe a monster like that was in
to his knees. There was such strength in that the world!”
hairy body that the man could bite his shovel
into the flint-packed volcanic ash without the
necessity of loosening it first with the pick. A GUARD passed by and looked
The gory glow of volcanic light down, lashed with his whip. A red welt
illuminated the man’s face briefly, revealing a sprang out on Monk’s shoulder.
sprawled nose, a huge gash of mouth and a “Quit mumblin’ to yourself,” the guard
forehead almost buried in bristling hair. The directed in English. “And dig faster!”
man was so incredibly homely that be was After the guard continued on, Monk
rather pleasant to look at—like a genial bull- gritted through the hole to Doc, “You see how
dog. it is? Most of the diggers die off quick.”
He kept digging, but his keen little “Why the pits?” Doc queried.
eyes had detected the hole Doc had gouged “You’ve got me,” Monk grunted.
in the pit wall. He heaved close, the chain “We’ve sure wondered about ‘em.”
rattling against his leg iron. “I’m going to dig through into your pit,
His voice was small, childish, jerky Monk,” Doc informed. “Stand so your back
with emotion. will hide me as much as possible.”
“Blazes, Doc! How’d you get here?” After Doc entered Monk’s pit, he dug
“Give me the story, Monk,” Doc his way quickly through into Ham’s. Monk
whispered, guardedly. filled both the holes as best he could. Doc, in
“We’re all alive—but we wouldn’t be, the adjoining pit with Ham, kept close to the
much longer,” Monk said, making his small wall so that, unless one of the overseers
voice smaller. stepped close and looked directly down, he
“The situation seemed desperate, would remain undetected.
from that second radiogram you sent to Ham stifled his amazement at Doc’s
intercept me at the Canal Zone,” Doc said. appearance; and Doc, reaching out with his
“Or did you send it, Monk?”
pick, gouged an entrance for himself into

