025 - Land of Always-Night

LAND OF ALWAYS-NIGHT
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson

Originally published in Doc Savage Magazine March 1935
Doc Savage and his men encounter a plot in a new world, a world seen through black-colored
glasses but with age-old crime still rampant!
Chapter I moved again, with something about it that

THE BUTTERFLY DEATH was remindful of a slow-motion picture being
shown on a screen.
IT is somewhat ridiculous to say that a The color had something to do with
human hand can resemble a butterfly. Yet the impression. The hand was white, unnatu-
this particular hand did attain that similarity. ral; it might have been fashioned of mother-
Probably it was the way it moved, hovered, of-pearl. There was something serpentine,
2 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOC SAVAGE xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
hideous, about the way it strayed and hov- “Take it easy!” he blubbered. “We can fix
ered, yet was never still. It made one think of this tip. Gimme time! Lemme think!”
a venomous white moth. “You,” said Ool, “will have all infinity in
It made Beery Hosmer think of death. which to think.”
Only the expression on Beery Hosmer’s face The white hand darted. There was no
told that, for he was not saying anything. But slow-motion effect this time. No onlooker
he was trying to. His lips shaped word sylla- could have told whether or not the hand ac-
bles and the muscle strings in his scrawny tually touched Beery Hosmer.
throat jerked, but no sounds came out.
The horrible white hand floated up to-
ward Beery Hosmer’s face. The side street ALL of the pent-up terror of the last
was gloomy, deserted except for Beery few moments burst from Beery Hosmer’s
Hosmer and the man with the uncanny hand. slack lips in one animal scream. He
The hand stood out in the murk almost as if wrenched violently backward. Head, shoul-
it were a thing of white paper with a light in- ders and elbows rammed into the plate glass
side. of the candy store.
Beery Hosmer went through a convul- The window collapsed. Glass crashed
sion of fright. Beery was a rather unusual to the cement walk with a jangle.
fellow. He was a crook who looked the part. Beery seemed to be trying to get a
At best, he was rather a sickening specimen, gun out of an armpit holster. But he thrashed
and now his aspect was doubly unwhole- about like one suddenly stricken mad. He
some. He managed to pump words out. kicked trays of chocolates and mints out on
“Naw, naw, don’t!” he choked. “I dunno the sidewalk. Great shudders began to
where it is! So help me, I don’t!” course over his scrawny body, but did not
The other man made no answer. His persist for long, because he gave a vast,
fantastic white hand—the other one never wheezing sigh and slumped over, becoming
moved, as if it were dead—was not his only as inert as the chocolate creams crushed
unusual characteristic. His eyes were unnatu- beneath him.
rally huge and so very pale as to be almost the Ool leaned into the window. His left
color of water, and he had a thin face, a thin hand remained at his side, as if lifeless. His
body. When occasional distant automobile right hand drifted to Beery Hosmer’s shirt,
headlights caused him to cast a shadow, the wrenched. Two buttons flew and clicked far
shadow was skeleton-thin. out in the street, then chamois of a money
Beery Hosmer broke out in gibberish. belt tore with a rotten sound.
“I don’t know, ” he gulped. “I wouldn’t kid The object which Ool brought into view
you. I don’t know anything about it!” resembled a pair of goggles, more than any-
The other man’s white hand kept mov- thing else. But as goggles, they were pecu-
ing. liar, for the lenses were as large as small
“Where is it?” he asked. His voice was condensed milk cans, and their glass—the
utterly flat; it held the mechanical quality found stuff did not look like true glass—was almost
in the speech of persons so deaf that they can jet black.
hardly hear themselves talk. One thing was striking. The workman-
Beery Hosmer tried to back away. He ship was exquisite.
was already pressed against the darkened Ool put the goggles on, and they con-
window of a candy store. trasted grotesquely with his chalky face.
“Wouldn’t I tell you if I knew?” he whim- Then he made a disgusted sound, took them
pered. “Lookit, Ool—” off hurriedly and pocketed them. A psy-
The hand of the man called Ool seemed chologist would have called the little incident
to move a little slower. strange. It was as if the donning of the gog-
“You have it,” he said tonelessly. “You gles had been an instinctive action.
were on your way to endeavor to sell it to this There was nothing hurried about the
man Doc Savage. It is in the money belt which man’s movements. He reached down,
you carry around your waist.” picked up a chocolate, tasted it and
Beery made choking sounds. He was smacked lips. Then he took off his hat and
almost sobbing. scooped chocolates into it until it was nearly
full.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx LAND OF ALWAYS NIGHT xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 3
Walking away, he ate the candy av- jeweled timepiece on each of his slightly thick
idly, as if it were some exquisite delicacy wrists.
with which he had just become acquainted. Watches Bowen had two loves. One
At the corner, Ool passed under a was his watches, of which he always carried
streetlight, and a peculiarity about his hair four or more, and kept them perfectly in time.
became apparent. It was little more than a The other love was his Napoleon brandy.
golden down, like the fine fur on a mouse. It was possible also that he might be
One man saw Ool go under the street - considered to have a third affection—his
light. The man was a janitor in a near-by build- liking for other people’s money.
ing. Watches said, “And so Beery Hosmer
It was inevitable that the breaking glass is dead?”
should have attracted attention, and within a Ool sat a dozen feet away on another
few moments, a uniformed policeman came delicately modernistic chair, his hat held on
running. He stood looking at the candy strewn his knees. From time to time his pearl-
over the walk, at first not noticing the human colored right hand drifted into the hat and
form in the window. Then he saw it, swore, transferred a chocolate cream to his forbid-
and leaned in to make an examination. When ding slit of a mouth. The hat was almost
he backed away, he looked puzzled. empty, but he still ate avidly.
“Guy must’ve had a fit, fell in the window Ool swallowed, nodded, “That is what I
and died,” he muttered. came here to tell you.”
That was the story the next editions of “Unfortunate, very unfortunate,”
the newspapers carried, after a medical exam- Watches said dryly. “What happened to the
iner had expressed the tentative opinion that damned fool?”
death was due to natural causes. Ool removed a chocolate from the hat
Moreover, there had been over a thou- and eyed it lovingly.
sand dollars in the chamois money belt, and “These are delicious,” he said. “What
since this was intact, it did not seem that the do you call them?”
motive was robbery. “Candy,” said Watches. “Chocolate
It was some hours before the police got creams. What about Beery?”
a different slant on the story. It required that Ool ate the chocolate with much
long for the janitor who had seen Ool go under smacking of lips.
the streetlight to make up his mind. The janitor “No one will trace me here,” he said. “I
was a timid soul. His story created quite a furor am sure of that.”
when he decided to talk. Watches looked, acted as if he had
The janitor had seen the whole thing. been slapped. He had idly detached one of
the watches from the gold chain and it all but
slipped from his fingers; his mouth sagged
Chapter II roundly open.
PLANS “You!” he exploded. “You got Beery?”
“These chocolate creams, as you call
EARL MAURICE “WATCHES” BOWEN them—I must have more of them,” Ool said
stood in his modernistic Park Avenue apart - tonelessly. “Yes, I killed Beery.”
ment and poured eighty-year-old Napoleon Watches Bowen sagged back,
brandy into a fragile glass, tested its bouquet reached for the brandy and did something
long and pleasurably, then took a sip and blot - which was very rare for him—he drank a
ted his lips with a silk handkerchief. slug without sampling its bouquet.
He was a big man, with some surplus “Whew!” he muttered. “And you sit
around the waist. His dress was immaculate, there gobbling down candy! Oh, I know
his manner suave. He did not look the part of you’re only about half human, but—”
one of the smoothest crooks in the big time. “My people had a civilization greater
Watches Bowen leaned back in the ex- than yours some thousands of years ago!”
quisitely moulded chair and absently fingered Ool said. For the first time, there was some
the thin yellow gold chain which connected the slight feeling in his voice.
two lower pockets of his vest. There was a “All right, all right.” Watches spread his
watch on either end of the chain. There was a hands. “We won’t go into that. Would you
mind telling me why, particularly, you de- “Did Beery get to Doc Savage?” he
cided to scratch Beery off?” asked hoarsely.
“He knew our plans,” Ool said. “No, ” said Ool.
Watches scowled. “Now look here, if Watches let out a gusty sigh of relief.
you’re gonna start bumping—” “That’s a break for us,” he said fer-
“Beery Hosmer knew our plans and he vently. “I’m telling you that I’d rather fight the
was greedy,” Ool stated, interrupting. “He United States army than this Doc Savage. A
thought he saw a way to gather unto himself guy can at least run from the army.”
much money.” “This Doc Savage must be a remark-
“This begins to make sense,” Watches able individual,” Ool said, his dead voice
grunted. “What was Beery up to?” making it seem that he had no interest in the
“The device which you call my gog- matter.
gles—” Ool paused. “‘Remarkable’ is putting it mild,”
“Yeah?” Watches snorted. “That bird Savage is a
“Beery stole them,” said Ool. wizard! They say he knows all about electric-
“The hell!” Watches polished the back of ity and chemistry and psychology and engi-
the timepiece he was holding. “But how in the neering and them things. They say he’s a
devil did he plan to make a buck from that? He mental marvel. On top of that, he’s supposed
knew how things stack up. He knew—” to be able to bend horseshoes in his hands,
“He knew there was one man in your and things like that.”
United States who might make use of the gog- “Dangerous?” Ool murmured.
gles,” Ool interposed. “You mean to guys like us?” countered
Watches shook his head slowly. “I don’t Watches.
get this. Who was Beery going to?” “Exactly.”
Ool evidently knew something of dra- “Poison!” Watches said vehemently.
matic effects. He allowed just the proper pause “Doc Savage makes a profession of mixing
before answering. up in unusual things. He’s what the newspa-
“Doc Savage,” he said. pers call a big-time adventurer. He’s sup-
posed to travel around over the world, help-
ing people out of trouble and punishing
“WHAT?” wrong-doers.”
Had some one shot him unexpectedly, “That hardly applies to us,” said Ool.
Watches might have been more surprised, but “Oh, yeah?” Watches grinned wryly.
only slightly more so. He whipped to his feet. “From what I’ve heard, this thing is right up
He did something he had not done in years— Doc Savage’s alley.”
he dropped one of his watches, the one he Ool said nothing. He took the last
was fingering at the moment. And after his one chocolate out of his hat, ate it, licked his fin-
blasting exclamation, he tried to speak and the gers, shook a few chocolate crumbs out in
words stuck somewhere down in his chest. his hand, ate them, then stood up.
Ool ate chocolate peacefully. Electric “You will get me more of those choco-
lights were on in the apartment, and under late creams,” he said.
their glow, several points about the man were Watches scowled as if he resented be-
noticeable which would have escaped casual ing given an order, then said hastily, “Sure!
observation. His white skin was given the Sure!”
mother-of-pearl appearance by an interlacing Ool went to one of the large windows
of fine blue veins. It somehow had the aspect and looked out upon the amazing display of
of a tropical flower doomed to live its life lights which is New York City after nightfall.
among venomous insects and more venomous Watches Bowen asked curiously,
serpents, cut off from the sun in the depths of “How did you kill Beery?”
some swamp. “I merely looked at him,” said Ool,
With a perceptibly shaking hand, “and he dropped dead.”
Watches poured himself a hooker of the Na- “O. K.,” Watches growled, “if that’s the
poleon brandy, downed it, once more without way you feel about it.”
sampling its aroma and flavor. The rare liq- Ool was looking steadily through the
uor seemed to open a channel for his words. window, his head back as if he were eyeing
the sky rather than the lights.
“How are our plans progressing?” he Watches gulped, “A minute ago, you
asked. acted as if you didn’t know much about the
“Rotten,” said Watches. guy!”
“I wanted to see if you were afraid of
him,” Ool said.
“WHAT do you mean?” Ool asked, not “I am afraid of him,” Watches
turning. snapped. “I’m not ashamed of it, either. No
“I’ve canvassed all of the big airplane man in his right sense will buck Doc Sav-
factories,” Watches explained. “They can age.”
build us a true gyroplane, sure. This true “Nevertheless,” Ool murmured emo-
gyro will rise straight up and hover. It can be tionlessly, “we are going to use him.”
controlled fairly well. But here’s the rub. The Watches all but yelled. “Don’t! I tell
damn things won’t carry more than two men, you that Doc Savage and his five helpers are
and they won’t lift hardly any fuel at all. The poison! We can find some way without mix-
things are still in the experimental stage.” ing with them!”
“Then you think we are doomed to But Ool wheeled and stalked out of the
failure?” Ool asked. He was still peering apartment.
steadily at the sky.