Johnny’s pit.
The whip cracked down at Johnny. Doc’s hand reached out,

grasped the slashing rawhides, gave a downward jerk.
Almost the instant he arrived “It’ll bring the guards down on us!” he
alongside Johnny, things began to happen. protested.
“I’ll be superamalgamated!” the bony “That,” Doc said, “is what we want.”
geologist exploded, as Doc squirmed into “I’ll be superamalgamated!” Johnny
view. blurted his favorite expression again.
“Say it louder!” Doc directed. “Louder!” the bronze man directed.
“What?” Johnny blurted, startled. Johnny gulped, raised his voice with
“Say it louder,” Doc repeated. determination.
Johnny was so surprised at the “I’ll be superamalgamated,
whole business that he did not speak out in superagalmated, superaglerated—aw, nuts,
his accustomed verbose manner.
Doc, you say it!” The word, for once, had dominated the nightmare scene: the deep,
gotten him down. echoing clangor of a brass gong.
One of the overseers had witnessed
his fellow plunge mysteriously into the pit and
he had sounded the warning gong. While the
dread hush spread over the pit, overseers
converged, running, toward the hole where
Johnny had been working.
“We’ll never make it, Doc,” Johnny
snapped. “They kill anybody caught trying to
escape!”
A cursing uproar burst out, as the
first-arriving overseers discovered Johnny’s
pit to be empty. More of the lizard-collared
guards swarmed down. A whip lashed into
Ham’s pit, as one of the overseers
discovered the three men there.
Bellowed words brought the others
crowding to the pit rim. Whips lashed down.
As Doc lunged upright from unlocking Ham,
the pit became a whistling storm of flesh-
cutting rawhide.
Doc shoved the leg-iron key to
Johnny.
“Follow me through into the next pit
But it was not necessary for Doc to
and unlock Monk,” he shouted above the
say it. An overseer lunged toward the pit.
swish and crack of flaying leather.
Doc was back against the side. The overseer
Close at Doc’s heels came Johnny
did not observe him. The whip cracked down
and Ham. While the two bent to the task of
at Johnny. Doc’s hands reached out, grasped
releasing Monk, Doc stood upright, taking the
the slashing rawhides, gave a downward
rain of whip lashes, cutting back with the
jerk.
whip he had wrested from the first guard.
The unexpected tug pulled the
Under the red volcanic glare, Doc’s
overseer off balance before he had time to
face, uplifted to the lightning of whips, was a
brace himself or let go the whip. He teetered
mask of emotionless bronze. He did not use
on the brink of the pit, then fell inward,
his left arm to fend off the searing strokes.
sprawling. Doc’s fist lanced out, smacking
He had better use for that left arm. It
against the fellow’s jaw while he was still in
coöperated like a machine with his whip-
the air. The man was unconscious before he
cracking arm.
hit the bottom.
Doc was not whipping aimlessly.
Doc bent, flipped him over, yanked
Holding his left arm in such a way that he
loose a key dangling from a thong on the
could protect his eyes, he sent his lash
lizard-hide collar. He fitted the key to the lock
snaking upward from the pit with a twist of his
of Johnny’s leg iron, twisted briefly and
cabled wrist. A deft jerk at the precisely
Johnny stood free.
correct instant caused the long, pliant
Doc grabbed up the whip he had
rawhide to curl tightly about whatever object
wrested from the guard and, swerving,
it struck. Sometimes it was a neck.
ducked through the hole into Ham’s pit.
Sometimes an arm or a leg.
“Follow me, Johnny,” Doc suggested,
But in every instance, a quick,
cautiously, and reached to unlock Ham’s leg
backward jerk of Doc’s arm brought his whip-
iron.
hooked victim toppling into the pit. And then it
was that Doc’s left fist coöperated, driving
against the head of each falling victim,
SUDDENLY, from all along the line
pounding them into senselessness.
of fantastic pits, the groans and babblings,
And after Doc had dragged some
the whip-cracking, ceased. One note
half a dozen men into the pit with relentless
precision, the remaining overseers drew one poor blighter go down under a wave of
back, cursing and shouting, out of range of them, last night. They had his bones picked
the appalling rawhide lash. clean in a horribly short time.”
“O. K., Doc,” Johnny’s voice The metallic clacking grew louder,
sounded. coming into the pit with a din like the croaking
Monk kicked his loosened leg chain of thousands of tree frogs.
aside. “I’m clear, Doc!” “That noise is the crabs clackin’ their
“Lead the way, Monk,” Doc ordered. claws,” the academic Johnny said,
“Duck through the same hole I first entered ungrammatically, but forcefully. “They can
by. The rest of you follow. I will hold them off take a man’s finger off with one snip. They
with the whip and bring up the rear.” climb your legs, all the time hacking you up
Monk, crowded closely by Johnny as if two razors were working on you.”
and Ham, butted through into the next pit “They’re land crabs, too, Doc,” Ham
back of the active working line. Doc ceased put in. “Something like those recorded in
slashing his whip and bent to follow them, parts of Siberia, only bigger. Not as big as
only to have his head rammed with a hollow dogs, as Johnny said, but bigger than any I
thump against an object hurtling back ever heard of before. Ferocious as tiger
through the hole from the other direction. sharks!”
It was Monk’s granite head that Doc There was a thumping sound on the
had bumped. pit sides.
“We can’t get out that way, Doc!” “Them guys with the dog collars are
Monk roared, in his frantic haste squirming heavin’ rocks!” Monk roared.
past Doc and whacking his head on the Ham’s shout blended with Monk’s
bottom of the pit as he fell in. roar. “Here come the crabs!”
Ham and Johnny came piling “Kick ‘em back!” Monk bawled.
through on top of Monk. “Kick them back yourself!” Ham
“Carnivorous crabs!” Johnny loudly snapped. “I have no shoes on!”
shrieked. “Whadda you think I’m wearin’?”
“Man-eating ones!” Ham augmented. Monk growled. “I’m barefooted, too!”
“Big as dogs!” Johnny insisted. “Block the hole with your head!” Ham
“And millions of ‘em!” Monk finished, suggested, sarcastically.
holding his head. While they quarreled, they were
acting; Monk had picked up one of the large
stones which had been heaved into the pit
Chapter XIII and was smashing crabs as they came in.
BITS OF HELL Ham was slugging at another hole with the
weighted butt of the whip which Doc had
“THIS way, then!” Doc said, and dropped.
whipped through the hole into the pit where Some of the clack-clacking monsters
Ham had been chained. got through. Johnny was dancing around on
There was a blur of movement on his bare feet, trying to stamp on their backs
the pit floor, accompanied by a fearful sound: before their fearful claws could nip off his
a metallic clacking. toes or slice through the muscles of his legs.
Then, Monk, coming through the “Doc,” Monk yelled. “They’re comin’
hole in the wake of Doc, found himself through faster’n I can pop ‘em off!”
jammed into the pit he was trying to leave. “Let a few of them in,” the bronze
“Blazes!” Monk protested. “What’s man said, suddenly.
the matter?” Puzzled, but aware the bronze man
“This route is barred, too,” Doc said. must have some plan, Monk complied. Doc,
“Crabs?” in the meantime, was stripping off his outer
“Right! The pit floor is covered with garments. He managed to get at the
them.” bulletproof chain-mesh undergarment which
“They keep ‘em in cages somewhere he wore, and removed it. He used it to shield
behind the working pits,” Ham jerked. “They his hands, grasped one of the crabs when an
turn them loose to forestall escapes. I saw unusual brightness came into the unholy
crimson sky, and straightened. He hurled the “Well, why bust our necks in this
fearsome thing at the nearest overseer. jungle?” Monk queried. “Let’s get on one of
There was light enough for the cruel the turtle trails.”
fellows to see it coming. They emitted cries They were paralleling one of the
and crowded into the nearest of honeycomb well-beaten trails. At the moment, the red
pits in an effort to escape. The wall of earth volcanic light was flaring. Doc moved close to
between the pits was not wide enough to the trail and scanned the way ahead.
permit quick, mass action. “Come,” he said, and started on a
Monk got the idea and admitted trot down the ancient path.
more crabs, one at a time. Doc grabbed the “This is better,” Monk muttered,
things, hurled them. The overseers, as a lumbering close behind.
matter of safety, withdrew. Fifty yards ahead, Doc halted
“All right,” Doc rapped. “We’ll make a abruptly.
break for it, now, let me heave you up.” “Stand back,” he said. “Look!”
Monk ran, jumped into the bronze He stood well to the side of the trail.
man’s clasped hands and Doc gave a jerk, His bronzed hand drifted out, plucked at
hurtling the apish chemist up to the pit run. something invisible to the eyes of the others.
“Head for the underbrush,” Doc There was a swish of tree branches slicing
called. through air, a glint of metal, a sharp thud.
Ham and Johnny ran at the bronze Doc bent and pulled out of the
man, and Doc heaved them up in the same ground a knife buried to the hilt. His hands
manner. Then he himself leaped, caught the moved, unfastening the knife from the branch
edge of the pit with one deft arm, drew to which it was deftly attached by means of
himself up, and ran across the narrow walls leather stringing.
of earth between the honeycomb pits, to join “An old Malay trick,” he announced.
his aids. “An animal-hair trigger is strung across the
trail, practically invisible even in good light. A
sapling is bent back with the knife attached.
THE overseers were already When the hair is broken by a man walking on
swarming upon them. Strangely enough, the the trail, the sapling springs upright, sinking
fellows seemed to have no weapons other the knife into the stomach of the trail walker.”
than the vicious whips. They were Monk rubbed apprehensively at his
handicapped by their very numbers, due to midriff, said nothing.
the scarcity of the footing on which they had “These trails are possibly guarded by
to work. other traps, also,” Doc stated. “By daylight,
“Make it faster,” Doc called. looking sharply, they might be traversed
His aids were having trouble. Their safely, but at night they had best be left
feet were bare and the volcanic rock had alone.”
many of the characteristics of broken glass. Doc handed the knife to Ham.
Stones began falling near them, “Perhaps you had better carry it till we locate
rattling on the brittle rock, occasionally your sword cane.”
breaking off glassy fragments. Whips lashed, “That reminds me of something else
popped. we lost, Doc,” Monk burst in. “Habeas
“Go ahead,” Doc directed. Corpus—”
They went on, moving as rapidly as “That porker getting lost is the only
the tangled vegetation would allow. Lower good thing that’s happened to anybody on
down, the jungle growth became more this blasted island,” Ham snapped.
dense. Matted vines and thorny branches “Come,” Doc said, forestalling
disputed their way. Gigantic orchids, pale another resumption of the quarrel.
flowers of evil in the flickering volcanic light, He plunged back into the tangled
dangled fleshy petals from overhead. Doc’s jungle growth. The others followed. They
huge frame often bored a way for the others. forged on, working interminably through
“What’s the hurry, Doc?” demanded darkness slashed occasionally by the lurid
Monk, puffing. volcanic light.
“Renny and Long Tom and Pat are
prisoners at the palace,” Doc said, simply.
IT was nearing morning when, “Save that until Ham gets off my
through the interstices of jungle vegetation, neck,” Monk grumbled.
the grim walls of Count Ramadanoff’s palace The professorial Johnny stepped
loomed ahead. On the side toward the sea, closer and then—monocle, loin cloth and
the walls were glistening wetly black from all—skinned up the three-man “rope” with the
high-flung spray. On the jungle side, the agility of an acrobat. Gaining the top of the
towers and turrets of igneous stone were wall, he lay flat to hook his feet over the rear
bathed in a bloody mist, as the red volcanic edge, then reached over, grasped Ham’s
light blanketed through miasmatic swamp upreaching hands.
vapor. Supported by Johnny’s grasp Ham
Monk hunched his massive swung free from Monk’s shoulders. Monk, in
shoulders. “Spooky-lookin’ joint, ain’t it?” turn, grasped Ham’s legs. Doc climbed over
“A habitation singularly minacious,” the dangling human chain and got his hands
Johnny murmured. atop the wall. The wiry Johnny, for a
Monk, as Johnny’s self-appointed moment, had been sustaining the weight of
interpreter, said: “He means full of threats.” all of them. Johnny might be an ex-professor
“Everything is threatening on this and he might wear a monocle, but he was
island,” Ham said. “Doc, those pits where we about as toughly muscled an individual as
were digging—what’s it all about?” could be found.
Doc’s hand waved out toward the When all were on the wall, Doc
bastioned walls of twenty-feet-thick volcanic eased over and hung by his hands from the
rock surrounding the palace. other side, and, one after the other, his aids
“The secret of the pits lies behind climbed over his body, hung from his feet
those walls,” he stated. and dropped into the palace courtyard below.
“You mean that whiskered devil, the Then Doc dropped lightly to join them.
count?” Ham queried. “Lateral peregrinations eminently
“With the Count Ramadanoff, yes.” successful,” Johnny whispered.
Doc stepped a few paces aside, bent
over, and straightened up holding a fallen
palm trunk thicker than his body. DOC led the way through inky
“Help with this fallen log,” he shadows to a small stone structure which
instructed. “If we are to climb that wall, we evidently had been intended as quarters for
will have to get it propped over the water in servants. He forced the door and led his aids
the moat by the wall.” inside.
All labored strenuously getting the “Wait here,” he said.
log solidly against the wall. Doc tested it with “Where’ll you be, Doc?” Monk asked,
his weight; then standing with legs grimly mystified.
planted and back braced against the wall, he “Going to climb the tower and enter
said, tersely, “Monk! Up on my shoulders.” the palace from above. Will open the door
Monk stepped from Doc’s cupped from the inside—when you hear my whistle.”
hands to the bronze man’s shoulders with a Johnny asked, “Does it percolate to
balanced ease surprising for a man so this secretive assemblage that the sinister
heavily built. With his feet on Doc’s genius of the Galapagos may be simulating
shoulders, he braced his back against the nescience of our ensconcement behind his
wall. bastioned ramparts?”
“Next, Ham,” Doc said. “You mean the count might know
Ham mounted swiftly from Doc’s we’re here and he’s set a trap for us?” Monk
hands to the top of his head, from Monk’s translated.
hands to Monk’s shoulders. Standing there, “Exactly,” Johnny agreed.
back to the wall, his own upreached hand “Possible,” Doc admitted. “This count
missed the top of the wall by only a few feet. is diabolically clever.”
“All right, Johnny,” Doc called. “And there’s that beast—that thing—
“Veritably, an elevating proceeding,” that monster!” Monk muttered. “There ain’t
Johnny murmured. “Herculean in concept, rightly no name for it, Doc.”
but destined irrevocably for fructiferous “It is as large as a house,” Ham
termination.” corroborated.
“Assuredly, yes,” Johnny said, “with unwillingly expelled. Doc crouched, jerked
an infinitesimal exaggeration.” out of line of the window and listened.
“How close were you to the thing?” Through the weighting blackness
Doc questioned. came sounds of breaths, jerkily taken.
“Too close!” Monk gulped. “We saw it Plainly, Doc was sharing this room with some
from the slitted window of the tower.” person attempting to conceal the noise of his
“Let us hope you hear my whistle,” breathing.
Doc said. Holding his breath, moving with the
The bronze man took silent steps utter silence of a jungle denizen, Doc eased
and was swallowed by crawling shadows. His toward the source of those bated breathing
aids stared tensely in the direction where the sounds. His body was crouched, his hand
palace loomed in the darkness. And when outstretched, cabled fingers tensed to grip
next the red lightning flashed its lurid and choke.
menace, they saw Doc, flattened like a Then he stood stock still, sensitive
human fly on the sheer surface of the black nostrils flaring. A subtle odor, a faint and
tower, climbing by the sheer fabulous familiar perfume, wafted to him. The tension
strength of fingers and toes the almost non- went out of his clawed fingers and he
existent cracks between the stone blocks. straightened, groping in front of him gently.
Then the lightning died and “Pat,” he whispered.
blackness swooped down, and when again From out of the darkness sounded a
the red lightning flickered, Doc had smothered gasp and feminine hands grasped
disappeared. for him.
“Oh, Doc,” breathed Pat.
Pat Savage was trembling; but with
Chapter XIV Doc’s presence, strength seemed to come
JUNGLE PALACE back to her. She stopped shaking, sighed
and looked up, trying to see the bronze
DOC had little difficulty effecting an man’s face. She shuddered. “Another hour
entrance through one of the high tower would have been too late. Renny and Long
windows, for it had no fastening. In the Tom were to be given to the—thing, at
darkness, he felt his way down daybreak.”
unbannistered, serpentine steps. In the “You mean the monster in the
halfway room containing the long window slit court?”
overlooking the courtyard dungeon, he “Yes,” Pat said, grimly. “The count
paused and peered out. locked me in here to watch the—the feeding.
Below, in the flagstoned enclosure, He says I’ll be the next one.” Her voice
the rippling volcanic light revealed to him the became more grim. “He’s been trying to
same incredible monster that the others had scare me into agreeing to stay on the island.
seen. The fearful beast on its shapeless He says he’ll make me a queen. Imagine!
multi-clawed legs was propelling its gross Queen of the honeycomb pits. He’s not
body around, its saw-toothed tail lashing, its human. He’s a fiend! He’s more of a monster
armored head wagging. Foam dripped from than that—that thing in the courtyard!”
its grisly jaws as it braced itself against a Then Pat went silent, as the fateful
barred cell, its claws scraping out. piano music flooded the room, bombarding
In a frenzy of impotence at its failure their ears with weird vibrations, the notes
to break through the bars, the monster seeming to roll through the darkness with
swelled its scabrous body to what appeared lethal menace.
to be half again its original size.
Doc Savage, watching, made no
sound. His finger drifted out, felt briefly over AS suddenly as it had begun, the
the glass of the slitted window, then music stopped; though, as always before, a
drummed softly. ominous pulsing hung in the air.
As though the drumming on the “Some one is going to die!” Pat
window glass had been a signal, there was a gasped.
sound in the darkness behind Doc—a breath “Why do you say that?” Doc asked,
sharply.
“The count plays on his piano—and “You see, I have prepared for you,”
some one always dies!” Pat said, rapidly. “I the count said, nodding them to chairs.
know it sounds mad. But it is true. Usually, it
is the thumb-hole death. A hole appears in
your temple, about the size you could press THE breakfast table with its crisp
your thumb into!” damask and softly glowing silver service was
Concealed lights flashed on then, the only fresh touch in the high-raftered hall.
bathing the bare rock-girt room with white All else remained the same: the grand piano
brilliance. Doc and Pat blinked to accustom swathed in sea otter, the swinging
their eyes to the sudden glare. Pat gasped at candelabra burning in hundreds of flames,
what she saw in the light, shuddered. Doc the regal collection of samovars, sending off
was equally surprised, but his bronze dull metal glitters from velvet-draped
features remained impassive. recesses.
Standing there, so close Doc could While slaves served the food, the
reach him with a leap, was the Count count leaned forward and said in a confiding
Ramadanoff. manner:
In black evening clothes he loomed “You are a man of the world enough
tall and sinister, his Czar-of-Russia beard an to know that things are not always as they
inky-black against his long white face. appear.”
Broader than his brother Boris, nearly two “And so?” Doc said, noncommittally.
feet taller, he was in other respects identical “It would appear that I have treated
in appearance, even to the rings on his your aids badly,” the other murmured. “Such
tapering fingers, a ruby and an emerald, is not the case.
each as big as the end of a man’s thumb. “Three of your men I consigned to
Doc watched the count’s eyes—as my pits,” the count continued. “Strange as it
hard and glittering as the gems on his may seem, I did it to protect them from an
fingers. Doc had power that but few men had island horror.”
succeeded in developing down through the “The thumb-hole death?” Doc
ages. He could use his gold-flake eyes upon suggested.
another, often to hypnotize against the The bearded giant murmured, “Ah,
other’s will. you know of it?”
But with the count, Doc got nowhere. “I had occasion to observe its deadly
The brittle, gemlike eyes glared back as effect in New York.”
though they did not see at all. The count’s The count’s eyes glittered. “It has
lips twitched slightly. He made a low and long hovered over brother Boris.”
courtly bow. His white hand waved out, the “And what have you to say regarding
jewels flashing. my other two men?” Doc questioned, dryly.
He spoke suavely: “If you will be so Their host drawled, “My dear fellow,
gracious as to escort the lady, early morning they are at this minute leading a searching
breakfast is served in the great hall.” party to recover your body, supposedly
Pat said, with her lips only, “He does mangled by sharks.”
the queerest things. This is some kind of Pat interposed hotly, “If that is true,
trap.” why was I locked in the tower room and told
Doc nodded without speaking, rested to watch their executions?”
his fingers against Pat’s elbow and guided “A proceeding later to be illumined,”
her through the opened door and down the the count said precisely. “The intended
winding stone steps. The count followed executions—a myth.”
closely, as they pushed through the hanging “There was no myth about that—that
drapes of ruby velvet on the stair landing and monster I saw in the courtyard!” Pat insisted.
entered the cavernous maw which was the She was not eating.
hall. The count helped himself to food. He
Before the huge fireplace where the leaned toward Doc. “You have seen my pet?”
blue flames danced without sound, without “The creature in the courtyard?” Doc
heat, without appreciable light, a breakfast questioned. “The iguana?”
table was set for three. The count’s breath drew in raspingly.
“So—you were able to identify it!” He
shrugged. “Identifying it, you must have been Doc Savage said, sharply, “In order
all the more impressed by its formidable size. to properly design the instruments, it will be