“We’re stumped,” Watches said. He
looked at the other curiously. “Say, what’re HALF an hour later, Ool was on the
you looking at?” Hudson River, in a small rowboat. He had
“Come here. ” Ool lifted an arm. “Look.” the oarlocks muffled with rags, and the only
Watches Bowen came over and stared sound penetrating the darkness was the oc-
out of the window, not at the lights, but at the casional slap of a wave against the side of
black abyss of the sky. A moment later, he his boat. These small noises did not matter,
saw that which Ool was indicating—a short being lost in the rhythmic lappings of waves
string of lights suspended in the heavens. among the pilings of the piers along the
He watched these, and they came closer; near-by water front.
and it became apparent that the lights were Ool peered intently into the darkness.
strings of luminous letters. It was very black, yet the man with the
It was an advertisement, a flexible strange mother-of-pearl complexion seemed
electric sign pulled behind a small dirigible. to have some slight ability to see in the
Watches snorted. The thing was a darkness, for he soon pulled in toward one
common sight over New York City. particular pier.
“What the hell?” he sniffed. This pier was roofed over, and it
“An idea that I have,” Ool said me- bulked large in the darkness. Across the
chanically. outer end, after the fashion of piers, a name
“Idea?” was lettered:
“Which may enable us to quickly con-
summate our plans,” Ool said. “We will make HIDALGO TRADING COMPANY
use of this Doc Savage.”
Watches wet his lips, shuddered. Most of the building was smoke-
“Don’t crack wise.” stained, old-looking, but there was a part, a
“You think I am joking?” Ool asked. higher addition to one side, which was obvi-
“Either that, or you’re crazy!” ously quite new. The end of this was closed
Ool turned away from the window. “I with enormous doors.
know a great deal of this Doc Savage. I have Ool pulled his rowboat close to the
studied him. I know his characteristics, and pier warehouse and made the painter fast to
the characteristics of the five men who aid a piling. For an instant, he stood looking up
him. I even know that each of those five men out of his flat, water-colored eyes at the
is a specialist in some line. One is a chemist, blackly looming hulk of the structure. Then
one an electrical engineer, one a lawyer, he grasped the nearest piling.
another a civil engineer and the fifth a ge- He did not look like a strong man, yet
ologist and archaeologist. I know what me- he shinned up the smooth timber with squir-
chanical equipment Doc Savage uses. I rel agility, and reaching the top of the piling,
know—” he continued his ascent up the warehouse
wall, employing a steel girder, a number of “Hurry up, you overdressed shyster!”
which formed the outer structure of the wall. “Monk ” grunted. Monk had a small, childlike
A moment later, he squirmed over the voice.
top of the hangar. Ool tried to move his right arm. Monk
He listened for a time. There was no put on pressure. A faint, strangely piteous
sound, except small water noises. Ool crept cry came from Ool’s lips and he subsided.
forward, making for a large ventilator. He Monk’s strength was fabulous.
rounded this. Then things happened. Monk had other abilities too, although
A squat, bulky form hurtled from be- a stranger would not have dreamed it after
hind the ventilator. Tremendous arms en- one look at his bullet of a head. There did
wrapped Ool in a grip that forced air from his not seem to be room for even an ample
lung with a sharp roar. The stocky attacker spoonful of brains above Monk’s eyebrow
wedged a head under Ool’s chin, and Ool’s line. Yet, as Lieutenant Colonel Andrew
stringy neck was bent until it creaked. Blodgett Mayfair, he was among the half
Ool tried desperately to bring his right dozen greatest living chemists.
hand into play, but it was pinned to his side. Monk was also a member of Doc Sav-
He lifted his feet in an attempt to overbal- age’s group of five aides.
ance his assailant. The apish attacker did Ool revived slightly and spoke, his
not upset. Ool’s mother-of-pearl face began voice weaker, but still retaining its mechani-
to take on a purplish hue. He was entirely cal quality.
helpless. “How did you discover me?” he asked.
Monk grinned. The grin had the effect
of making his incredibly homely face very
Chapter III pleasant to look at.
THE MAN WHO WAS NOT HUMAN “A bird can’t light on this building with-
out us knowing it,” he said. “Boy, you should
A FLASHLIGHT spiked a white beam see our alarm system.”
out of the darkness and another man came “I see,” Ool said. “I should have
from behind the ventilator. thought of photo-electric eyes and magnetic
“You do have your moments, eh, fields.”
Monk?” he asked. Ham, conducting his search leisurely,
“Frisk ‘im, Ham,” grunted the apish said, “The man seems to know something of
man who had seized Ool. “See if he’s got a electricity.”
gun.” “Will you hurry up, you fashion plate?”
The newcomer, “Ham,” placed his Monk requested.
flashlight on the roof, then stepped forward Ool lifted his left foot and stamped with
to search Ool. This put him in the flash glow. all of his might on Monk’s toes and instep.
He was lean, of about average height, and Monk bellowed—he liked to yell at the top of
attired in remarkably dapper fashion. He car- his voice when he was getting hurt. He re-
ried a slender black cane. leased Ool suddenly.
Ool stared at him. Ool, so unexpectedly released, stag-
“Brigadier General Theodore Marley gered. Monk swung a fist. Ool had no time to
Brooks,” he said emotionlessly. dodge. The fist hit him and he slammed
Ham did not look surprised. Courtroom down on the roof. Almost instantly, he sat
training had taught him that, for Ham was up, but did not try to get to his feet.
one of the most astute lawyers ever to be “Blazes!” Monk grunted. “He’s tough.
matriculated from Harvard. He was also by When I hit a guy like that, he generally
way of being the male fashion plate for New sleeps.”
York City. His other and major claim to dis-
tinction was that he was a member of Doc
Savage’s group of five remarkable aides. HAM studied Ool’s face. Ham had
Ham tucked the cane under an arm withdrawn a pace and tugged his black cane
and began searching Ool. apart near the handle, disclosing that it was
in reality a sword cane with a long, thin
blade.
“He is a strange one,” Ham said won- Ool said nothing, but his right hand
deringly. “Look at those eyes, and that continued its butterfly fluttering.
mouse-fur hair on his head. And the color of Ham watched the motion, frowned,
his skin! Say, he’s almost as funny-looking then pressed the point of his sword against
as you!” Ool’s ribs. The chalk-faced assassin quieted
Monk scowled at Ham. his hand and kept it motionless.
Ool chose that instant to lunge, and “We’ll take him to Doc,” Ham said.
his right hand drifted out with a moccasin
speed. Monk jumped. Only his agility, fabu-
lous for one of such bulk, saved him. IN the center of New York City, the
“Watch it!” Ham yelled. “He’s got skyscrapers jut up like silver pines, each
something in that right hand!” seemingly striving to overshadow the other;
“You’re telling me!” Monk circled war- but there is one building taller and finer than
ily. all the rest, an astounding mass of polished
Ool was up on all fours now. He scut- granite and stainless steel towering nearly a
tled backward, spider fashion. Ham, circling hundred stories into the sky, a structure that
swiftly, menaced the pale man with the tip of is possibly man’s proudest building triumph.
his sword cane. The entire eighty-sixth floor of this
Ool, staring at the cane, saw that the building was occupied by the man whose
tip was coated for some inches with a sticky- name was lettered in modest bronze on a
looking substance. door:
“Poison?” he asked. His voice was still
utterly flat. CLARK SAVAGE, JR.
Ham, startled by the calmness of the
question, started to say something, then re- Monk and Ham took their captive to
considered and was silent. Doc Savage’s headquarters by way of Doc’s
“Shut up!” he snapped. “Show us the private speed elevator, a lift especially de-
inside of that hand!” signed by Doc, one which swooped the
Ool hesitated. Then he turned the eighty-six stories in about the time it took an
hand over, and both Monk and Ham bent ordinary express elevator to rise half a
over to examine it. dozen floors. Almost invariably, a man, riding
There was nothing in Ool’s hand. in the speed elevator for the first time, was
“You search him,” Ham told Monk. “If forced to his knees by the shock of starting.
he gets funny again, I’ll tickle his ribs in a Monk and Ham watched Ool amusedly
way he won’t like.” when the elevator started. But Ool’s knees
While Ham threatened with the sword gave slightly, and that was all. At no time
cane, Monk went through Ool’s pockets. was he in danger of losing his balance.
“Nothing!” Monk said disgustedly. “No “I told you he was tough,” Monk
gun, no knife—wait a minute. What’s this?” grinned.
He pulled the strange goggles out of “And funny-looking, ” Ham reminded.
Ool’s pocket and held them up to get better “Funnier looking than you.”
light on them. Monk ceased grinning. “Listen, shy-
Ool stared blankly, but his right hand, ster—one of these days I’m gonna make you
held high above his head, started wavering put on a sword-swallowing act with that trick
like a butterfly’s feeble fluttering when it feels cane!”
the first warm rays of the morning sun on its The pair glared at each other the rest
wings. of the way up. A stranger, from their manner,
Monk pressed the goggles to his eyes. would have thought they were on the point of
“Can’t see through ‘em,” he growled, coming to blows, when, as a matter of truth,
then addressed Ool: “What are these they were the best of friends.
things?” They stepped out on the eighty-sixth
Ool did not answer. His right hand floor, crossed the corridor and passed into a
kept up its weird shifting. large room, plentifully furnished with huge,
Monk pocketed the goggles. comfortable chairs. A deep-piled Oriental rug
“What did you come here for?” he lay underfoot. Between the two great win-
asked Ool.
dows stood a solid-looking table inlaid with compare his size, he seemed to grow
ivory of exquisite workmanship. smaller in stature. That was because of the
A short-wave radio receiving set symmetry of his development; his corded
squatted inconspicuously at the back of the muscles meshed under his skin in a manner
table, and a voice was droning from the which made their tremendous size scarcely
loud-speaker as the men entered with their noticeable, except for the tendons on his
captive. It was a police broadcast. hands which were like cables.
“—all cars will be on the lookout for But the compelling thing about the
Dimiter Daikoff,” the radio droned. “Daikoff is bronze man was his eyes. Strange eyes,
a very large man, with black hair and dark they were, like pools of flake-gold, hypnoti-
eyes. Officers will use care, since Daikoff is cally compelling in their power, stirred con-
reported to be dangerous. Daikoff recently tinuously with a weird life.
escaped from a Chicago jail and is reported Doc Savage was quietly dressed. The
to have been seen in New York—” bronze of his hair was but little darker than
Monk raised his voice over the drone the bronze of his skin.
of the radio. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Doc!” he yelled. “We found a guy on The bronze man had a voice of re-
top of the waterfront plane hangar! Thought markable modulation, and his tone, while not
you’d want to talk to him! He must’ve been loud, carried to the corners of the room.
up to something!” Monk explained what had happened.
Doc Savage came through a door into “The photo-electric alarms on the roof
the room. gave the guy away,” he said.
Then he went on to tell of the capture,
of the weird way in which Ool moved his
hand—the hand in which they had found
nothing. He finished up by producing the
goggles with the black lenses as thick as
condensed milk cans.
The bronze man eyed the goggles
closely.
There came into existence an eerie
trilling sound. It welled up and pervaded the
room, tuneful yet tuneless, mellow and so
soft that it might have been the whispering
note of an evening wind seeping through
palm fronds, or the distant murmur of glacial
ice on its ponderous way to the sea.
Monk and Ham watched curiously.
They knew that sound. It was part of Doc
Savage, although they could not see his lips
move as he made it. The note was a small,
unconscious thing which he did in moments
of stress, or when surprised, or puzzled.
PERHAPS the reaction of Ool to the Doc Savage asked Ool, “What are
appearance of Doc Savage was the thing these?”
which best indicated what a remarkable Ool replied promptly, tonelessly.
physical specimen the bronze man pre- “Just a toy,” he said. “They are of no
sented. Ool, who had murdered a man that value, no importance.”
evening without showing the slightest ex- There was nothing in his voice to show
citement, stared and let his jaw down that he had killed Beery Hosmer earlier in
slightly; his water-colored eyes became quite the night because Beery had taken the
wide. strange goggles with the intention of selling
Doc Savage was a giant of bronze. As them to this same remarkable bronze man.
he came through the door, his stature was
tremendous, but when he was beyond the
door and there was nothing by which to
DOC SAVAGE watched Ool intently. bloods. It is the result of hardships more
“Why were you prowling over our wa- grueling than you would believe a man could
ter-front hangar?” he asked. endure, and live.”