A Galapagos, or seagoing, lizard, attaining necessary to know what you want located.”
the length of six feet, would normally be “That is impossible,” the other said,
considered a monster. You saw my pet in the abruptly.
courtyard. How long would you estimate him “Then what you ask me to do is also
to be?” impossible,” Doc informed him.
“It appeared,” Doc admitted, “many The bearded man showed his teeth
times that size.” through his heavy whiskers.
“But how is it possible?” Pat “You have the reputation of a man
protested. who does the impossible,” the count said,
She was not eating. She had no grimly. “You will manage to do it now, or take
taste for food served in the sinister some very unpleasant consequences.”
environment of the palace. The blue flames Doc Savage said nothing.
in the fireplace, instead of lighting up her “With your exhaustive knowledge of
lovely face, threw it in ghastly, bluish geology and cartography, my dear Savage, it
shadow. should not be too difficult for you to locate an
object which I shall describe as having an
atomic structure entirely different from the
PAT shrank back as the count’s rest of the island,” the whiskered man said.
tapering fingers reached out to touch her The count raised his napkin and
arm. blotted his thin lips. He blotted carefully. For
“On this island are undreamed a moment, the whole lower half of his face
horrors,” he murmured. was concealed by the stiff damask.
“And something else,” Doc put in. The blue flames which leaped in the
“Something you wish found.” fireplace commenced promptly to shorten.
For the first time, something other They died down to half their height, within the
than sinister evil seemed to come over the next few seconds.
man before them. He straightened visibly in Doc Savage spoke suddenly to Pat
his chair and put down his eating in strange language—words composed
implements. largely of guttural, though curiously melodic,
“You have learned of that?” he sounds. Doc was using the language of the
asked. ancient Mayans, the remarkable people
“It has become evident,” Doc Savage whose civilization flourished in the Yucatan
told him. peninsula of Mexico long before the Egyptian
The big man leaned forward, smiling pyramids were built.
eagerly in his black beard. “You know what it It is doubtful if more than a dozen
is?” persons in the so-called civilized world were
“The name?—yes,” the bronze man sufficiently conversant with the strangely
admitted. “The Devil’s Honeycomb.” syllabled speech to understand it.
“You don’t know more than that?” the
other demanded.
“No,” Doc admitted. EVEN as Doc talked, the blue flames
The bearded man settled back and shortened farther until they became little
seemed relieved. He began eating again, more than crawling stubs within the massive
glancing once at them curiously, as if noting fireplace.
for the first time that they were consuming no “What are you saying?” the count
food. He did not urge them to eat. demanded. His voice had a noticeable nasal
“I have need of your scientific quality now.
abilities,” said the count, casually. “I have “Nothing,” Pat answered, tensely.
tried the usual instruments for making She sat back in her chair, breathing deeply
subterranean surveys. They are not as Doc, speaking in Mayan, had directed her
sufficiently sensitive. You can make more to do.
powerful ones, more delicate ones.” “Fill your lungs with fresh air,” Doc
had said. “And if the blue flame goes out, do
not take another breath until we can get with an anaesthetizing, perhaps even a
outside.” lethal, gas.
To the Count Ramadanoff, Doc said
in English: “Before I do anything about
locating your Devil’s Honeycomb, the release AS a flame in a gas stove burns
of my two men held prisoners in your iguana blue, giving off virtually no illumination, so did
pit will be necessary.” the weird flames in the count’s fireplace burn
“So?” the count said, with nasal blue and lightlessly. That they gave off no
quality still predominantly in his voice. “You heat was accounted for by drafts
have finished with breakfast chatter? You mechanically arranged to conduct the heat
prefer to deal in realities? Then listen to this: up the chimney.
Not only do I refuse to release your two men, But the draft, controlled by a
but I am pleased to inform you that your concealed floor button within reach of the
other three aids are prisoners of mine also— count’s toe at the breakfast table, could be
securely locked in that same garden shelter closed and the flames extinguished, throwing
where you left them when you scaled my such a volume of unburned gas into the great
tower. hall that, even with the outside door opened,
“This palace, my dear Savage, is a few whiffs would rob a person of
amply equipped with electrical safeguards, consciousness.
much in the manner, I should judge, as your Doc had been warned when his alert
own skyscraper headquarters in New York is eyes had observed the count pressing the
protected. Nothing can happen within these napkin to his lips. Under cover of the napkin,
walls that I am not immediately informed the count had inserted, no doubt, wads of
about.” chemically treated gauze into his nostrils so
Turning his head, the count that he could breath for a short time with
summoned a slave by means of that odious safety in the gas-laden atmosphere. It was
hissing noise he made through compressed this gauze that had given his voice its
lips. pronounced nasal quality.
“Throw open the outside door,” he Coincident with the failing of the blue
ordered. flames, a loud crash sounded. It was the
The slave, swarthy, of mixed blood, breakfast table going over, propelled by a
padded across the hall, swung wide the forcible kick from Doc’s feet. The table turned
massive door and started back toward the over in the direction of the count and with
breakfast table. Thirty feet from the door, his such appalling force that the count, in his
body was gripped with spasmodic chair, went over also.
convulsions. A chopped-off scream of agony In the moment that the bearded man
passed his lips as his face contorted and his was clearing himself of the table wreckage,
body, grotesquely knotted, thumped onto the Doc grabbed Pat by the arm and propelled
floor. Early morning sunlight slanted through her violently across the room and up the
the open door, bathing his heaped body with sweeping flight of stone steps.
funereal benediction. The count was on his feet and
The count’s eyes glittered. “If you running forward by the time Doc and Pat had
doubt he is dead, my dear Savage, you have reached the stair landing, hung with the
my special permission to examine the body. velvet drapes. The count looked very happy
And anyone else who approaches within that as he observed that the ruby-colored drapes
thirty foot area in front of the door, will be had tangled themselves about the fugitives
similarly electrocuted. I arranged the and must certainly trip them up.
exhibition to demonstrate to you the futility of But Doc and Pat were not tripped by
attempting escape.” the hangings. It was no accident that the
From the region of the fireplace drapes had become swathed about Doc’s
sounded a metallic sigh, as the blue flames mounting figure. Doc was holding them in
flickered out. Out of the tail of her eye, Pat one metallic hand, carrying them upward with
had been watching the flames. She held her him.
breath. Doc did the same. Suddenly he stopped, faced around.
As Doc was aware, the failing of the “Hang onto my back,” he said in Mayan to
blue flames signaled the flooding of the room Pat. “And hold your breath.”
Pat thrust arms about Doc’s neck short cut through the palace to intercept Doc,
from behind. From high overhead, the brass he had slipped his hands into gloves of
hoops creaked on their rod and the ruby basket-weave wire, as flexible as thin kid and
drapes became taut as a wind-bellied sail, as knobbed on the knuckles with jagged slugs of
Doc, lifting his feet and gripping the drape lead.
like a rope, swung downward in a wide arc. “With my own hands, I will beat you
Down he swung on that plunging to death!” the count raged. “Three of your
curve, passing high over the astonished face men at one time my fists have beaten—and
of the count and up, up, with Pat clinging now you!”
tightly around his neck. At the very height of As Doc’s head hit the flagstoned
his swing, he was dangling at a fearful surface, the count’s right fist bludgeoned in.
distance above the high-swung candelabra. There was nothing short-arm about this jab.
He let go his hold on the drape and He had timed the blow. His fist bashed in
hurtled forward and down, the wind a hard from far back, with all the weight of his
rush in his ears. His muscle-corded hand, massive shoulders behind it. He meant to
outstretched, caught the candelabra, his crush Doc’s skull between mailed fist and
momentum swinging it forward. Candles flagstone.
showered down, their flames whipping like The fist drove down, struck solidly—
tiny comets’ tails. but not on Doc’s head. Doc jerked clear,
Letting go of the candelabra, the timing his movement so that the count could
man of bronze swooped through the air not pull his punch. The fist swished air in
above that death stretch—the thirty feet of Doc’s face and rammed flagstone. Holes had
flooring in front of the door charged with high- been fashioned in the backs of the leaded
amperage electricity. Through the lofty door gloves so the finger rings could push through
his body shot, down. He landed easily, taking and serve as additional punishment factors.
the shock in a way that showed he had Under the drive of fist against
practiced jumping from great heights. flagstone, the ruby, as big as the end of a
Pat had managed to hang on man’s thumb, crushed into a mound of
throughout. reddish crystalline powder.
Doc, as he jerked clear, drove his
own fist upward to the point of the count’s
Chapter XV chin. The madman’s head rocked back till his
MANGROVE MURDER bull neck creaked; and Doc doubled his knee
and kicked himself clear.
SAFELY outside that palace of Up on their feet, the two crashed in
death, Doc circled the tower, running; and at each other. Doc took one fearful blow on
Pat ran with him. It was Doc’s intention to the side of his head, but he rolled with it,
reach the tomblike structure in the garden thereby avoiding most of its effect and, at the
where his aids were imprisoned, and effect same time, providing an opening for his own
their release. fists. He hit three times in dazzling
But Doc did not reach the prison succession. It was almost like a single blow;
house. He got close enough that Monk, Ham a drilling one-two punch over the heart and
and Johnny, all three, could see him from the an uppercut to the jaw swung from down
barred window. Ham even shrieked a around his knees. The blow would have
warning. But it was too late. dropped a rhinoceros.
A black fury, which had leaped down It dropped Count Ramadanoff
from a palace window, landed with crushing senseless.
weight on Doc’s shoulders. Doc went down, He did not awaken until several
a hard fall to the flagstoned yard, and on top minutes later; and by that time, his hands
of him, riding him down, was the figure of were tied. Doc, guided by Pat, had found the
Count Ramadanoff. generator room and turned off the electricity
The count’s fists thudded on Doc all over the palace. Also, by the use of a tiny
with vicious short-arm jabs, delivered with the vest-pocket grenade, he had broken down
force of a pile-driver. His white hands that the door of the garden prison and freed his
looked so soft, were not soft at all. On his three aids.
The mass of scabrous-hided

THE count sat up groggily, and Doc monsters undulated on the flagstoned floor,
ordered, “Inside the palace! Free my two snorting, armored heads without exception
men locked in your dungeon cells.” pointing toward the cell wherein Renny and
“And make it fast,” Monk threatened. Long Tom were held captive.
With the count leading and the “They have been starved to hunger
others following close, they trooped through frenzy,” the count’s odious voice sounded.
the great hall and up the winding stairs. “They are waiting for the bars to go up, so
“You have beaten me with your fists,” that they may get inside the cell.”
the count said. “Very well; but there is still the Pat uttered a choked cry of dismay.
thumb-hole death.” The count’s silky voice, thick with
Before the door to the balcony which expected triumph, continued: “Iguanas
surrounded the animal pit, the count paused, inhabiting some of the Galapagos Islands are
impressively. not particularly savage, I believe. These are
“What you will see beyond this door different. Everything on this island is savage.
is something the like of which, until today, If I did not find it so when I came, I made it
has never been observed by any living man so.
except myself,” he announced, dramatically. “You will observe, for one thing,
“I know what we’ll see,” Monk these brutes are a full foot longer than the
blazed. “The monster!” average. The strongest—those fellows which
“Not the monster you have in mind,” have forged their way to the front and are
Doc interposed, enigmatically. grinding their teeth against the bars—are half
The count’s breath rasped. “So you again larger than any other iguana reported
have solved my mystery?” on other islands.”
“Correct,” Doc admitted. “The “Tryin’ to throw a scare into us, huh?”
window which looks upon this courtyard from Monk blustered, secure in the realization that
the tower room is, in reality, a powerful the electricity had been cut off and that the
magnifying glass. The beast we saw is not as count could no longer control the bars by a
large as it appears.” touch of a hidden button.
The count’s lips writhed. “Do not “If anything happens to my men—”
make the mistake of thinking the horror is Doc began, ominously.
diminished. It is increased uncounted times.” “Your warning comes too late, my
Pat shuddered. “What could be dear Savage,” the count rasped. “Look!”
worse than that—monster?”
The count leered at her. His answer
was simple—and devastating. BEFORE their horrified eyes, the iron
“Many monsters,” he said. bars commenced to lift upward out of the
His foot must have touched a hidden floor. There was a gobbling sound—the
lever, actuated mechanically, for the door to count’s weird laugh.
the balcony swung open. Doc’s aids crowded “Fools!” he raved. “What matters it if
forward and stopped with ludicrous you have temporarily disrupted my electrical
suddenness, staring down into the pit with system? There are a hundred places on this
cold shock. balcony where I can touch my toe and
Monk was the first one to get his actuate the bars by mechanical control!”
voice. As the bars lifted upward, the
“Not one monster!” he gasped. “But slavery-jawed iguanas surged like a wave
about a hundred of ‘em, all nearly six feet inside the cell.
long!” Renny and Long Tom, acting in a
The hundred was somewhat of an way they had planned for just that
exaggeration, because the iguanas, the most emergency, leaped upward, caught hold of
hideous of beasts, were so tightly packed on the rising bars. The bars ceased lifting and
the dungeon floor that their scaly hides the two men hung, sag-weighted, while the
rubbed together and made it impossible for scabrous monsters, with frenzied grunts and
them to swell out their bodies in the a blood-chilling grate of serrated teeth,
loathsome habit they had in moments of leaped up at them, falling just short.
excitement.
The count continued his gobbling height. Then, bracing his feet against one
laugh. bar, hands gripping another, he exerted all
“It is always the same!” he gloated. his tremendous strength in an effort to pry
“The victims hang onto the bars until the them apart.
weight of their bodies loosens their grip. The Under the appalling force of his
monsters then have their fun. Observe how muscular pressure, the loose ends of the
the iguanas crowd from behind. The two men bars shuddered, then bent.
will not be enough to appease them. So you, “Can you squeeze through now?” he
my dear Savage, with your three other aids demanded.
and your charming cousin, will form a second Long Tom did not have to answer.
course for my pets, I confidently predict.” His bean-pole body had already writhed
Doc’s gold-flecked eyes were lancing through. Holding to the bars, he added his
around the torture chamber. He could not own strength to that of Doc’s. The bars bent
reach his aids by means of the circular enough more to permit Renny also to squirm
balcony. A sheer dividing wall cut off the way. through. Hand over hand, the three climbed
And by the time he could circle through the the bars and pulled themselves over the
palace, forcing doors, it would be too late. railing to the balcony floor.
Long Tom and Renny, their bodies grown Looking back across that frightful pit
leaden, would have lost their grips and fallen of frustrated monsters, Doc called to his aids,
prey to rending jaws and claws. “Wait till we come to you!”
There was but one way to the cell. Doc used a vest-pocket bomb—tiny
That way led directly through the pit where things, they were; no bigger than medicinal
the monsters crowded together. capsules, but loaded with a powerful
Doc looked at Johnny. “Hold your explosive—and blew down a door which
knife at the count’s neck! If he makes a separated the balcony from the rest of the
move— Monk, you and Ham stand by.” palace. Where necessary, he used more of
Swerving, Doc gripped the balcony the capsule bombs to force other doors, and
railing and vaulted down into the pit, along reached his aids.
with the swarming, hunger-crazed monsters. United now for the first time since the
Devil’s Honeycomb mystery had flung
malignant shadows across them, Doc, his
“DOC!” Ham shouted in horror. five aids, and Pat, with Ramadanoff their
Ham’s voice was lost in the beastly prisoner, went on a quick, triumphant tour of
chorus of grunts echoing up as the iguanas the palace.
discovered the human in their midst. They found the palace empty, the
Pat suddenly hid her eyes. Had she slaves having decamped into the jungle at
watched, she would have seen some the first opportunity.
interesting footwork. Doc landed on the
scaled backs of one of the creatures. As it
lurched, he leaped onto the back of another. “WE’RE all together at last,” Pat said,
Four opened mouths rushed him. He leaped joyfully.
clear, in rapid succession stepping from back “Yeah, all but Habeas Corpus,” Monk
to back of the close-pressed animals, much amended, a dour look on his homely face.
in the manner of a white-water timber-jack “I favor leaving the island quickly,”
running over a log jam. Ham snapped. “Before that hog finds us!”
By virtue of expert eye-to-muscle “You shyster!” Monk growled.
coördination, never remaining more than a “Habeas Corpus is a good hog.”
split-second in any one spot, Doc reached “Good to eat, maybe. But I doubt
the middle of that nightmarish arena. From even that.”
then on, progress was easier. The animals After providing themselves with
were too closely packed to attack him firearms, Doc’s aids donned some of the
successfully, so long as he kept on his feet count’s clothes. The count wore nothing
and moving. apparently, but black. Long Tom pointed at
Doc reached the cell. Leaping from Renny’s long, puritanical face protruding from
the back of the enraged iguanas to grip the a black waistcoat.
iron bars, he pulled himself up to a safe
Doubling with laughter, Long Tom could locate this Devil’s Honeycomb,
said, “You look like Frankenstein!” whatever it is, with instruments. That means
“Anyhow, they fit,” Renny growled. the Devil’s Honeycomb is composed of
“And I don’t look like a scarecrow in a garden substance different from the island and
patch, like you.” volcanic ash.”
Monk and Ham made acrid “Exactly,” Doc Savage agreed. “And
comments on each other’s appearance. the fact that those pits are being dug close
“Holy cow!” Renny rumbled. “It’s sure together indicates that the Devil’s
swell to hear you two guys scrappin’ again. Honeycomb, whatever it is, is not large. If it
This lug that calls himself a count, fixed up was a large object, they would have dug the
some skeletons with some of your clothes pits farther apart.”
hangin’ bloody on ‘em, and we thought you “I had not thought of that, but it bears
had all been killed.” out my theory,” Johnny declared. “Now have
As they were all in the act of leaving you noticed the geologic structure of this
the palace, Ham pounced upon the blade of island? That coastal plateau is really a ridge
his sword cane, where it had been concealed along the shore. That is where they are
beneath the sea-otter robes on the piano. He digging. I am positive the plateau was thrown
examined the tip, found it still coated with the up as a deposit of volcanic ash. This
sleep-producing chemical, and shifted the occurred not many years ago, judging from
blade back into the malacca cane handle. the lack of vegetation. Beyond the plateau,
Monk sighed. “‘Now absolutely inland, is a small swamp section, heavily
everything is found but Habeas.” jungled.”
“And he won’t be found,” Ham said, Doc Savage put in, “There are
hopefully. “Didn’t you hear the count say the indications that the swamp was originally the
island is infected by fierce things?” seashore.”
Monk insisted, “Habeas’ll never be Johnny chuckled. “I see you have
devoured by anything, on account of he’ll do reached the same conclusions as myself. Are
the devourin’ himself, if any.” we going to look the place over?”
“We are,” Doc Savage told him. “We
are going to examine that swamp quite
VOLCANIC smoke hung over the thoroughly.”
island in a black pall, dimming the equatorial Monk dropped back to grumble, “I
sun as Pat, Doc, his aids, and their prisoner wish somebody’d tell me what all of those
hurried from the palace courtyard. honeycomb pits are for.”
“Now what?” Long Tom muttered. “Did the overseers examine the
Doc Savage studied the volcano for volcanic ash you excavated from the pits?”
a time. Its glow seemed to have acquired Doc Savage queried.
additional brilliance. “Sure,” Monk said. “But not very
“That volcano is not behaving in a closely.”
manner calculated to inspire peace of mind,” “The purpose of those pits may
Doc said. “However, there are two things prove to be somewhat of a surprise,” Doc
requiring our immediate attention.” Savage said, and offered no more.
“One is to rescue those poor devils As the party proceeded, the
digging those honeycomb pits,” Ham offered. mangroves grew more dense. The coiled
“Right,” Doc admitted. roots were head-high in places, causing
“And the other,” Johnny said tensely, frequent stumbles in the spongy, water-
for once using small words, “is to find out logged soil. The volcanic smoke grew
what this Devil’s Honeycomb business is all blacker. The red flashes became more lurid.
about.” A fine ash of volcanic pumice sifted down
“Right again,” Doc agreed. through the maze of weirdly curved tree
As the party plunged into a grove of branches above.
mangroves, Doc and the scholarly Johnny Uttering raucous alarms, frigate birds
conversed in lowered tones. and fantail gulls skimmed over the tops of the
“No doubt, you have already reached giant mangroves. Red-footed boobies
the conclusions that I am going to outline,” perched on their nests and squawked
Johnny said. “First, Ramadanoff insisted you continually.
“These birds would drive a guy nuts!” Suddenly the enemy firing increased,
Monk rumbled. coming noticeably closer.
“They’re sure to give us away, in “They’re charging us!” Renny
case anybody’s looking for us,” Long Tom boomed.
added. “Keep down!” Doc ordered. Doc
“Snipers in these mangroves is one spoke calmly, hiding the alarm he must have
thing we don’t have to worry about,” Monk felt. As a matter of fact, they were on as
mumbled. “The count was afraid to let any deadly a spot as any they had run against on
one else on the island have a gun—” the island. With lead slapping around them
“Down!” Doc rapped, unexcitedly. like hail, there was a good chance of none of
“Everybody! Get down!” them escaping.
Monk, with the others, instantly “Let’s charge ‘em!” Renny roared
dropped on all fours. A moment later, there again.
was a crash of rifles. Lead snarled through Johnny’s scholastic voice said
the mangroves, chipping bark, tearing at sharply. “Exsiccate, and attune auditory
boughs over their heads. faculties.”
“My mistake about the snipers,” “Huh?” Renny gulped, startled.
Monk said, grimly. “Whatcha say?”
“He means for you to dry up and