Ool smiled. It was the smile of a man “Go on,” Doc said.
not accustomed to showing emotion in that Ool spoke monotonously. “I hesitate to
manner. The smile was slightly horrible. speak lest I be disbelieved, and yet I know
“I went to the hangar for the purpose you to be a man of such mature intellect as
of contacting you,” Ool said. to realize that there are strange things in the
“Why did you not come to me here?” world, things so strange as to be utterly dis-
the bronze man asked. credited by the conventional mind.”
“You are a busy man—I know your Ool paused again. After fully half a
reputation—I despaired of being granted an minute, he continued:
interview.” Ool spoke by spurts. “You have heard of the Lenderthorn
“The interview was an urgent matter?” Expedition, lost in the pack ice north of Can-
“Tremendously urgent.” ada? I, Gray Forestay, was the only member
“So you went prowling about the han- of the expedition to escape. In recent
gar, knowing it would be guarded, knowing months, as perhaps you have read in the
you would be captured and brought to me?” news, I headed a rescue expedition to
“Precisely.” search for the lost men. We found that air-
Monk blurted: “Bunk! This lug was up ships were utterly impractical in that region.
to something. ” We could not effect a landing upon the rough
Doc turned the curious goggles over ice. But where an airship has failed, a dirigi-
slowly in his cabled hands. Again came his ble would succeed.”
low trilling sound, more felt than heard, “So?”
flooding the room with its tremulous quality. “You have a dirigible. That is one rea-
Police broadcast continued to issue son why I have come to you. There is also
from the short-wave set, flooding the room another reason.”
with droning. “Calling all cars—calling all “And this other reason?” Doc queried.
cars—” “You control, so I understand, what is
Then the announcement concerning perhaps the most superior aggregation of
the Chicago criminal came through again: brains and brawn in the world. I need your
“—Dimiter Daikoff wanted for murder. help.”
A big man, walks with a limp; black hair; Monk squinted at Doc. “Is this dope
small, dark eyes; a scar that starts from the about a Lenderthorn Expedition straight
lobe of his right ear and slants across his stuff?”
neck—” “It is,” Doc nodded slowly. “It was in
Doc Savage’s compelling voice broke the newspapers, but not prominently so.
in upon the radio droning. Lenderthorn was not a famous man.”
“Who are you?” he questioned Ool. Ool spoke suddenly, dramatically:
“Gray Forestay is my name,” Ool said “The Lenderthorn Expedition was not
promptly. “In Mongolia my name, as nearly lost through natural causes, as was re-
as can be translated, was Lleigh Foor ported.”
Saath.” Ool stared with his flat, water-colored
Doc Savage’s features remained un- eyes while he let an interval of silence pass.
decipherable, but the flake-gold which “We encountered what I can only call
seemed always alive in his eyes, swirled a mysterious ‘things,’“ he went on. “These
bit faster. came in the night, and I know only that they
Monk muttered: “The yahoo is lying, were black, shapeless and utterly horrible,
Doc.” and that they carried off members of our ex-
Ool kept his flat -eyed stare centered pedition one at a time, until only I escaped.”
upon Doc. “I am not lying,” he said. “You are
judging from my appearance that I am not a
pure Mongol. You are correct. I am only part
Chinese.”
He paused. “My unnatural appearance
is not entirely the result of a mixture of
Chapter IV “Look out!” Doc called sharply. “Get

THE MOCCASIN DEATH back!”
Monk and Ham retreated, but in un-
OOL paused after making his unusual canny fashion Ool was within striking dis-
proclamation, and eyed Doc Savage and his tance of them. His weird right hand floated
two aides, as if endeavoring to learn how out. There was no dilatory butterfly flutter
they took it. about the motion this time.
Monk and Ham registered an admix- Straight at Ham, the hand drove. The
ture of doubt and surprise. Doc Savage’s hand was bent at the wrist, the bony fingers
regular bronze features portrayed no emo- extended.
tion at all. Then, suddenly, Ool was off his feet,
On the inlaid table, the radio droned falling to the floor.
on and on, the police announcer reciting de- Doc Savage had whipped out a foot to
scriptions of stolen cars, of lost persons, of kick hard against the side of Ool’s leg.
petty crimes and emergency calls. Ool should have been stunned by the
“—emergency call to all cars,” the shock as he struck the floor. But the white-
loud-speaker droned unexpectedly. “Pickup faced murderer bounced up immediately. His
order for a tall, slender man with very pale moccasinlike hand drifted out viciously.
skin. Man wanted for the murder of Beery “Monk—get clear!” Doc Savage’s
Hosmer, a man with a police record. Killer’s voice was a crack of authority.
most pronounced characteristic is his short, Monk hurled his simian bulk to one
very fine hair, which looks from a distance side. Ool’s hand went short. The hand jerked
somewhat like the fur on a mole. Man was back. It was like a snake’s head recoiling. It
wearing dark suit and dark hat and—” struck again, at Ham.
Monk, watching Ool intently, breathed, “Ham!” Doc Savage rapped. “Don’t
“Blazes!” in soft comprehension. let him touch you!”
Ool began to sidle toward the door. Ham, dropping to the floor, evaded the
Doc Savage ripped out a few words in hand. He rolled to one side, got his feet un-
a softly musical, but unintelligible, jargon—a der him, whipped upright.
language known only to himself and his Ool glared at them.
aides. It was the language of ancient Maya, “The goggles,” he said flatly. “Throw
the speech of a civilization which had sup- me the black goggles or I will kill you all!”
posedly vanished from the earth centuries Doc Savage spoke in Mayan. His
ago. Doc and his men used the tongue to hands went into his pocket, came out and
communicate orders. were clasped behind him. He took a single
Monk and Ham, reacting to the order step backward. After that, he stood still. A
in Mayan, rushed on Ool. Things happened surprising thing happened.
quickly. One moment, Ool was under their The long, skeletal frame of Ool went
finger tips. It seemed impossible that they down like a bag of bones collapsing. His flat
could miss seizing him. But the next instant, eyes blinked shut; the gaunt head flopped
Ool eluded them, his speed blinding, and forward on its stringy neck; the legs bent at
Monk and Ham found themselves clutching the knees, and he lay as still as if in death.
each other.
“You dumb fashion plate!” Monk
choked. DOC turned, walked over and hoisted
“Ape!” Ham retorted. a window. For a space of about forty sec-
Jerking around, Doc’s aides charged onds neither he nor his aides said anything,
Ool again. Carefully this time, with grim pur- but simply stood and regarded each other.
pose. Doc was barring the door. Monk went over and, with a foot,
“That guy is greased lightning,” Monk reached out exploringly and stirred a few fine
muttered. particles of glass on the floor where Doc
Ool made a snarling sound and ad- Savage had been standing when Ool went
vanced on them. His right hand was weaving down. There were crystal-glinting particles,
about in its peculiar weird fashion. such as might have been made by the shat-
tering of a very small electric light bulb.
Doc said, “All right.”
He, as well as Monk and Ham, “Aw, Doc—” Monk started a protest.
breathed deeply; it became apparent that “Get in there and shut the door, ” Doc
from the time Doc had uttered the words in repeated; and when his aides did not move
Mayan, they had all three been holding their fast enough, he lunged, using both mighty
breath. arms to shove them through into the next
As a matter of fact, Doc’s words had room.
been a warning to Monk and Ham that he He tossed Ool’s strange goggles in af-
was going to break a tiny glass anaesthetic ter them. Then he slammed the door behind
bomb on the floor. The anaesthetic was one them.
developed by Monk, disseminating almost
instantaneously into the air, and powerful
enough to produce unconsciousness at the INSIDE the other room, cut off from
first whiff. Doc, Ham and Monk reared to their feet and
The gas became ineffective after mix- tried the door. The force of their combined
ing with fresh air, but the effect upon one body-jolts shuddered, but did not open the
who had already breathed it would not wear chromium-ribbed door in its steel frame.
off for some time. “He’s locked us in here!” Monk bel-
“Well, that’s that,” Ham said. He ad- lowed. “Hey—Doc!”
justed his necktie and brushed his trousers He banged his gnarled fists against
which had collected dust when he rolled on the unyielding door.
the floor to elude Ool’s weird right hand. “He’s in there alone!” Ham shouted.
Monk pawed his own jaw. “The guy “That white-skinned, mouse-haired
sure wanted that black goggle doo-dad. He guy ain’t human!” Monk roared. “The anaes-
had a chance to get away, but he wouldn’t thetic gas never even fazed him!”
leave without ‘em.” From the outer room, Ool’s flat voice
Doc walked across and stood looking came clearly.
down at Ool’s prostrate form. Monk and Ham “One man already tonight I have killed
pressed close at his side. for these goggles,” he intoned. “Now I kill
Ham remarked, in a voice heavy with another.”
disbelief: “Yes, sir, he’s even uglier than you Ham and Monk quit pounding,
are, Monk. I don’t know how it’s possible, but numbed momentarily by a flesh-crawling
he is!” dread.
“You clothesrack!” Monk growled. Following Ool’s pronouncement, muf-
“You don’t know masculine beauty when you fled sounds came under the door. Feet pad-
see some. I exude virility, I do! I’m an exam- ded. A body thudded. A chair overturned.
ple of the dominant male.” Then there was a chilling sound, unnamable
As Doc leaned over Ool, that appar- a dry clacking more than anything else.
ently senseless individual became charged Ham clutched Monk by the arm. “That
with appalling vigor. Ool’s knees doubled sound— It’s that—that ghoul—laughing!”
under him and he sprang furiously to his “Yeah,” Monk said thickly. “Yeah.”
feet. At the same split-second his deadly The eerie clacking laugh faded away.
right hand moccasined out toward Doc. Feet pattered. The patterings grew quickly
It was something absolutely new to the fainter. The hall door slammed.
experience of Doc Savage and his aides. Ham and Monk commenced furious
Never had a man who had gone down under fist-batterings against their own door.
the spell of the anaesthetic bombs, risen so “Doc!” Their voices crashed together.
soon. “Doc! Are you there?”
A bronze flash, Doc backed to avoid The only sound now was the intermi-
the mysterious touch of Ool’s mother-of- nable police broadcast coming in over the
pearl fingers. He succeeded in hurtling clear, short-wave set. The announcer was repeat-
and in doing so, his corded arms, sweeping ing an earlier broadcast.
out, thrust Monk and Ham behind him to “—Dimiter Daikoff, murderer, escaped
temporary safety. from Chicago jail, believed to be in hiding in
“Get in the other room,” Doc ordered Manhattan. His description: A big man,
Monk and Ham, his flake-gold eyes remain- walks with a limp, a scar slanting downward
ing fixed on the crouching Ool.
across his neck from the lobe of his right The Negro yawned cavernously, said
ear—” nothing.
The radio voice crackled on and on, “Did you understand me?” Ool
while Monk and Ham endeavored to get out snapped.
of the room. “Cou’se I understan’,” the Negro
grinned. “What you want me to do about it—
put a fly in your beer?”
Chapter V Ool expressed quick anger. As though
THE MYSTERIOUS MURDERER propelled without volition, his right hand
started drifting about.
SIXTH AVENUE by day is a working The Negro laughed sleepily, said
man’s street. The children who scamper softly, “All right. Ah see yo’ knows de pass
there between the wheels of automobile traf- sign. Yo’ can go on up. Take dat door in de
fic, the men and women who swarm over its back. Go up de only steps yo’ll see.”
grimy sidewalks, give it a degree of friendly
warmth.
But late at night, denuded of its human A MINUTE later, facing Watches Bo-
adornments, the avenue lies stark and ugly. wen in the mobster’s top-floor hideout, Ool
Occasional rats haunt its sidewalk garbage said, “You had better give your watchdogs
cans. And another breed of rodent, more more explicit instructions concerning me.”
vicious, comes to life in curtain-drawn back “Ham-hock?” Watches laughed, and
rooms. his thick hand hovered near the gold watch
Ool was the only human figure in sight chain which sprawled across his vest. “He’s
on the dim street. A lean cat, dirty-furred, all right. Slicker than you’d think.”
claw-scarred and with most of one ear miss- A man hunched in a near-by chair, rat-
ing, leaped down to the sidewalk from a tled the pages of a racing form which draped
sour-smelling garbage can and slunk into across his lap. He was a mouse of a man,
shadows at Ool’s approach. small. He seemed intent on doping out a
The cat was hardly more sinister than possible track winner, when, in reality, his
Ool as the white-faced assassin moved ferret eyes never left Ool. Concealed by the
along through the night with his characteris- form sheet, his right hand gripped a flat
tic animal prowl, gaunt head hunched far automatic.
forward, spidery arms dangling. At an oilcloth-covered table on the op-
He slowed his pace as he came to a posite side of the room, three men killed time
spot where a sickly glow of light seeped over with cards. Occasionally, they flashed curi-
the sidewalk from the half curtained windows ous glances at Ool and Watches. These
of a barroom. Dingy yellow lettering on the men were all young, sleek, barber-shop
window glass proclaimed the place to be “Bill groomed. Each smoked, and there was a
Noonan’s Tavern.” Ool paused long enough hard calmness in their manner.
at the door to flash covert glances in both Watches jerked his head at Ool. “Let’s
directions, then entered, scuffed through talk private,” he said.
gray sawdust covering the floor and ap- The suave mobster moved to the far
proached the bar. corner of the room, Ool following closely.
A fat Negro, his head seemingly a ball Ool questioned blankly, “Are you not
perched on his multiplicity of chins, dozed on afraid he might miss me at this distance?”
a stool near the cash register. He opened “Who?”
one red-rimmed eye as Ool approached. “The little man in the chair. ”
“Are you Ham-hock Piney?” Ool ques- Watches’ bleak eyes slitted, and his
tioned. hand swerved instinctively back to his watch
The Negro betrayed no surprise at chain.
Ool’s appearance or voice. “You don’t miss much, do you?” he
“Dat’s right, boss,” he said. “Ham-hock grunted.
Piney, dat’s me.” “Not much,” Ool said. “You do not trust
“I want to see Watches Bowen,” Ool me?”
stated.
“It’s not that,” Watches said. “We were Watches put the timepieces back in
afraid a cop might tag you in. I don’t take his pockets and began to curse. He swore in
chances.” a low voice, but venomously and without
“Who is the man with the racing form repeating himself.
and the gun?” Ool asked. “What a sweet mess,” he finished.
“Honey Hamilton,” Watches said “Doc Savage has those goggles?”
proudly. “He can shoot fly specks off a hun- Ool began, “I have a plan—”
dred-watt bulb.” Somewhere in the room a buzzer
“That is an exaggeration?” whizzed twice, loudly and jarringly.
“A little, maybe.” Watches grinned. Watches stiffened. The three men
“What’ve you been up to?” playing cards pushed back from the table
“I have,” said Ool, “suffered a misfor- with such quick violence that the stacked
tune.” chips washed over the oilcloth and spilled on
“Didn’t I tell you not to monkey with the floor. Even mouselike “Honey” Hamilton
Doc Savage?” Watches unclipped a time- snapped from his tilted chair, forgetting to
piece and fumbled it. “Just how bad is the keep his gun concealed beneath the form
situation?” sheet.
Ool began to speak. His voice was like Ool, alone, showed no perturbation.
the intonation of a phonograph which pos- “What is it?” he asked.
sessed no qualities of tone whatever; his “That buzzer’s never been rung be-
words were so flat that at times they were fore,” Watches clipped. “It’s an emergency—
hardly understandable. He told of his going worked from a button behind the bar where
to the water-front warehouse-hanger, of his Ham-hock can reach it with his toe.”
capture, of exactly what had happened “Maybe, ” Ool ventured, “Ham-hock
thereafter. went to sleep and kicked it accidentally.”
“This Doc Savage locked his two men “Not a chance! That fat devil is never
in an inner room in his headquarters,” he sleepy, and not as harmless as he looks.”
finished. “The bronze man and I fought. For Then color faded out of Watches’ florid
a time, he evaded my right hand. He pur- face.
sued me down to the street. His speed is “What is the matter?” Ool asked. “You
almost unbelievable. Then I touched him and look sick.”
he staggered back and collapsed. I came “Listen,” Watches Bowen demanded
here.” hoarsely, “did you go dumb and leave Doc
Watches swallowed twice. “Doc Sav- Savage’s men trail you down here?”
age is dead?” “I did not. I was careful to come in a
“He is,” OoI said, emphatically. roundabout way.”
“You sure? You’d have to be good to
shake those men who work with Savage.”
WATCHES seemed to be thinking From the hall, behind the closed door,
deeply. His breathing was heavy. He pol- sounded the scrape of numerous feet. A sin-
ished the watches on both ends of the chain, gle fist pounded heavily on the door.
then compared their time with that shown by “Open up!” a voice bawled.
his two wrist watches, found one of the wrist Honey Hamilton had been stationed at
watches a few seconds off, and made a cor- a cleverly concealed loophole in the wall.
rection. The loophole looked out upon the hallway
“What was the idea of the song and and was of a size to permit insertion of a gun
dance about the Lenderthorn Expedition?” snout.
he asked. The mouselike little man cupped his
Ool shrugged. “It is part of my plan.” hand to his mouth and hissed back to
Watches put out a disgusted jaw. Watches, “It’s coppers!”
“Your plan! Say, don’t I rate on this? You go
ahead with a scheme that’s as wild as hell,
and you don’t give me a gander at it. I don’t “JOHN LAWS!” Watches mumbled in-
like it! Who’s running this, anyway?” credulously, then wheeled upon Ool. “This is
“You,” said Ool, “and I. ” your doing! They’ve got you tagged for the
Beery Hosmer job! You let them see you Watches yelled, “Well, are you gonna
come in here!” stand there and let them?”
Ool shrugged. “That is impossible.” Honey Hamilton spread a benign look
“Then some stool tipped them.” over his face as he shoved the submachine
Watches shook his head violently. “Nix. No gun snout through the loophole and his fin-
pigeons get a line on me. I’m careful about ger sought the trigger. But he never dis-
that. How in the devil did they know you’re charged bullets.
here?” There was an ear-splitting crack.
The pounding on the door continued. Steel splinters flew like shrapnel over the
The hollow, metallic quality of the sounds room. A screaming fragment crashed a bot-
was an indication that the door was in reality tle of whisky, went entirely through the table-
an armored panel. top and sank into the floor. Another ripped
“Let’s blow,” Honey Hamilton sug- Watches’ coat sleeve from wrist to elbow.
gested uneasily. Honey Hamilton tumbled backward off
Watches nodded, and leaped to a side his chair; blood began to well from gashes
door. This gave into a narrow hall which in on his face and shoulders. He lay prone,
turn led to a flight of steps angling down- pawing at his bloody face.
ward. They started to descend these steps. Watches squawled at him, “What hap-
“Shure, and you can come r-right pened?”
down,” said a strong Irish voice from below. “They cut loose at the loophole from
“But it’d be healthiest if you’d throw your outside!” Honey gulped. “A bullet must have
guns down first.” walked into the muzzle of my typewriter.
“Damn!” Watches gritted. “They’ve got Jammed in the barrel. Blew the breech all to
the back way blocked. Now we are in a jam!” hell!”
The men retreated to the room and He slumped down on the floor.
closed both doors. Honey Hamilton pried up Watches let him lie, and glared wildly at the
a cleverly hinged floor board and lifted out a loophole. Then he scuttled to one side. One
submachine gun. He posted himself at the of the policemen in the hall had thrust a gun
loophole. barrel through the loophole from the outside.
Watches ran over to the window and He could not fire and do any damage, be-
looked out. There was another building cause the angle was not right, but the loop-
some thirty feet distant. There were windows hole was effectively plugged.
in the wall. But no man could jump that dis- Watches pulled helplessly at his gold
tance. vest chain. “What a lulu we’re in,” he
Then Watches snapped back hastily. groaned.
He had glimpsed a uniformed policeman in They stood there, nerve-taut, anxious.
the court below. The officer was looking up, Outside in the hall, a soft roaring began and
balancing a heavy service revolver sugges- grew louder, and after a bit, the inside of the
tively in one hand. door started smoking. The police were using
“You birds had better get wise to your- a cutting torch on the armor plate panel.
selves,” the cop called. “We’ve got you sur- Watches groaned, “We ain’t got a
rounded!” chance to fight—”
Watches looked at Ool speculatively. “Hey, there!” called an entirely new
Ool seemed to read his mind. voice.
“You can turn me over to the police,”
he said slowly. “No doubt they will then hold
you on no charge more serious than that of FOR a moment, they could not locate
possessing weapons.” the voice; then they spun, and after that they
Watches shook his head. “I’m not that stared unbelievingly.
kind of a guy. Anyhow, think I wanta lose my Across the thirty-foot space between
cut in a few millions?” the two buildings, a window was open. A
Ool shrugged. “It seems there is noth- man leaned from that window. He was a
ing for us to do but fight.” dark-skinned man, very big, smooth-shaven,
Honey Hamilton said nervously, with very dark eyes, black hair and a scar
“They’re gonna use torches on that door, which started at the lobe of his right ear and
Watches.”
slanted down across his neck. His appear- AN hour or more later, Watches Bo-
ance was utterly villainous. wen was relaxing in another of his numerous
In his hands, the man held a coil of fire hangouts—a fifty-foot cabin cruiser tied up at
hose of the type often affixed to reels inside a City Island dock. A bottle of Watches’
office buildings. eighty-year-old Napoleon brandy contributed
Watches ran to the window, looked out substantially to his relaxing; by the time he
and down cautiously. He could see the po- had drained a third glass, he had recovered
liceman in the alley below. The bluecoat was much of his old suave manner.
sprawled out, motionless on the grimy con- Slumped near Watches, on an over-
crete. stuffed berth, the three sleek, hard, young
“Get a move on, you birds,” snapped gunmen were engaged with a fresh deck of
the big, scarred man across the alley. “Or cards.
are you interested?” In the same room, the big, dark
“Hell, yes!” Watches exploded. “Toss stranger who had come so mysteriously to
us the end of that hose!” their rescue was doing an excellent job of
The big man hurled the hose, missed bandaging Honey Hamilton’s wounds.
the first time, but on the second try, Watches Ool sat on another berth, as mo-
seized it, drew it inside and knotted it to a tionless as if he were dead, except for an
radiator. occasional twitch from his weird right hand.
Hand over hand, the men started com- From forward in another cabin came
ing across. They were not interrupted. The the soft drone of a short-wave radio loud-
policeman below in the alley did not stir. The speaker. It was giving police broadcasts.
large, dark man with the scar voiced only a “—repeating pickup order number one,
single word. naught, naught, seven, two,” said the radio.
“Hurry,” he said, and led the flight. “Dimiter Daikoff, who escaped two days ago
The swarthy fellow had a pronounced from a Chicago jail and is believed to be in
limp. New York. Daikoff is a large man with a limp.
Like rats deserting a sinking ship, Has dark skin and eyes, and a scar on his
Watches Bowen’s gang swung gingerly neck, on the right side. Reported to be dan-
across the hose span and through the win- gerous.”
dow. Honey Hamilton, the last to attempt the Watches Bowen, in the act of drinking
crossing, suddenly discovered that, due to more brandy, made an explosive sound and
his wounds, he was incapable of making it. shot a fine spray of the stuff through his
“Go on,” he growled. “I’ll keep the cops teeth. He choked and coughed.
entertained.” “So that’s who you are!” he gulped,
“Don’t be a fool!” snapped the big, eyeing the dark, bulky man who had saved
dark man. them from the police trap.
He swung out over the span, grunting The stranger looked up from his ban-
and straining with the effort, and got his legs daging.
around Honey Hamilton. Then began the “Right,” he said quietly.
return journey. Then the man stood up. He held his
It was a remarkable feat, for the dark head proudly. His black eyes flashed with an
man held Honey gripped in his legs, sus- almost fanatical glitter. The light from the
pended in the air above the alley. The hose overhead electric bulb glowed on the smooth
sagged and groaned as, hand over hand, skin covering his high cheek bones. Like
the dark man pitted his gigantic strength many of his race, this man’s cheek bones
against the swaying. But slowly, like a cable were so prominent that his cheeks looked
car over a quarry, he finally made the other hollow. They were thrown into shadow.
side with his wounded burden. “I am no murderer!” he proclaimed
Honey Hamilton, weak with relief now tragically. “I simply liquidate one who was
that the trip was over, made a wry grin. traitor to our party. I, Dimiter Daikoff, am no
“Thanks, guy. Remind me, if I should happen criminal. In my country, I would be honored,
to forget that sometime. ” receive a medal. But here, they hunt me like
animal.”