listen,” Monk interpreted.
Chapter XVI Listening, they heard clearly above
PORTUGUESE FREEBOOTER the whooping gun thunder a new sound, a
massed grunting, as though perhaps a
DOC and his men returned the fire hundred or more of the count’s hunger-
with the guns they had confiscated from the crazed iguanas had escaped from the palace
palace. With the sifting volcanic ash turning and were butting through the mangroves on
the shadowed mangroves into a place of a man-hunt.
perpetual night, the enemy guns flared in The Count Ramadanoff, himself, was
saffron bursts. Echoes crashed flatly. first to name correctly the sound. He did so
“Holy cow!” Renny boomed. “Sounds with considerable excitement.
like an army!” “Climb trees!” he bawled, abruptly
Doc Savage said, “My guess is that concerned over his own safety. “I will call at
brother Boris has flown here from Cocos our enemies to cease shooting!”
Island and rounded up the slaves.” “What’s comin’?” Monk demanded.
Renny groaned. “We should have let “The little wild hogs!” the count
Boris drop when he was on the end of that gasped. “They run in droves like peccaries; in
rope hanging from the airplane!” sufficient numbers, they can bring down
Monk fired a burst of three shots. anything that lives!”
Answering bullets chopped mangrove
branches about his head.
“Trouble with firing at their gun THEY listened. It was a herd of the
flashes is, they shoot back at yours,” Monk ferocious little animals, undoubtedly. There
growled. was a good deal of noise in the mud.
The battle went on, the mangroves The count was screaming at the
rocking to gun thunder, and the black enemy riflemen, beseeching them not to
volcanic dust sifting down as though trying to shoot, to climb trees themselves and seek
blot out the livid bloom of guns. Lead whined safety. The response was interesting, for it
and smacked, driving the combatants to seek seemed that Doc Savage’s party had taken
additional protection by burrowing deeper in shelter in the only large trees immediately
the mud. convenient, and that those where the
“Monk’s pig would love this!” the besiegers lay, although thick enough for
fastidious Ham gritted, bogged almost to his excellent concealment, were only bushes
eyebrows. which would hardly support human weight.
Big-fisted Renny growled, “Let’s In a mud-slogging wave, the herd of
charge ‘em!” wild pigs approached.
“The trees!” Doc Savage directed, They scrambled down out of the
and they hauled themselves out of the mud boughs. Making their escape did not prove to
and climbed, boosting the big, bearded count be difficult, because the men who had been
up into the branches, helping Pat, the rest of besieging them were involved, for the time
them following hastily. being, with the herd of wild hogs.
Ham, always concerned with his
appearance, paused to scrape some of the
mud off, with the result that he was slow in DOC SAVAGE’S party pressed for
reaching a tree. In fact, before he gained his considerable time through the tangled growth
tree, a lean, ungainly shote with long legs and finally came out in what amounted to a
and flapping sail-like ears popped out of the valley. Before the last volcanic eruption—if
brush and headed straight for Ham. The Johnny’s geologic observations were as
mud-smeared lawyer unlimbered his sword accurate as they should be—the valley had
cane as he retreated hastily. been the shores of a bay.
“Hey!” Monk bawled. “Be careful! Doc Savage listened for some time.
That’s Habeas!” He heard no sounds of enemies.
“What of it?” Ham snapped. “If I don’t “Wait here,” he directed the party.
get him, that pack of wild hogs chasing him The next moment he was gone into
will!” the lurid gloom. He traveled swiftly, setting a
“Chasing him, nothing!” Monk course for a definite spot—the beach near
bellowed. “Habeas, he’s leadin’ that gang of where his plane had crashed. Once there, he
hogs!” stripped off his outer garments and entered
Monk’s prediction proved to be the surf.
optimistic. He had based it, no doubt, on The tide, fortunately, had changed,
Habeas’s previous accomplishments in and the rips were not bad as he swam out to
fighting; which had been considerable. But the spot where his plane had sunk. It was
Habeas, in these wild, peccary-like island impossible more than to approximate the
hogs, had encountered—if not singly, at least location, which meant that Doc had to make
in numbers—his match. He could outrun a number of dives before he located the craft
them, however, and he was engaged in in some four fathoms of water. In truth, a film
doing it. of oil on the surface, coming up from the
Ham went up his tree and Habeas crashed plane, led the bronze man to the
promptly tried to climb after him, but failed. location of the ship.
“Scat!” Ham yelled. “Go away! Take He dived to it a number of times, and
your friends with you!” when he swam back to shore, he was heavily
An idea seized Monk. He hung burdened.
down, at risk of falling out of his own leafy “Holy cow!” Renny exploded, when
retreat, and waved an arm, whooping to get Doc joined them in the valley that had
Habeas’s attention. Monk had long ago formerly been a bay. “Whatcha got?”
taught his pet shote to move in response to “Our devices for locating metals
hand gestures. underground,” Doc Savage told him. “Long
“Take ‘em away, Habeas!” Monk Tom—Johnny—you can help with this.”
yelled, indicating the shote should go in the The apparatus was sensitive, but
direction of the enemy attacking party. was unimpaired by submersion; its case had
Habeas Corpus acquitted himself been waterproof. They worked with it for
royally. Promptly setting off at a wild pace, he three hours. Then Doc Savage went and
took his troubles in the shape of a grunting, stood on a particular spot.
snorting, tusk-flashing horde of wild pigs, in “Here,” he said.
his wake. It was near the beginning rise of the
Among the enemy there was much coastal ridge and was in volcanic ash. They
excited shouting, shooting, and an enraged dug in, using sticks for implements, working
squealing from the pigs. Doc Savage waited as quietly as possible. It was Monk whose
until the peccary stragglers joined what stick first hit buried wood. He scraped madly
sounded like a considerable warfare ahead. and uncovered a porthole.
“Come on!” the bronze man said, “Pirate treasure!” he gulped,
sharply. “Now is our chance to get clear!” excitedly.
Doc Savage held a match close to The count found the spot for which
the porthole to examine it, then said, “Look,” his fingers were feeling. His tapering fingers
and pointed at an inscription on the porthole pressed. A small panel slid open. He thrust
rim. his hand through the hole, felt behind the
The inscription read: bulkhead, and drew his hand out quickly,
holding something.
Patented June 1, 1908 “Give it to me!” Doc ordered, and
advanced on the bearded man.
“Pirates,” Doc Savage said, “were The count snarled, his bearded face
put out of business before 1908.” contorted in baffled rage. Then, quickly, he
The porthole was large; and after controlled himself, forced a grim smile.
they had broken out the glass and worked “Take it,” he growled. “But I warn
the rim free, they could by squeezing get you, it means death!”
inside. Doc posted Renny and Monk as He placed the article in Doc’s
guards. Doc, with the others, managed to get outstretched hand.
inside. “Outside,” Doc ordered, and the
They searched carefully and at count walked out.
length, and found nothing to indicate this was “Tie him up again,” Doc directed
anything but an old tramp steamer. The boat Johnny.
had a metal hull; most of the bulkheads were Only after the count’s arms were
of steel; and there were no skeletons about. again bound did the bronze man allow his
The hull was mutilated enough to show the attention to be distracted to the object in his
ship had been wrecked—probably driven hand. It was a mariner’s emergency hand
high on the shore in the course of a storm, or compass, studded on the back with two
by a tidal wave. superb stones, much like those which had
“This has turned out to be a bust,” graced the count’s finger rings. An emerald
Long Tom complained. and a ruby!
Only the count registered no Unexpectedly, wafting on the
disappointment. Doc, observing the bearded pumice-fogged air, the bronze man’s trilling
man covertly, noted that, strangely enough, note came, causing Pat and Johnny to flash
the fellow could not keep from his face a look startled looks. Doc held the compass out for
of feverish triumph. Pat to see.
Shortly after this, the count “What is it?” Pat asked. She frowned,
approached Doc, complaining that the ropes “I don’t get it.”
hurt his wrists and he might as well be freed, “The engraving,” Doc suggested.
since the only exit from the wreck—the “It’s in Russian,” Pat decided. “I’m
porthole—was guarded by Renny and Monk. not so good at Russian.”
Doc removed the bonds, at the same “It says merely that the compass was
time remarking, “If you try to escape, the presented to the Count Ramadanoff by the
results may not be pleasant.” Czar of Imperial Russia,” Doc told her. “It is
The count bowed, narrowing his the date which is important.”
eyes to hide a gleam of triumph. He moved “I’ll be superamalgamated!” Johnny
to one side, and Johnny and Pat promptly exploded. “The date is 1911!”
assailed Doc with misgivings.
“Why did you do it?” Pat demanded.
“He was lying about his wrists hurting him.” Chapter XVII
Doc’s expression was enigmatic. THE RED RING
“Pretend not to notice him.”
“RIGHT,” Doc said. “The date is
1911.”
DOC SAVAGE himself pretended to His words were echoed by a
be occupied in another part of the wreck. The rumbling sound, like caged thunder. No wind
count, when he judged himself to he blew. The noise seemed to press down with
unobserved, slunk from sight, entering a the sifting black pumice, and at the same
portion of the wrecked hull formerly used as time to ooze up through the ground. It was
the captain’s cabin.
everywhere—as though tortured rocks, far Taking advantage of lava gullies and
below the earth’s surface, were vibrating dead, gas craters, Doc’s flanking party
throughout the globe. worked up close. Once they were sighted,
“What is it?” Pat gasped. and a burst of bullets hunted them. One slug
“The volcano,” Doc said. felled a high torch thistle and slapped the
“The exordium of the termination,” frightful plant across Renny’s shoulders,
Johnny remarked. which meant Renny would spend weeks
“I get that one,” Pat said tensely. picking the barbs from his skin. Bullets
“The beginning of the end.” splattered volcanic glass, drove splinters.
“We must drop everything,” Doc said, Doc left them, merging away into the
“and hurry ahead to rescue those poor devils gloom. The volcanic ash was falling thicker
in the pits.” now and the squat volcano cone was bathed
Doc led off, his aids and Pat trailing in a perpetual rose glow. Appearing to ooze
after him, bringing big, bearded Ramadanoff. from the rock under foot, that fearful rumble,
Out of the jungle tangle, forging ahead like caged thunder, came again.
through jagged lava beds, Doc’s party was Then came a crashing roar. Different
within close view of the squat volcanic cone. sound! It sent echoes ricocheting through the
The mountain’s mouth was wreathed in lurid lava canyons like a dynamite blast.
light and smoke belched upward in a twisting “Doc’s little capsule grenades!”
spiral, to mushroom against high clouds and Renny boomed.
sift its pumice over the entire island. Piercing the ash-laden air on the
“It won’t be long now!” Ham yelled. heels of the explosion echoes, stabbed
“She’s been buildin’ for a bust ever frantic shouts. A ragged burst of gunfire
since we’ve been here!” Monk agreed, loudly. came from Boris Ramadanoff’s men. These
Doc slowed his giant strides to fall noises receded until there was only silence
back alongside Pat. When no one was and the sifting black snow, and the mountain
observing, he placed the jeweled compass in top gleaming a fiery red.
her hands. Rock crunched, and Doc loomed
“Keep it where it will be safe,” he toward them from out of the murk.
admonished. “Foray was eminently successful?”
“You must be expecting violent Johnny suggested.
action!” Pat gasped. Doc nodded. “They’re on the run.”
Doc said nothing, possibly because “We better be, too,” Renny grumbled.
ahead, from out of gloom created by the “The whole top of that mountain’s about due
black ash, gun flashes stabbed redly, like to blow off, if you ask me.”
tiny, erupting volcanoes. “It is becoming more threatening
“Down!” Doc shouted. Bullets every minute,” Doc admitted, gravely. “Come
slammed whining past. on; we’ll join the others.”
But Doc’s flanking party did not join
the others. The others joined them. That is,
“BROTHER Boris again!” Monk part of the others did.
squawked. “Doc!” Monk and Ham roared
The volcanic rock afforded together, as they came plunging out of the