Watches shrugged tolerantly. “That’s The instant the gunmen were out of
all right by me, brother. One turn rates an- sight, Daikoff strode to the forecastle where
other. You can hang around if you want to.” Watches and Ool had held their whispered
“Thank you.” The big man bent again conversation, and from the ventilator re-
to his task of mercy. “I am no killer. I am a moved a small compact dictograph device
patriot.” which had been lowered there. Then he pro-
“One thing I’ d like to know, though,” ceeded to wind up a length of fine wire at-
Watches continued, “is how in the hell did tached to the dictograph, wire as fine as hair,
you happen to show up just when we and hence practically unnoticeable. It ran
needed you.” back to where Daikoff had been dishwashing
Dimiter Daikoff smiled gravely. “That is in the galley.
simple. I was hiding next door. When I heard Watches and Ool might have been
the shots, I thought it was myself that the worried, certainly they would have been sur-
police were after. I struck unconscious the prised, if they had known that their whis-
officer who was on guard in the alley. Then I pered plotting against Doc Savage’s men
saw it was you that they sought. I do not like had been overheard by the big man.
policemen. They do not know the difference Stowing the dictaphone device away
between a patriot who came here to the in his pocket, Dimiter Daikoff hurriedly left
United States and eliminated one who had the boat.
been a thieving government official of his
own country—the police do not know such a
patriot from a common murderer. I hate them Chapter VI
for it. So I help you.” THE SCARED EXPLORER
Watches stretched luxuriantly and
grinned. FIVE men stood in the early morning
“What a swell thing hate can be some- sun which streamed through the “health
times,” he said. glass” windows of Doc Savage’s eighty-sixth
floor headquarters. Two of the five were
Monk and Ham. And for once in their lives,
DURING the course of the next sev- the hairy chemist and the dapper lawyer
eral hours, the men loitered aboard the boat. were finding themselves aligned on the
Dimiter Daikoff fitted into the situation as same side of the argument.
naturally as a big house dog. He came and The men on the other side of the ar-
went about the boat, administering to Honey gument were Doc Savage’s other three
Hamilton and preparing drinks and sand- aides, familiarly known as “Johnny,” “Long
wiches. Tom” and “Renny.”
Eventually Watches and Ool went into “Holy cow!” Renny roared. “You mean
a huddle in the forecastle. to stand there and tell us Doc may be
Honey and the two younger gunmen dead?”
were sleeping and Dimiter Daikoff, the self- Renny, or Colonel John Renwick, as
claimed patriot, was washing dishes in the his engineering associates knew him, had a
galley, so there did not seem to be reason long, puritanical face. He was inches over
for undue secrecy, but Watches and Ool, six feet tall, and weighed in the neighbor-
nevertheless, kept their voices lowered. hood of two hundred and fifty pounds. His
Several times the name of Doc Sav- great frame gave the appearance of being
age, and the phrase “black goggles,” was composed mostly of bone. But the really re-
audible, however. It would have been appar- markable thing about him were his fists.
ent to any one interested that they were Each was composed of fully a quart of bone
carefully planning a move against Doc Sav- and gristle.
age’s men, believing Doc to be dead. “Locked in a room while Doc went up
When they finished their conference, against this guy with the funny white hand,
they awakened the others and departed. were you!” Renny boomed. “Why didn’t you
Honey Hamilton could walk. bust out?”
“You can stay here and play admiral He swung one of his huge fists as if by
until we get back,” Watches told Daikoff. way of demonstration. It was Renny’s boast
that no wooden door was made with a panel large one, and also a man who was one of
so strong that he could not shatter it with one the greatest living archaeologists and geolo-
blow of those fists. gists. Johnny was very tall, and thin as Old
Man Death himself, and he carried, on a rib-
bon, a monocle which was in actuality a
powerful magnifier.
The fifth of Doc Savage’s aides was a
thin man with a skin the color of a mush-
room. He looked about as unhealthy as a
man could look. As a matter of fact, he had
never been ill in his life, and could, if occa-
sion called for it, whip nine out of every ten
men he chanced to meet on a street.
Monk and Ham squirmed.

“Blast it, we did!” Monk groaned. “It
took time. When we got out, both Doc and
this guy were gone!”
A mildly scholastic voice put in, “Not
an empyrean collocation of circumstances.”
He was Major Thomas J. Roberts,

electrical wizard extraordinary. He was more
often known simply as “Long Tom,” a name
he had annexed long ago after a disastrous
experience in trying to make use of a rusted
“long tom” cannon of buccaneer vintage.
Long Tom shook his head. “This
strange white-skinned man you caught at the
warehouse-hanger, he claimed to be Gray
Forestay, a member of the Lenderthorn Ex-
ploration party?”
“Exactly,” Monk agreed.
“He gave no logical explanation of why
he was prowling around the hangar?” Long
Tom persisted.
“He said he knew he’d get caught and
The speaker was Johnny, or William brought to Doc, if you call that logical,” Monk
Harper Littlejohn, a man who never used a snorted.
small word when he had time to think of a
“That man,” Long Tom pointed out, from behind. Three of the men fell, sprawling
“answers the description of a fellow who in fantastic fashion.
murdered a gangster named Beery Hosmer “Keep them away!” the fleeing man
last night. He is supposed to have waved his pleaded. “They’ll kill me!”
right hand at Beery Hosmer, and the man Renny bellowed, and pitched his two
dropped dead.” hundred and fifty pounds of brawn down the
“He was great at waving that right steps.
hand,” Monk agreed gloomily. “I dunno just His fists flailed. One man went back
what kind of devilment was connected with under his pile-driver blows. His sheer hur-
the way he did it.” tling weight downed another. Renny bored
Suddenly, from somewhere outside on. A man on his back drove a vicious kick
the reception room door, came a burst of at the inside of Renny’s knee. Renny fell
scuffling. Then a long-drawn screech of ter- heavily, adding his own thrashing limbs to
ror reached them. There was something the writhing tangle already on the floor.
about the screech which put a strange feel- Doc’s other four aides, lunging after
ing around the roots of their hair. Renny, smacked blows in all directions.
“I’ll he superamalgamated!” exploded They did not, however, do all the battering.
big-worded Johnny. They took terrific jolts from fists. The foes
“Holy cow!” echoed Renny. knew how to fight.
Each had used his pet exclamation for But they had been taken at a disad-
moments of great excitement. vantage. They were forced back along the
corridor—all except one bent-eared man
who was rolling on the floor, locked in a go-
ALL lunged for the door. Ham, with his rilla-grip with Renny.
sword cane, was first outside, with big-fisted When the fighting reached the region
Renny and the others crowding him close. of the elevator shaft, one of the men
The corridor was empty. All elevator doors swerved, jammed a thumb against the but-
were closed, and the indicators showed that ton which brought Doc Savage’s speed ele-
no cages were on that floor. They ran for the vator up.
stairs. “Back of me, men!” he yelled. “Lemme
Halfway down, at the turn of the flight, take ‘em!”
they encountered a man who was scuttling The other men quit fighting, leaped
upward. back.
“Help!” the man screeched. “Help!” The man who had pressed the buzzer
The fleeing man had no hat. His thick wrenched a revolver out of his pocket and
gray hair flopped over his forehead. He had leveled down at his crowding enemies. His
a close-cropped gray mustache, and was fellows were out of the way, backed up
wearing smoked glasses. against the elevator door, so the gun could
To all appearances panic-stricken, he cover Doc’s aides.
flung himself upon Ham, who was still lead- “Stand back!” the gunman yelled, “or
ing. The man was larger than Ham, but he I’ll blast the pack of you!”
cringed close to the lawyer, like a whipped Doc’s aides stood tense and glaring.
dog. There was nothing they could do. Any move
“Who’s after you?” Renny swung his might draw bullets from that menacing re-
huge fists. volver. It would be hard for the gunman to
He did not have long to wait for an an- miss.
swer. Men charged around the corner of the A soft click announced the arrival of
stair landing, coming from below with such the elevator. The doors fanned open.
speed that they piled up the first few steps “Inside!” the man with the gun ordered
before they noticed Doc’s aides. his men.
The speed with which they stopped But the men did not get inside.
was ludicrous. Evidently they had expected
to find one fear-crazed man. Now they were
confronted by five men, not at all scared. A BRONZE cyclone seemed to boil
Wheeling back without warning, those out of the elevator. The man nearest the
in front collided with those who pushed close door was engulfed. Yanked shoulder-high,
he was hurled shrieking, upon his compan- shots was just a stenographer popping her
ions. He crashed into the gun wielder, chewing gum.”
knocked him down. Ham flourished his sword cane and
The bronze cyclone moved on. There glared at Monk.
was blurred motion. Men went down like
shingles wind-whipped from a barn.
Doc Savage, who had been riding the THE bronze man and his four aides
elevator up, waded through them with his filed into the eighty-sixth floor headquarters.
cable-corded fists. They looked around.
Sprawled on the floor, the gun-toter Carefully calculated training had ren-
jerked up his revolver an instant before the dered Doc Savage capable of concealing all
bronze man crashed through to reach him. emotion. He showed no emotion now. That
The gun belched thunder. The slug creased was not true of the others. They showed a
an ugly red furrow along Doc’s muscle- vast surprise.
rippled neck, slammed on to hiss over “Well, I’ll be superamalgamated!”
Monk’s rusty nubbin of a head and spanged Johnny gasped.
into the corridor wall. “Where is your stranger?” Doc ques-
Doc froze in his tracks. tioned.
“All right,” he said quietly. “Don’t shoot Monk blinked small eyes. “He was
again. You win.” here!”
Doc’s self-possessed manner seemed “He must be here!” Johnny put in.
to have a miraculously quieting effect on the The only time Johnny used little words
gunman. He held his fire and threw an order was when he was excited.
to his men. Doc strode across the deep-piled Ori-
“In the elevator—quickly!” ental rug and threw open the door to the ad-
He saw them all inside while he held joining room. It was spacious, lined from
Doc and his five aides off with the gun. With floor to ceiling with crammed bookshelves. It
a last menacing flourish of the weapon, he was Doc Savage’s scientific library, a collec-
leaped inside himself. The door slid shut. tion of tomes almost without equal.
The elevator sucked, swishing, downward. Beyond was another room, larger, a
Monk leaped to ring the buzzer for one room of fantastically shaped glass flasks and
of the regular elevators. beakers, banked test tubes, brightly colored
“We’ll ride this down, ” he roared. chemicals in bottles. Massive electric fur-
Doc waved him away. “Let them go, naces, testing machines, and chemical ap-
Monk.” paratus crowded the floor space. It was the
Doc’s aides stared, completely mysti- bronze man’s workshop-laboratory.
fied. It had baffled them enough when Doc Doc and his men entered quietly. Their
quit fighting, and now for him to calmly allow feet on the acid-resisting composition floor
the assailants to get away was— gave off no sound. This fact enabled them to
Renny cracked his huge fists together. make a discovery.
“Holy cow!” he boomed. “What’s the Beside an opened glass case, his
idea? Where you been, Doc? We thought broad back toward them, stood the man who
you were dead.” had fled from the thugs. He was bent over,
The bronze man answered with a examining something.
question. “What started this?” “Find something interesting?” Doc
“A fellow let out a bellow and came questioned, in a quiet tone.
charging up the steps,” Monk explained. The man whirled so quickly that a
“Where is he now?” shock of his gray hair cascaded down over
“Hiding in your office, Doc,” Long Tom the smoked glasses which he wore. His left
volunteered. hand went behind him.
“We will talk to him,” Doc said. “Ham, Doc Savage strode forward. He did
you stay behind here and tell a straight- not seem to walk with undue speed, yet so
sounding story to any office workers who perfectly did his huge muscles coördinate
might investigate the shots.” that he reached the man’s side with startling
“That shyster,” Monk grunted, “can talk suddenness. The gray-haired man was
fast enough to make any one believe them
heavily built, but Doc brushed him aside with “Right,” Doc said. He replaced the
one movement of his hand. black goggles on the shelf and closed the
The stranger was holding at his back glass door.
the goggles which Ham and Monk had taken The stranger cast one brief glance at
from Ool, the skeleton-thin prowler on th e the goggles. His thick hand waved out to-
hangar roof the night before. ward them.
Doc held the goggles loosely. “If they’re so valuable,” he said, “I
“Were you interested in these?” he should think you’d put them in a safe place.”
asked. Doc shrugged. “They do not look valu-
“Yes—no!” the man stammered. able. Who would want them? They are safe
“You will notice that they are unusual,” here— Come on.”
Doc went on. “The lenses are fully two Through the impressive laboratory,
inches in thickness, and black—so black that through the library with its smell of paper,
no light penetrates them.” Doc led the way.
“I—I picked them up by mistake,” the The stranger settled back in a com-
man said, a little hoarsely. “My own smoked fortable chair in the outer office.
glasses fell off. I don’t see well without them.
The light hurts my eyes—snow blindness. I
picked these of yours up by mistake. For a “YOU may have heard of me,” he sug-
minute I thought they were mine.” gested. “I am an explorer, Gray Forestay—”
Doc turned the black-lensed goggles “Gray Forestay!” Long Tom ejaculated.
over in his great sensitive hand. “Now don’t tell us,” Monk cut in sar-
“This flexible material in which the castically, “that you are the sole survivor of
lenses are imbedded—can you identify it?” an attack by black things!”
he asked the stranger. The gray-haired stranger stared
“I don’t know anything about them,” blankly.
the man declared. “I picked them up by mis- “Now how did you know that?” he ex-
take—” ploded.
“The material seems to be fish skin,” Now that the man had control of him-
Doc said. “It somewhat resembles the skin of self, his voice was no longer hoarse, hut
a species of deep-sea fish with a habitat in softly resonant, smooth.
the Arctic Ocean.” Doc explained. “Last night a man
“I’m not interested in the goggles,” the came here who represented himself as Gray
man reiterated earnestly. “I’m only interested Forestay, only survi ving member of the Len-
in my life. I came here to get away from men derthorn Expedition. He stated that his party,
who would have killed me.” on the pack ice north of Canada, had been
He peered intently through his own set upon by weird shapeless things—black
smoked glasses at the faces of Doc’s men. things.”
“Are they gone now—those men in the hall? “But I am Gray Forestay!” the other
Are they gone?” wailed. “I accompanied the Lenderthorn Ex-
“They decamped,” Renny boomed pedition! And that is precisely what hap-
sourly. pened!”
“Your perambulations are imperspicu- “Black things and all?” Monk de-
ous,” said big-worded Johnny. manded skeptically.
“He means,” said Monk, who could A shudder coursed over the man’s
seldom resist interpreting Johnny’s verbiage, sturdy bulk. “The mysterious black assail-
“that we want to know what you were snoop- ants, I assure you, gentlemen, are very real
ing around in here for?” and no joking matter.”
“Please don’t mistake my intentions, “You saw them yourself?” Monk de-
gentlemen,” the man said earnestly. He manded.
steadied his nervous gaze on Doc. “I con- “I saw them.” The man gripped the
fess I was terror-stricken. When I ran in arms of his chair. His tone was rather des-
here, my only idea was to get as far as pos- perately defiant.
sible from those thugs. When they attacked “What did they look like?”
me, I was on my way to see Doc Savage. The man seemed to be searching for
You are Doc Savage?” words. He spoke finally. “They were—
shapeless, black, like ghosts. There is no to kill me,” the man said slowly. “Not then, at
other way to say it. There is nothing to com- any rate. They had chances to kill me. But
pare them with. They are not real. And yet they seemed to be trying to take me alive.”
they are real. I saw them. They came from “A kidnaping?”
nowhere.” “So it would appear.”
“From nowhere?” Monk scoffed. Doc Savage fixed his gaze upon the
“They just appeared. They stayed only man. “And you came to see me, Mr. Fore-
for a moment. Then they disappeared. stay—why?”
Maybe I went out of my head. I don’t know. “To get your aid in a search for my
The first thing I realized was my comrades comrades of the vanished Lenderthorn Ex-
were gone. All of them gone. And no pedition,” the man said. “To solve the mys-
trace—” tery of the black assailants in the Arctic,
The man reached up to clutch fiercely whatever they were. With your dirigible, it
at his thick mop of gray hair. His pudgy fin- would be possible to land on the ice pack
gers brushed over his gray mustache. and make an extended search. ”
“I am not old—only thirty-six. I got like “You know I have a dirigible?” Doc
this all in a single day—in a single hour!” asked.
A tense silence followed the impas- “It was in the newspapers,” the other
sioned account. Even Monk was impressed. replied. “It is a new and quite remarkable
The man reached in his inside coat ship, only recently delivered to you.”
pocket. There was a crinkling sound as he Doc was silent a moment. “You think
drew out a sheaf of papers. He got up, your fellows on the expedition still live?”
walked across and handed the papers to “I am not sure,” the other said soberly.
Doc Savage. “But there is a chance. Something happened
“Here are some letters—documents,” to them. I do not know what. A search
he said. “They establish my identity.” should be made. I owe them that.”
The bronze man examined the papers. “I see, ” Doc said slowly.
His expression remained enigmatic. The gray -haired man became very
But his decision was apparent when he earnest.
looked up and said: “I am only doing what any other man
“Forestay, do you know who it was would do,” he said levelly. “If such a thing as
that came here last night representing him- I have described happened to your own
self to be you?” comrades, you would leave nothing undone
The man shook his head. “I haven’t an to find out what occurred, and to help them,
idea in the world who it could have been.” if possible. Is that not true?”
“Who were your attackers in the hall- “It is,” Doc admitted.
way?” “Will you help me?” the other asked
The man turned up the palms of his bluntly.
hands in an instinctive gesture of helpless- “We will help you,” Doc said just as
ness. “I haven’t an idea in the world about promptly.
that either. The attack came as a complete The man rushed across to seize Doc
surprise. ” Savage’s hand.
“Somebody, obviously, who sought to “Thank you!” he exploded fervently.
keep you from seeing me.” “Thank you!”
“Obviously. But who, I do not know. He wrung the bronze man’s hand.
They attacked me first in the lobby of the “My men and I—the six of us,” Doc
building. I got away and ducked into an ele- stated, “are having lunch this morning at
vator. They took another elevator. I got out eleven o’clock in the Cafe Oriental down-
two flights below this floor, thinking to elude stairs. We would be glad to have you join us.
them. They got out after me. I finally es- We can go over the details.”
caped them again when your men came to The man bowed respectfully. “I appre-
my rescue.” ciate the honor. I regret I cannot be there.
Doc asked, “You can add nothing Later—”
more that might be of help?” “If you change your mind,” Doc said,
“Nothing—except, now that I have col- “you’ll find us at a table near the door.”
lected my wits, I do not believe they meant
After the man had gone Monk blurted, whose chunk of a head seemed perched
“Hey, Doc, what’s the idea? You know I don’t atop his numerous chins.
like chop-suey?” The sedan driver said, “O. K.?”
“I doubt that we will do much eating,” Ham-hock Piney muttered softly: “Dat
Doc told him Doc Savage and all five o’ his outfit must be
in de eatin’ house. Swell-elegant, Ah calls it.”
Ham-hock got out. Three other men
WATCHES BOWEN and his men had piled out of the rear. The driver wheeled
returned to the cruiser moored at a City Is - back into the traffic stream. The overdressed
land wharf. young man who had stood in front of the
They went into a huddle. Watches in- restaurant joined them as they walked
cluded them all—Ool, Honey Hamilton, the briskly along the pavement and turned into
three sleek, hard young men, the obese Ne- the impressive skyscraper of gleaming metal
gro “Ham-hock” Piney, and several new- and granite, which towered nearly a hundred
comers, members of the organization. stories into the air, and which housed Doc
The tragic-faced dark giant, Dimiter Savage’s headquarters.
Daikoff, was back aboard. They entered the express elevator.
Watches, when he came in, greeted “Eighty-six,” Ham-hock said.
Daikoff with loud good humor, an indication “Doc Savage’s floor?” the elevator op-
that things had gone well. erator queried by way of verification.
“You’re good luck for me, my patriotic “Dat’s right.”
friend, ” Watches said, and gave Daikoff a At the eighty-sixth floor stop, one of
friendly slap on the back. the men shoved an automatic in the opera-
Daikoff’s tragic black eyes rolled their tor’s ribs and said, “We stay here and wait,
gratefulness for this comradely considera- you and me, with the elevator.”
tion; in the manner of a dog delightedly Ham-hock led the other men across
fetching its master’s slippers, he eased the corridor. They stopped in front of the
swiftly around the place, repeatedly filling door to Doc Savage’s office. There was a
glasses for everybody from Watches’ supply note pinched in the door. It read:
of Napoleon brandy.
This conference was not quite so se- “Lunching downstairs in the Cafe Orien-
cretive as that held earlier in the night. tal.”
Snatches of conversation had to deal with Doc Savage
“Doc Savage”—”black goggles”—
”laboratory”—”glass case.” Doc’s visitors stared at each other.
Dimiter Daikoff, easing around unob- Ham-hock shrugged ponderously.
trusively, filling glasses, emptying ash trays, “Come on.”
heard much. They opened the door and pushed in-
side. Ham-hock led the way over the deep
carpet to the library door. He pushed ex-
Chapter VII perimentally on the chrome-steel panels.
BLUE LIGHTNING “Here’s where trouble starts,” he
grunted. “Ease that soup and soap out your
TWO hours following the boat confer- pocket, Squirrel, and we’ll get busy.”
ence, a hard-lipped, ferret-eyed young man “Squirrel” Dorgan—so-called because
stood on a busy New York street corner in of his long, pointed frontal teeth—took a
front of the Cafe Oriental. He casually phial of nitroglycerine and a piece of yellow
stretched his arms and allowed the five fin- laundry soap out of his pocket. He went to
gers of one hand to stand out, widespread. work expertly preparing to blow the door.
The other hand he kept closed, except for a Just before he was ready to pour the
single finger. It was a cautious signal. nitroglycerine, he tried the doorknob with
A black sedan which was rolling along more force.
through the traffic, angled to the curb. The The door swung open.
man next the driver was a husky Negro, Squirrel stared stupidly. One of the
others cursed softly. Ham-hock thoughtfully
massaged his many chins.
“Hell! Looks like a plant!” Squirrel Dor- “There’s the goggles! This ain’t gonna be
gan breathed. tough after all!”
“Somethin’ fishy about it,” another They stopped in front of the case.
agreed. “This Doc Savage ain’t sap enough Ham-hock, with a gloating in his eyes, sent a
to go way and leave a setup like this open to sepia paw toward the goggles which lay un-
the public.” protected on a glass shelf.
His hand passed through the goggles.
Through them, as though they were air. His
SQUIRREL DORGAN peered inside clawing finger nails scraped the glass of the
the library. The utter silence of the place, the shelf.
thousands of solidly shelved books, seemed Ham-hock jerked his hand back as if it
to oppress him. His pointed teeth nipped his had touched flame. His hand had not been
slack lips. able to grasp the goggles, yet he could see
“I’m for blowin’,” he said nervously. them clearly, still lying on the shelf. An un-
Ham-hock growled. “We come heah to easy rumbling sounded from deep within his
get dem black goggles, an’ we gwine get throat. His chins shook as he tried to swal-
‘em. Come on.” low.
He heaved his fat bulk through the “What in hell’s the matter?” one of the
doorway. Across the ominously silent library hard-eyed young men asked, in a voice sud-
they trailed, moving warily, guns out, fingers denly gone shaky.
close to triggers. Ham-hock himself turned “How de hell does Ah know!” Ham-
the knob of the door which led on into the hock gulped. His hand snatched out again
laboratory. This panel opened as readily as toward the black goggles so plainly visible
the others. on the shelf.
The Negro stared inside. The array of As before, he could not clutch them.
fantastically shaped glass tubes and retorts, He could not even feel them. His fingers
the chemical and scientific devices, invested seemed to pass through them as easily as
the place with an air more sinister than that they would pass through thin air. His nails
of the library. scraped, grating, on the glass of the shelf.
“How Ah figures it,” Ham-hock mut- Ham-hock’s whitish eyes rolled. His
tered, as though to convince himself by the breath came faster. Sweat oozed from the
sound of his own words, “is dat dis Doc Sav- creases of his many chins.
age, bein’ a big shot, can’t imagine anybody “What the hell, Ham-hock?” Squirrel
am gwine come triflin’ ‘round. Dat’s why he Dorgan gritted. “Have you got butter fin-
don’t bothah ‘bout lockin’ no doahs.” gers?”
One of the hard-faced young men Squirrel shoved forward and snatched
blinked furtive eyes. “Well, let’s get this thing out his own hand for the goggles. He had no
over.” more success than had Ham-hock. His hand
“Yeah,” another rasped. “The things seemed to pass through the goggles as
I’ve heard about this guy, Savage!” though they were of no substance. His finger
Squirrel Dorgan’s teeth chattered. nails scraped futilely on the glass shelf. His
“Brother, what I could do with a bottle of the face blanched. His rodent teeth started chat-
chief’s brandy!” tering.
“You-all shut up,” Ham-hock grunted. “They’re there,” he grated. “But they
“Come on.” ain’t there! Hell! I’ve got enough of this
Through the doorway he eased his fat place.”
frame. The others followed, single file. Down He wheeled to start for the door. Curs-
the long aisle they trailed, between ceiling- ing, clutching their guns tightly, the others
high scientific equipment which mushroomed turned also. They stopped as suddenly as
weirdly from the floor, and which seemed to they had turned, then cringed back in slack-
exude a ghostly aura of unreality. lipped terror.