innumerable crevices. Concealing gloom.
themselves, Doc and his aids returned “Here!” Doc called, sharply.
enough fire to keep the enemies at a “The count’s gone!” Ham squalled.
distance. Of even greater danger than the “With Pat!” Monk bellowed.
smashing lead, was the brittle volcanic slag “He cut his hands free on this glassy
which broke into thousands of pieces under rock, I guess,” Ham gasped. “And he
impact of bullets, showering the slivered rock grabbed Pat!”
around like glassy needles. Monk howled in rage, “We couldn’t
Doc issued strict orders against shoot on account he held her in front of him.”
reckless exposure on the part of any of his “And in this dust and murk, he was
aids; then, leaving Monk and Ham and Pat in out of sight in about six steps,” Ham finished.
charge of the prisoner, he took the others “We tried to find him, but no luck.”
with him to stage a flanking movement.
“Go on to the pits,” Doc directed. “Let It was Monk who first became aware
me hunt Pat.” of their predicament.
With a parting wave of his hand, the “Blazes!” he roared. “There’s lava on
bronze man moved quickly away. He was out both sides of us!”
of sight in a few long strides. It was true. The seething lava flood
had swelled, curled out in a broad path on
each side of the plateau, straddling it. The
WHILE Doc’s aids raced for the only escape from the plateau of the
honeycomb pits, the underground thunder honeycomb pits was by the sea.
sounded again and the rosy light glowing Renny cracked his huge fists
above the volcano crater expanded violently, together, helplessly.
flinging fiery streaks through the ashy gloom “The sharks!” he gulped. “Brothers,
and disgorging a torrent of lava, which we’re really jammed!”
cascaded in red streams down the blunt Even as he spoke, the lava rivulets
mountainside. seemed to grow—like a doughnut swelling in
“I said she was ready to blow,” a cauldron of boiling fat; the red ropes, fed by
Renny grunted. a continuous fiery flow from the spewing
Johnny, the geologist, reassured volcano mouth, swelled and swelled,
them. “It would be excessively rare for the pressing inward, threatening to engulf the
initial eruption to be of sufficient volume to entire honeycombed plateau.
inundate the plateau where the honeycomb
pits are.”
Long Tom gasped, “Look!” Chapter XVIII
“Blazes!” Monk blurted. “Run!” THE MOUNTAIN MAKERS
The warning was hardly necessary.
Oozing down a defile upon them came a WHEN Doc Savage took the trail of
mass of red, liquid lava. It was a moving the count and Pat, his gold-flecked eyes
serpent of liquid, superheated rock which, ferreted out minute clues: a bit of shoe-
disgorged from the gutted earth, had crunched volcanic glass, a bruised leaf,
cascaded down the outside of the squat missing barbs from a form of jumping cactus
volcanic cone and was now seething forward. which grew rankly in the lava crevices.
Heat in gaseous billows fanned out ahead of Mounting upward toward the smoke-
the molten avalanche. Doc’s aids felt the belching crater, Doc came shortly across in
withering blast, as they climbed in a frenzy the crushed volcano glass indisputable
toward higher ground. evidence that the Count Ramadanoff had
“Holy cow!” Renny gulped. “That was met brother Boris’s party and joined forces
close!” with them.
“And how are we gonna get back Trails of the brothers Ramadanoff led
across that strip of melted hells?” Monk up and up the squat cone of the smoking
wanted to know. volcano, headed directly for the fiery crater.
“We’re only cut off on one side,” The trail grew fresher, Doc was high
Long Tom pointed out. Nearing the pits, on the stubby cone of the mountain when the
Doc’s aids fired warning shots. The lava burst from the crater in an especially
overseers, having no firearms, did not violent eruption. Flowing down in a
contest their advance. Already filled with mountain-high waterfall of fire in broad
dread at sight of the volcanic activity, the channels to the left of Doc’s position, the
overseers, shouting in panic, surrendered. liquid rock, like the spawn of many glass
Doc’s men, scattering over the entire front, furnaces dumped together, sprayed heat and
forced the lizard-collared men into the pits to light through the sooty air.
unlock the diggers. Then, above him, Doc glimpsed
So furiously the rescue work those he trailed. A yellowish pall of smoke
proceeded, so intent were Doc’s aides in smudged them from view; but the glimpse
effecting the release of every last one of the had been enough. The bronze man left the
miserable fellows chained in the pits, that trail and lunged upward on a shortcut which
they were unaware for a time of a frightful would allow him to intercept his enemies.
trap closing in on them.
It was hard going over old, lava-flow THE count stood in front of Doc, his
formation. The stuff was deceptive. Twice bearded head thrown back, ghoulish mirth
the ground gave way beneath Doc’s plunging issuing in loud gobblings from his mouth.
feet and precipitated him into head-high ruts. “Everything, it is perfect!”
Needle-point lava showered down upon him. Ramadanoff roared. “Better even than we
The ground under his feet became could have planned it. Is it not so, brother
hotter as he proceeded; noxious gases, Boris?”
oozing from fumaroles, made breathing a Boris Ramadanoff nodded
hazard. Nearing his quarry, Doc, to avoid emphatically.
being detected, half slid, half climbed into Pat Savage, imprisoned between two
one of the fuming, cinder caves and groped of the lizard-collared slaves, stared
his way across the bottom between smoking speechlessly, her face taut.
holes gleaming a raw red color and noisily The count pointed a tapering finger
horrible with the suck and gurgle of fluid rock at her. Even in the tenseness of the moment,
below the cinder crust. Doc noted that the emerald was missing from
With lids slitted to prevent his the man’s hand.
eyeballs from being scorched, he waded “We have the girl,” the count rasped.
through that withering heat and climbed the “And we have you. And your other friends are
opposite slope of the clinker pit, maneuvering trapped on the plateau.”
for a position which would bring him out Doc looked at the count, spoke in a
above his enemies. composed voice. “No lava flow will flood the
Doc gained the position—and then plateau of the honeycomb pits.”
lost everything in the moment which should The count’s eyes glittered. “One
have been his greatest triumph. thing you have not taken into consideration.
The air in the deep fumarole he had Brother Boris and I have long been prepared
just traversed was impregnated with an for this eventuality.” He pointed with
insidious gas—carbon monoxide—colorless, spasmodic eagerness. “Do you see that
odorless, making its presence felt only by its volcano crater?”
sudden sapping of a man’s strength. Doc had Doc said nothing. No one could have
been aware of the possibility of this gas in seen the crater through the smoke.
the smoky atmosphere. Making his painful “It is mined with nitro charges,” the
way across the scoria, or metallic rock froth, count growled. “That is why brother Boris and
he had breathed no more than was I have climbed this slope—to explode those
imperative. charges. With a new vent blown out for the
But even this little was too much. He lava, the plain of the pits will be covered with
felt a giddiness settle upon him. His legs molten lava.”
grew leaden. Taxing his reserve strength to Doc shook his head. “You would not
the utmost, he reeled to the top of the pit and blow those charges.”
then plunged down, an avalanche of needle- “And why not?” the count asked.
pointed clinkers sliding in a brittle wash “It is dangerous business tampering
behind him. with the normal flow of volcanic lava,” the
With his eyes momentarily sealed bronze man reminded.
shut from the stinging reek of volcanic gases, “If it were not for the fact that brother
his reeling steps had carried him onto a Boris is going to pull the trigger on the
bubble-glass surface which had crashed revolver which he is holding against your
under his weight, plunging him down a neck, you would see us dare it,” the count
tortuous slope almost on the heads of his said, ominously.
enemies. He was half buried in the Doc, ignoring the threat, said: “There
downsurge of the metallic rock. is still another reason why you would not
Before he could extricate himself, flood the plain. That Devil’s Honeycomb for
Boris Ramadanoff’s revolver muzzle was a which you have so long looked, digging your
burning coldness against the back of his pits—you would hardly care to have it buried
neck. under a hundred feet of lava.”
“So!” the count purred, dangerously,
“you have deduced where the Devil’s
Honeycomb lies.”
“Since the bronze man knows so “No,” the brother lied, quite calmly.
much,” Boris sneered, “why not tell him the “This man Savage is prevaricating, trying to
rest of it, brother? Perhaps, in the world to turn your hand against me for his own gain.”
which my trigger finger will send him, he will “He knew the nature of the key,”
meet the real Count Ramadanoff, whose Boris snarled. “How did he know it was a
interest in this bit of unrecorded history will compass, if he did not see it when you found
be vast.” it?”
“Agreed, brother Boris,” the madman “I tell you it’s all a lie, brother!”
answered. He fixed his gaze upon Doc. barked the other, somewhat desperately.
“Know, then, that I am not the real Count “Pull the trigger that will send a bullet
Ramadanoff. The real Count Ramadanoff crashing through his brain. We will end this!”
came to this island to escape the horrors of Boris scowled. “I would hear more
the Russian revolution. His vessel was that about this compass key.”
tramp steamer, which you, my dear Savage, “Fool!” the bogus count hissed.
so kindly located for us today. Promptly following the hateful
“Escaping the revolutionists, the exclamation in the smoky haze, there was a
original count brought with him to this island sound which might have been made by
a hundred people, artisans and noblemen. Of fingers snapping very hard. Boris slumped
that hundred people, brother Boris and ominously to the ground, scarlet commencing
myself alone remain alive today.” to ooze through a depressed fracture in his
temple. The “thumb-hole death” had struck
again.
“THE thumb-hole death doubtless As a safety-first move, Doc Savage
accounted for the others,” Doc remarked. went into action. All during the bogus count’s
“Some of them died by the thumb- revelations, Doc had been surreptitiously
hole death,” the madman admitted, readily. working his knees and hips against the
“Others went by the way of the pits. But you volcanic slag which had avalanched down
interrupt my story. Among the articles which and half submerged him, holding him to a
the count brought with him was—well, the degree. He had succeeded in loosening
Devil’s Honeycomb, among other things. This appreciably the hold of the stuff.
he cunningly hid. Now he lunged forward. Clinkers
“Brother Boris and I bungled badly washed in a wave as his body heaved free.
when we killed the original Count He felt something close to his
Ramadanoff. He died before we had wrested temple. The exact nature of it was hard to
from him the secret of his hiding place. Some define. It must have shaved him very close,
things we knew, however. We knew that the for his temple seemed to burn. It must have
Devil’s Honeycomb is concealed on that been the “thumb-hole death.”
plateau now encircled by red, running rock. The bogus count suddenly lost his
So brother Boris and I caused ships to wreck, nerve. He lunged backward, spun around
and, in that way, procured men to dig for us. and started running.
The pits were dug to a system. It was our Doc Savage shouted at Pat in the
intention to honeycomb—the honeycomb Mayan tongue. She twisted, lunged
part is humor, eh?—the whole plateau, if it frantically; only her wrists were bound. So
was necessary—” stunned were her captors at what had just
Doc Savage put in, “The tramp occurred, that she managed to get free.
steamer? How did it happen that you failed to Lunging, Doc Savage reached her side.
know its location?” Together they went over the edge of one of
“It was wrecked in a tidal wave when the smoke-ringed clinker pits. They ran
the volcano erupted, and covered with furiously. Doc helped Pat.
volcanic ash,” replied the other. “Neither Up to the right somewhere, hidden
Boris nor myself knew its location.” by the smoke, Doc Savage could hear the
“But you knew about the compass, bogus count scrambling through the metallic
that it was the key to the whereabouts of the clinkers. Judging from the strenuous sound,
Devil’s Honeycomb,” Doc said. the fellow’s main thought was to get away
Boris Ramadanoff started violently, from the vicinity, immediately. His nerve had
peered at his brother. “You found the key?” cracked, finally.
Chapter XIX A shout came from ahead; shots.