“Right ahead theah,” Ham-hock whis-
pered, and indicated by pointing his gun
muzzle at a tall glass case. DIRECTLY in front of them, beside the
“Look!” Squirrel Dorgan gulped when door and barring their path to it, a weird blue
they had approached a few steps closer. flame, pencil-thin, had leaped from a shiny
plate embedded in one wall, across the door None of the captives answered. They
opening to another plate. were trying hard to look ugly.
The flame remained suspended, a “You can imagine the effect,” Doc said
lance of crackling, hissing blue. It rippled up dryly, “if you were to be tied to a chair which
and down. Other blue lances zigzagged like happened to stand between those door
chain lightning until there was a whole pat- plates. That high-frequency current would do
tern of blue flame leaping and rattling, bar- some remarkable things to you.”
ring an exit from the door. Squirrel Dorgan’s pointed teeth had
“We all goin’ be electrocuted!” Ham- sunk into his lip, drawing a little scarlet. But
hock bawled fearfully. he remained silent with the others.
He recoiled, swerved, started to run in Monk, a great grin on his simian fea-
the opposite direction. The others, shaking tures, suggested, “They all gotta be electro-
off the paralysis which held them, turned cuted anyway, judging by their looks.
with him—only to stop again, so fear-struck Whatcha say we save the State some
that one of them dropped his gun. money? We’ve got an electric furnace over
Grimly barring their way down the nar- there big enough to cremate their bodies,
row aisle in that direction, stood Doc Savage and we can scatter the ashes out of a win-
and his five men. dow. ”
They held strange-looking weapons Monk looked utterly earnest as he
which, in appearance, resembled overgrown made this callous suggestion; no one,
automatics. watching him, would have dreamed but that
Ham-hock was the first to recover his he meant it, unless they had known Monk, in
wits. which case they would have recognized the
“Don’t shoot!” he croaked, raising his bluff.
voice to make it sound above the crackling The captives took it in various fash-
roar of the blue lightning which continued to ions. Ham-hock Piney remained rigidly si-
feed out of the machine behind them. In to- lent, too scared to even tremble as lustily as
ken of submission, he allowed his gun to sag he would have liked. The matter of the gog-
until it pointed at the floor. gles which he had reached for repeatedly
One of the hard young men at Ham- had upset his superstitious soul, and the
hock’s elbow went haywire and tried to level display of high-frequency electricity had fin-
his automatic. ished the demoralization.
Doc Savage’s finger tightened on the Doc gestured at Squirrel Dorgan. “Put
trigger of his weapon. The gun emitted a him in a chair in the door, Monk.”
single ear-splitting hoot. It was a machine Squirrel Dorgan was not without
pistol with a tremendously fast rate of fire. nerve. He bit holes in his lips with his long
The hard young man’s automatic teeth as they seized him and tied him in a
dropped from his hand. He pitched forward chair, but he did not talk. Monk positioned
and lay huddled on the floor. the chair in the door.
“Don’ shoot no moah!” Ham-hock “Wanta talk?” the homely chemist de-
pleaded. manded.
“Take their guns, Monk,” Doc directed. “Go to hell!” Dorgan gritted.
Monk went forward and relieved the “After you, my friend,” Monk said, his
prisoners of weapons. small voice utterly unconcerned. He reached
“Long Tom, turn off the high-frequency up and turned on the current.
current,” Doc directed. There was a terrific burst of blue
The thin electrical wizard pressed a flame, a sheeting, blinding mass of it—
button on a near wall board. The blue elec- ahead of Squirrel Dorgan. It did not quite
trical display subsided. touch him. But it ripped horribly in front of his
face.
“Just a slight error,” Monk said cheer-
“NOW,” Doc said, “talk is in order.” fully. “I’ll slide the chair up a little.”
His flake-gold eyes bored into the He moved the chair, stood back, stud-
faces of the prisoners. ied its position, then moved it again. Then he
“The first question,” he said slowly. leered at the sword-cane-carrying Ham.
“Why are you here?”
“I’ll bet you five bucks that his hair hangar—the bird who claimed to be Gray
bursts into flame when the sparks touch Forestay, survivor of that Lenderthorn Arctic
him,” he offered. Expedition.”
“Nothing doing,” Ham refused. “I know Doc Savage asked Squirrel Dorgan,
how that current works.” “Where did this Ool come from?”
Monk shrugged and ambled for the “He showed up one day with Watches
switch. Bowen. That’s all I know.”
Squirrel Dorgan broke down. “Is he the one who brought the news
“Whatcha wanna know?” he of the black—things?”
screamed. “I guess so,” Dorgan mumbled. “They
“Shut up, you yellow fool!” one of the didn’t tell us much.”
hard young men grated. “Is Watches Bowen planning a trip
Dorgan snarled at him: “If you think with Ool to the Arctic?”
this bronze guy is kidding, you’re nuts! ’Ive Dorgan squirmed. “Yeah.”
heard of guys who went up against him and “Where?” Doc demanded. “Name the
were never heard from again.” exact spot.”
Ham-hock Piney bawled out, “I tell “Can’t!” Dorgan shook his head.
you-all, dis place am got a hoodoo. Ah could “Watches don’t talk to us, I tell you.”
see dem goggles, but dey wasn’t dar!” “How soon is he leaving?”
“Who sent you here?” Doc asked “Just as soon as—” He did not finish.
Squirrel Dorgan. “Spill it, guy!” Monk rumbled.
“Watches Bowen,” Squirrel snarled. “As soon as he—he makes arrange-
“What did he want?” ments about using your dirigible,” Squirrel
“The goggles,” Dorgan mumbled. wailed fearfully. “And he’ll croak me for
“Why?” spillin’ that!”
Dorgan blew scarlet off his lips. “I don’t Doc Savage said dryly, “He intends to
know.” arrange, I presume, in the same raggedly
“That high-frequency current,” Monk individualistic manner in which he went
suggested. about securing the goggles.”
“All I know,” Squirrel said shrilly, “is Squirrel ran the tip of his tongue along
that the black goggles have something to do his sharp teeth. “I—I wouldn’t know about
with black things in the Arctic. That sounds that.”
goofy, but it’s all I know.” “Think carefully and do not lie,” Doc
“What are the black things?” the said. “Who was the second Gray Forestay?”
bronze man queried. Squirrel fidgeted, but did not answer.
“I don’t know,” Dorgan insisted. “I “You know who he was?” Doc per-
heard Watches and—and Ool mention them. sisted.
They’re supposed to be somewhere in the Squirrel was silent.
Arctic. That’s all I know. That’s all any of us The bronze man leaned forward and
know. Watches and Ool didn’t spill their his eyes, gold pools, seemed alive, pos-
plans to us.” sessed of a weird power.
“Who is this Ool?” Doc questioned. “Who was the second Gray Forestay?”
Squirrel’s teeth started chattering. “He he asked.
ain’t quite human.” Squirrel Dorgan suddenly gave in.
“What do you mean?” “Watches Bowen himself!” he wailed.
“He can kill you without even touching Monk started and exploded, “Blazes!”
you! I ain’t makin’ this up. It’s the truth!” Ham flourished his sword cane.
The bronze man frowned. “This Ool is “We want a description of that
very tall and very thin and he has a skin Watches Bowen!” he snapped. “Was he
which somewhat resembles mother-of-pearl. wearing a disguise when he played the part
Is that right?” of Forestay?”
“That’s the guy,” Dorgan agreed. “He grayed his hair and put on a pair
of smoked spectacles and a trick mustache,”
Dorgan mumbled.
MONK grunted loudly in comprehen-
sion. “That’s the egg we caught on top of the
Doc Savage had shown no perceptible Ham-hock Piney, who had been
surprise at the revelation. His bronze fea- standing in stupefied silence, spun suddenly
tures seemed incapable of showing emotion. and lunged to get past the plates from which
“What was Watches Bowen’s purpose the sparks had jumped. The other criminals,
in pretending to be a man named Forestay?” seizing that bare chance, and moved more
he asked. by animal instinct than anything else, leaped
“Ool tried it first,” Dorgan muttered. after him.
“Then Watches gave it a whirl. They wanted “They’re getting away!” Renny yelled.
to trick you into taking them north in that air- Ham-hock and the others were charg-
ship of yours.” ing wildly across the laboratory. They were
“But the attack here in the corridor?” in such a mental state that only physical vi o-
Ham put in. “Was that genuine? I mean, lence sufficient to incapacitate would stop
when the men attacked this Watches Bowen them.
while he was pretending to be Forestay?” Doc Savage, strangely enough, was
“A play put on by some of Watches’ making no move to halt the exodus.
boys to make it look good,” Dorgan said. As the frenziedly fleeting men lurched
Doc Savage said, “I am to gather that through the doorway into the library, Ham
you men do not know more than you have clipped: “We can go down on the speed lift.
told me, because your chief failed to take Beat them to the bottom!”
you into his confidence?” “Let them go,” Doc Savage said.
“That’s it,” Dorgan gasped. That stunned Monk. His large mouth
At this point, big, fat Ham-hock Piney hung open.
spoke up. He had been staring at the case Big-worded Johnny was the first to find
which held the goggles. speech. The lack of big words indicated how
“Dem black specs,” he mumbled, eyes surprised he was.
rolling. “Why couldn’t I pick ‘em up? Dat’s “You let them escape!” he murmured.
what Ah wants to know. ” “But why?”
Doc did not answer. “Yeah,” Monk gulped. “Explain that.”
Monk snorted mirthfully. A series of Doc Savage said, “It is a rather long
mirrors had been employed to cast a lifelike story and, unfortunately, there is not time for
reflection of the goggles—a trick magicians it right now.”
sometimes use to make an article seem
where it is not.
But Ham-hock Piney remained in the Chapter VIII
dark about the phenomena which had so DEATH IN A TELEPHONE
baffled him.
AFTER scuttling breathlessly out of
the skyscraper which housed Doc Savage’s
THE victim of the machine-pistol blast headquarters, Ham-hock Piney, Squirrel
suddenly got to his feet. The slugs which the Dorgan and the others walked more slowly
weapon discharged were so-called “mercy” down the street. They would have preferred
bullets, pellets which were merely composi- to run, but that would have attracted atten-
tion shells filled with a chemical concoction tion.
which produced almost instant unconscious- Within a block, they sighted their se-
ness. The period of insensibility thus induced dan. It was circling the block to pick them up.
would last only a short time. The driver pulled into the curb near the cor-
“What are we gonna do with these ner and waited for them.
birds?” Monk asked. Watches Bowen and Ool were now in
“The usual thing,” Doc said. the machine.
That statement, to Monk, was expla- Ham-hock Piney eyed Squirrel Dor-
nation sufficient; for it concerned the strange gan.
institution which Doc maintained in upstate “Ah sho’ hates to think what de boss
New York. am gonna do when he finds out what yo’
Grinning widely, Monk went forward to done tell dat Doc Savage,” he muttered.
take his victims in charge. Squirrel Dorgan stopped.
It is not the creed of Doc Savage and his five men to kill. Rather, they look upon criminals as
people diseased and sick mentally—and on this theory plan their cure. Against crooks Doc Savage
employs the use of finger tip hypodermic needles, attached to small caps on the ends of his fingers.
A slight scratch—and the crook is unconscious.
Then, rather than turn him over to the law, Doc Savage sends the individual to an institution he
maintains in upstate New York. There, the lawbreakers are subjected to a delicate brain operation,
which eliminates all knowledge of their past lives. On recovery, the criminals are given a course of
training which converts them into upright citizens, with a useful trade for gaining a livelihood.
“Lookit, you guys,” he said grimly. “We taurant. Plainly visible inside, six men sat
know how Watches cuts up when something around a table, dining in leisurely fashion.
goes wrong. He’s liable to throw sonic lead “Doc Savage and his five aides!” Dor-
into somebody. We’d better oil this up a lit- gan exploded. “But, hell, it can’t be! Them
tle.” guys in the restaurant must be actors that
“What yo’-all mean?” Ham-hock ques- bird Savage fixed up.”
tioned. Ham-hock rolled his eyes.
“Tell Watches we didn’t get in, and got “Ah tells yo’ dat bronze man am
chased out,” Dorgan suggested. “Let it go at more’n half spook,” he declared.
that. What he don’t know won’t hurt him.” Squirrel Dorgan was obviously doing
“Ah favors dat idea,” said Ham-hock. some fast thinking in an effort to make their
The hard young men nodded. defeat seem logical.