HONEYCOMB OF THE DEVIL She heard the count scream. Then Pat came
on the scene.
PAT demanded grimly, “Shall we It was at the edge of the little cove;
follow the count?” the water was comparatively calm. Doc
“We will,” Doc Savage agreed; “but Savage was standing on the cove’s edge,
do not get too close to him. Make sure he sheltered by a high boulder.
hears us.” Fully two hundred yards away, the
This combination of suggested action count was retreating warily along the beach,
seemed to puzzle Pat. To remain behind the revolver in hand. He shot at Pat. She got
count and follow him furtively, she could have undercover, crawled forward and joined Doc.
understood, but to follow him at a distance, She looked at the bay.
and still let the man know they were doing A seaplane floated there—a high-
so—that bewildered her. winged, twin-motored amphibian, each motor
“What’s the idea?” she demanded. being equipped with a three-bladed propeller.
Instead of answering her, Doc This ship was moored close to the shore, and
Savage paused and dislodged a heavy rock, on its fuselage a painted legend could be
letting it roll down a declivity. The man ahead read:
had been traveling fast, but now he cursed.
His speed became that of a madman. He COCOS ISLAND TREASURE
knew they were behind him. HUNTERS, INC.
The earth had cracked in spots,
probably under the force of expanding gases. “You headed the count away from
They passed a stream of lava which had the plane!” Pat gasped, suddenly
been diverted somewhere above and was understanding why Doc wanted their quarry
already beginning to solidify in irregular to know he was being followed. It had kept
waves, some of these head-high. In other the fellow frightened, had made him flee
spots, rivulets of the superheated stone toward the plane. And it had worked.
twisted sinuously along. “Right.” Doc Savage waved at the
They came to a region where plane. “That explains how the other brother
imprisoned gases had long ago hollowed out got here. There must have been a treasure-
the volcanic structure to form fantastic hunting expedition on Cocos Island. There
underground pits. It was as if monsters had usually is, as a matter of fact. This plane was
dug dens in the sloping side of the cone. probably stolen from them.”
They waded through ground-glasslike This theory, upon later investigation,
clinkers in which they sank to the knees. proved to be true.
“It cuts like razor blades,” Pat They waded out to the plane and
groaned. “My boots won’t stand much more climbed aboard.
of this.”
Unexpectedly, they came out on a
level area, beyond which there was a sharp THE big plane had a stout fuselage,
slope down to a cove. The wind was in their one made for heavy work, which was
faces and it swept the dust back to the other fortunate, because the landing on the other
side of the island. Accordingly, they could side of the island, although Doc Savage
see a little better. Doc’s flake-gold eyes made it expertly, was not easy on the hull.
scrutinized the terrain intently. No plane could land easily in that chopping
“Follow me,” be directed Pat, and riptide.
was suddenly gone. Monk, Ham and the others, howling
Pat tagged after him as best she their delight, met the ship on the beach,
could. She was about exhausted. It seemed wading out and seizing the hull to keep it
days since she had eaten, slept, had a from being damaged on the rocky shore.
peaceful moment, or drawn a breath of air “We can’t clear outta here too soon
that was fit to breathe. for me!” Monk yelled. “I gotta find Habeas
Corpus. He’s somewhere on the other side of
the island.”
“Probably with that herd of wild hogs The lead was soft; it split. Huge globules of
still after him,” Ham offered. green and red glittered before their sweat-
Doc Savage issued abrupt smarted eyes.
directions. “Monk, the rest of you, use this “Holy cow!” Renny breathed.
plane to ferry these poor prisoners of the The contents of the lead box was an
count’s to safety. Better take them out to the affair of gold, probably a part of an ancient
reef, not to the island. The reefs are not breastplate of armor. In this were set the
submerged, even at high tide. They would be jewels. The design of the mounting was
safe there.” orderly and laid out in such a fashion that it
“What about you, Doc?” Monk somewhat resembled a honeycomb.
demanded. There were diamonds, rabies,
“The Devil’s Honeycomb is here on emeralds, every one a stone that looked
this plateau,” Doc Savage advised. valuable.
Pat had been thinking, apparently. “I can see why they called it the
Now, she said sharply, “Doc! That compass! Devil’s Honeycomb,” Renny boomed.
There must have been a map in it, or “What about getting the rest out?”
something!” Pat demanded.
“Undoubtedly,” Doc Savage assured They began to dig for the additional
her. chests. The sides of the bole promptly caved
“But the count took it away from me!” in, delaying them somewhat. A moment later,
Pat gasped. “We haven’t got it.” there was another misfortune, which entirely
For answer, the bronze man brought overshadowed this minor one.
from within his clothing the jeweled compass. There came a crashing detonation.
“It left the count’s person when he The very earth itself seemed to convulse,
took part in the struggle attending my leap upward, then shake, as if trying to split
capture. I picked his pocket.” itself wide open. A great thump, queerly
Pat elected to stay. So did Renny. hollow, followed that. It was such a sound as
The others, being armed, felt able to take characterizes the detonation of an extremely
care of the prisoners, carrying them to one of powerful explosive.
the reefs near where the fake channel lights Pat looked appalled. “The count’s
had decoyed ships to disaster. nitro charge!” she gasped.
There was light about them now;
burning jungle ignited by lava, and lurid
flashes from the cone took care of that. Doc THEY looked toward the high
Savage worked at the compass, got the volcanic cone, saw a sight which was
glass out, lifted the card off its jeweled probably the most spectacular, and at the
bearing. Beneath, tied to the bearing pin with same time the most menacing, they had ever
silken cord, was a bit of parchment. Doc witnessed. A rumble had started and was
unwrapped this. growing and growing. But that was almost
It was a simple chart, showing unnoticed. It was the thing happening to the
landmarks and paced distances. top of the cone that held their eyes. Niagara
They were lucky. The principal Falls seemed to have become molten fire,
landmark, it developed, was a boulder of and was flowing upside down out of the great
extraordinary size which reposed near one cone.
end of the plateau. They ran to this, pausing “Holy cow!” Renny rumbled. “That’s
only to gather digging implements from some what I call a Fourth of July celebration!”
of the honeycomb pits. Doc Savage paced Doc Savage straightened, glanced
off the distances. about rapidly; he was calculating the size of
They began to dig—Doc Savage and the eruption and appraising their distance
Renny in the hole, Pat keeping the slag from the beach.
tossed back. They hit the leaden lid of a “Run for it!” the bronze man said,
small chest some six feet down. Prying the abruptly.
chest out, they could tell that there were Renny protested, “But these lead
many other similar chests below. boxes—”
“Let’s have a look at the inside,” “Nothing like that is worth dying for,”
Renny rumbled, and struck with his shovel. Doc Savage said, grimly. “If you stay to dig
them out, you will not have a chance to get Renny jumped suddenly, squawled
away.” and grabbed his side. He looked somewhat
Renny did not have to think it over foolish, examined a small spot which rapidly
long. grew livid.
“You’re right!” he thumped. “What did that?” he roared.
They ran for it, Renny pausing only Monk made a quick movement with
to scoop up the cluster of mounted jewels his wrist, and something thudded against
which so strangely resembled honeycomb— Renny’s ribs again.
a honeycomb the cells capped, not with wax, “Hey!” Renny said, startled. “What is
but with scintillating brilliance. that thing?”
The plane picked them up without Monk glanced at Doc Savage. “Had
much more difficulty than they had expected. you decided what that darn thing was, Doc?”
They got away none too soon. As the ship The bronze man nodded. “The
lifted from the water and circled toward the brothers must have spent much time
more peaceful end of the island, they studied practicing, to acquire such proficiency.”
the scene. “Yeah, they sure must of,” Monk
Under a sky hell-red to the far agreed.
horizon, the cone was spitting lava, boulders, “Holy cow!” Renny grunted,
some of the latter as huge as small buildings. examining the object which Monk held. “It’s
A few of these great chunks fell into the sea, that big emerald ring the count wore! It’s tied
or rolled there, and sent up unbelievable to a tiny thread, but you can’t hardly see it!”
quantities of billowing steam. “And the thread is stronger than
With the roar in their ears of a world blazes,” Monk told him. “You see, this is the
coming to an end, and the light of an inferno thumb-hole death.”
before their eyes, Doc himself took the “But it seemed so mysterious,” Pat
controls of the plane and landed it on the said. “So sinister.”
comparatively calm water inside the little “It was both,” Doc Savage
cove. They did not beach the ship, but kept it interpolated. “If you recall, the thumb-hole
off, with the motors running, ready for a quick death struck only when the light was not
take-off should an earthquake start. The strong enough to reveal the almost colorless
latter was a possibility. cord. They threw the ring with great force.
Monk, ignoring all arguments, went Both brothers were well muscled, you will
ashore. He wanted his hog, Habeas. recall. They must have practiced a great
Strangely enough, the dapper Ham—not at deal. Then they jerked the ring back with the
all dapper now—accompanied the homely cord.”
chemist. “We found it on the count,” Monk
They were back unexpectedly soon, announced. “The wild hogs—well, they left
running, and they had Habeas Corpus. it.”
“We found the other brother—the
count—the one who was alive!” Monk yelled.
“What do you think happened to him?” THEY fell silent after that, watching
No one made a guess. the scene before them. The rumble and roar
“Those wild hogs!” Ham said, grimly. of it. The leap and flash of gory light. The
“They had finished with him by the time we rumble of descending boulders. It was a
got there!” fabulous spectacle.
Still, watching the volcano, they
knew they were free to depart in the plane at
HABEAS CORPUS, Monk’s pet, any time and ferry the late prisoners of the
never a sartorially inclined porker at the best, brothers Ramadanoff to other and larger
now looked very bedraggled. That he had islands in the Galapagos, where sailors could
spent a hectic time on the fantastic island, call for them, as they later did.
was evident. He took every opportunity to lie Monk was exhibiting the
down. He had been thin before, as thin as it honeycombed, jeweled breastplate.
had seemed possible for a porcine specimen “Not much, compared to what we
to get, but now he was even thinner. probably left behind,” he said. “But my guess
is it’ll sell for a million, anyway. Divided up
among the prisoners we rescued, that oughta have looked forward enough to see the
help a little.” danger, the catastrophe that the Murder
If Ham heard that, he showed no Mirage would bring. Things no person ever
interest. Ham had plenty of money, anyway. thought of seeing were brought before the
He was eyeing the pig, Habeas Corpus. amazed eyes of Doc and his men; things that
Ham suddenly emitted several loud seemed like a mirage, except that murder
grunts. He shuffled his feet noisily. played too prominent a part in this next
“Wild hogs!” he yelled. thrilling adventure into which Doc Savage
Habeas Corpus never looked back. and his men would be cast.
He hit the water swimming, and made for the
safety of the plane.
“Boy, oh boy!” Ham grinned. “For THE END
years, I have been trying to find a way to
make that hog keep out of my sight!”
Ham might have mentioned a few
other things to keep out of his sight, could he
DON'T MISS:
MURDER MIRAGE
A book-length Doc Savage novel of a new and unusual adventure, with
death coming close to Doc and his scrappy pals. An unusual story with a
plot and setting unusual even for a Doc Savage adventure.
Complete in the next issue of
DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE

Ten Cents At All News Stands Every Month

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THE FANTASTIC ISLAND

A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson

The Fantastic Island

A Complete Book-length Novel

Chapter I Harper Littlejohn, who was better known as

Monk pushed back from the radio

Ham and Monk crowded forward for

They crouched down, watching. back as he swerved around. A shrill squeal

“But you—that whip!” line of working pits. The horse was a

“What inhabitant?” Pat asked quickly,

grave, he could hear movement—hurried, machine-gun fire. Echoes crashed flatly.

This man had a long, puritanical face

“Poison,” Doc repeated. Chapter VI

While Doc’s flashlight poked its white

other hand streaked forward and grabbed the

“Renny might not make it either,”

pick, gouged an entrance for himself into

The whip cracked down at Johnny. Doc’s hand reached out,

The mass of scabrous-hided

Chapter XIX A shout came from ahead; shots.

DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE

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