“We got trouble enough without “Doc Savage knew that bird Forestay
Watches ridin’ us,” one of them said. was you in disguise, ” he told Watches Bo-
Their story agreed upon, they ad- wen.
vanced and entered the sedan. Bowen yelled, “What?”
Watches Bowen extended a hand. “That probably explains it,” Squirrel
“The goggles,” he requested. said, with the air of a mastermind. “Doc Sav-
Ool, awaiting the answer, fixed his wa- age told you when he was gonna be out of
ter-colored eyes on Ham-hock. The fat Ne- his place in the restaurant, figuring you
gro was still wheezing from the exertions of would take a whirl at getting the goggles.
his escape; sweat had flooded his banked Then he arranged some actors or somebody
chins. And now Ool’s appraisal threw him down there eating to look like himself and his
into a fresh perspiration. men.”
“We didn’t get the goggles,” Squirrel Bowen swore fervently and fumbled
Dorgan told Watches Bowen. with the two watches on the gold chain.
“What the hell?” Watches snarled. “Maybe that explains it,” he admitted.
“We was lucky to get out of there “Ah still claims dat Savage man is
alive, ” Dorgan continued. “Say, I thought you worse dan voodoo,” proclaimed Ham-hock
had things fixed! We walk into that place and Piney.
there was Doc Savage!”
Watches Bowen scowled blackly. “You
are crazy,” he snapped. “Doc Savage is in ARRIVING at their yacht alongside the
that restaurant right now and has been for City Island dock, the gang trooped aboard in
the past thirty minutes.” surly silence.
Squirrel Dorgan gaped. The hard Dimiter Daikoff came out of the galley
young men looked surprised. Ham-hock to meet them, bringing coffee and some of
Piney breathed noisily and watched Ool as if Watches Bowen’s favorite brandy.
he were looking at a spike-tailed devil. His ministrations were not received
Watches Bowen snapped a command, kindly. Watches gave him a round cursing on
and the car swerved back and passed the general principles, and the big, dark, scarred
Cafe Oriental. They all peered into the res- man who claimed he was a patriot instead of
a murderer, retired to a corner of the cabin
and sat with his arms folded, a look of utter watch Doc Savage, who stood before a large
tragedy on his swarthy face. globe of the world.
Watches Bowen kept pulling one Doc was studying the Arctic regions,
timepiece after another out of his pockets, and drawing a line with a colored pencil.
and juggling them in his hand. Near by was a stack of newspapers dating
“We’ve got to rub this Doc Savage some months back. They carried stories of
out,” he growled. the lost Lenderthorn Expedition. The mark
“It is true,” Ool agreed. “And we must on the globe indicated the route of the Len-
have that dirigible. We must get those gog- derthorn Expedition, as given by the news-
gles also.” paper accounts.
Watches nodded. “It’s a job I hate to “Doc,” Monk said.
tackle, but it’s got to be done.” The bronze man looked up. “Yes?”
“It is more dangerous trying to trick “Where were you the past couple of
that man than to kill him,” Ool said. “We will hours? Getting those papers?” Monk asked.
kill him.” Doc nodded. “That, and otherwise try-
“Ah ain’t cravin’ no prominent part in ing to find out what this is all about.”
the killin’,” Hamhock put in. “You got any idea what those goggles
Ool’s cold glance fixed upon Ham- are?” Monk asked.
hock. “The lenses are very peculiar,” the
The fat Negro’s temerity oozed. “Dat bronze giant stated. “They seem to be com-
is,” he qualified weakly, “Ah hopes us can posed of a material similar to quartz. Yet this
dope out some shoah-fire scheme.” quartz—and I am not quite sure it is quartz—
Watches restored his timepieces to his is not of natural formation. The crystalline
pockets, and his thick hand slid up and down structure indicates an artificial source. ”
the gold vest chain. Monk scratched the bristles atop his
“I’ve got an idea,” he purred. Turning, bullet of a head.
he walked to the far corner of the room, “At least, we know they’re after our
nodding for Ool to accompany him. dirigible,” he said, “even if we don’t know
The two talked together earnestly for why those goggles are so valuable and what
several minutes. They were careful to keep is behind all this phenagling.”
their voices lowered. No word reached other Doc turned back to the globe.
ears than their own. Monk grinned as he watched the
Dimiter Daikoff remained glowering in bronze man concentrate on the Arctic longi-
the opposite corner of the room, entirely out tudes. The apish chemist pulled his coat col-
of earshot. lar tight about his chin and executed an
Dimiter Daikoff was not out of eye- elaborate shiver.
shot, however, and both Watches Bowen “I feel in my bones,” he said, “that
and Ool would have been vastly surprised we’re due to shove off for the land of the
had they known that the big man whose dark midnight sun.”
eyes watched them so intently, was making A buzzer sounded faintly. It was one
those eyes serve as ears. which warned of approaching visitors—a
Dimiter Daikoff was reading lips as contact was closed automatically when an
Bowen and Ool talked. elevator stopped at the eighty-sixth floor
level.
The bronze man pressed a button.
SOME three hours later, in Doc Sav- Electrical mechanism whirred, and on one
age’s fabulous library of scientific tomes, wall of the room, an inset television scanning
Monk was pacing as restlessly as a newly panel of frosted glass was suddenly flooded
caged ape. with light. A picture appeared of the corridor
Ham sat watching him, an overdone outside. A uniformed policeman was step-
expression of pity on his handsome face. He ping from an elevator.
made clucking noises of pity with his tongue. “Now what?” muttered Monk. “Have
“No imagination,” he said. “He just we got the police after us, too?”
don’t know what to do with himself. ” “I hope this isn’t another Gray Fore-
Monk snorted, seemed to try to think stay,” pale Long Tom put in.
of a suitable retort, gave it up and turned to The door buzzer rang.
“I’ll let him in,” Monk said. O’Malley shrugged. “O. K.,” he said.
He turned, started for the door, then stopped
and looked back.
THE policeman whom Monk ushered “Say,” he grinned, “mind if I use your
into the room removed his cap when Doc telephone to call my wife? She’s got corned
Savage nodded in greeting. The officer beef and cabbage cooking tonight. It looks
seemed to have an instinctive feeling that like I’m going to be late. I want her to keep it
the giant bronze man was entitled to special hot.”
respect. It was not an unnatural feeling Doc waved at the desk phone. “Help
shared by every one who met Doc Savage. yourself.”
“I’m Lieutenant O’Malley,” the uni- O’Malley spun the dial and got a num-
formed man said. “I am on detached service ber. He talked briefly regarding the conser-
working out of the chief’s office. I’m here to vation of corned beef and cabbage.
interview Doc Savage.” After he had spoken, he listened. He
“This is Doc Savage,” Monk said, nod- listened a much longer time than he had
ding in the direction of the world-renowned spoken. The sound of a high-pitched, queru-
man. lous voice could be heard from the receiver.
“I know.” O’Malley’s eyes showed O’Malley squirmed; looked sheepish. His
open admiration as they rested upon the free hand went into his side pants pocket
bronze giant. and out again.
“Brother,” he said, hesitating as if Finally, he banged the receiver in a
doubtful of the propriety of the term of ad- show of temper. The receiver missed the
dress, but unable to resist its honest expres- prongs, struck the phone, rocked it on the
sion, “I’d sure feel safe with a man like you desk top. His right hand reached out to
walking a beat with me.” steady the instrument. With the right hand
Doc Savage turned the conversation gripping the inside of the mouthpiece, he
away from himself. hooked the receiver on the fork and stepped
“What can we do for you?” he ques- back.
tioned. “There’s a woman for you,” he mut-
“It’s a routine matter,” the policeman tered, flushed. “She says if I don’t get home
said. “The office is checking up on the mur- on time I can eat it cold.”
der of a Watches Bowen mobster—Beery After the policeman had left, Doc said:
Hosmer. The suspected murderer seems to “Monk, follow him.”
be a sideshow freak, if the descriptions that “Tail that cop?” Monk asked, sur-
have come in are any good. White-faced, prised.
water-colored eyes, gold mustache, and a “Right. Report all he does.”
fine fuzz on his head. That’s the way the
description—”
“And why are you interviewing me?” BY riding Doc’s speed elevator down,
Doc interposed. Monk reached the lobby before the police-
“This man was reported seen around man arrived on a slower cage. Monk trailed
your office,” the officer said. O’Malley down the crowded avenue.
Doc nodded. “Such a man did come to O’Malley walked fast, almost ran. He
see me.” went only half a block, then turned into a
“When?” cigar store and walked to the back where
“Late last night.” phone booths were arrayed. He paused in
“What did he want?” O’Malley asked front of one of the booths.
excitedly. A man came out of the booth.
“There is more to this than shows on O’Malley crowded in.
the surface,” Doc said. “You make an ap- Monk started violently when he saw
pointment with your chief and we’ll go over the man who had come out. The man was
the matter together.” Watches Bowen.
O’Malley’s face clouded. Plainly he Monk recognized him, although he
disliked the idea. But the bronze man’s had seen Watches only in the characteriza-
words had held a note of quiet finality. tion of Gray Forestay.
Monk’s hand dipped into his pocket, Watches laughed unnaturally. “This is
came out with small change. He dropped a too good to keep,” he said. “I’m going to let
coin on the news counter and grabbed a you in. Our fake copper is going to call Sav-
newspaper, jerked it open, held it before his age. And when Savage answers his phone
face, and advanced on the phone booths in it’ll be his last minute on earth.”
the manner of a man absorbed in the day’s “Huh?” Monk grunted, startled by the
news. cold confidence of Watches’ tone.
He stopped at the phone booth adja- “Were you in Savage’s office when
cent to the one the policeman had entered. ‘Officer’ O’Malley was fumbling around with
But the booth was occupied. He caught a the telephone?”
glimpse of the occupant through the glass “Sure.” Monk growled.
window. It was the strangely white-skinned Watches grinned. “‘Officer’ O’Malley’s
man who carried death in his right hand— thumb smeared poison in the telephone
Ool. mouthpiece in Doc Savage’s office.”
It had been Monk’s intention to ease “Huh?” Monk said again.
into the booth and listen in on O’Malley’s “A very unusual poison, ” Watches
telephone conversation. Occupied as the elaborated. “One which vaporized when
booth was, Monk pushed ahead to the booth moistened by the breath. The gas kills!”
on the other side of the policeman’s. He had “Hey, listen—” Monk growled, sud-
to pass so close to Watches Bowen that he denly alarmed.
almost scraped elbows with the gangster. The gun barrel jabbed into his back.
Monk grimaced as he saw his plan of “You listen, ape! That’s all! You’re just in
overhearing the policeman’s conversation time!”
going to smash. The booth on the opposite Monk listened, suffering all the tortures
side was occupied also. of the damned. A whirring and clicking could
Monk got a quick look at the occupant. he heard from within the booth as the fake
The man was small, inoffensive appearing; policeman dialed Doc Savage’s number.
mouselike, in fact. A wide bandage swathing Doc, Monk knew, would be called to the
his head made him look more harmless than telephone in case he did not answer himself.
ever. It was Honey Hamilton, although Monk There could hardly be a slip-up.
had no way of knowing that. There was an interval of silence inside
Monk started on, intending to enter the booth, then the fake policeman spoke:
one of the other booths and put a call “Hello . . . Doc Savage?”
through to Doc Savage for reënforcements. Monk, the homely, loyal Monk, did a
But he never made the call. magnificent thing. It was not his fault that it
A sudden sharp pressure came was a useless thing.
against the small of his back. A voice purred, It has been long accepted that “greater
“Take it easy. You sure have pushed your- love hath no man—” Monk did the best he
self into bad company.” could to lay down his life for his brother.
There was only one way he could
have managed it. With that automatic nosed
MONK stood unmoving, saying noth- into his back, he could only yell, warn Doc
ing, a policy he considered excellent when Savage of the poison danger by the roar of
the muzzle of an automatic was gouging into his great voice—and by the roar of the
his back. gangster’s gun as it blared its lead through
“So you tailed our fake copper here,” flesh and bone.
Watches Bowen purred. “You boys are very, Monk opened his cavernous mouth to
very bright, aren’t you?” yell. It was not his fault that no sound came.
Monk said nothing. Before he could utter so much as a
Watches Bowen laughed with an oily murmur, the barrel of a submachine gun
softness, and said, “All right, you wanted to crashed against his temple and felled him to
know things. Get your ear against that the floor.
booth. ”
Monk retreated, the muzzle of the gun
barrel making steady pressure against his “HONEY” HAMILTON, anticipating the
back. hairy chemist’s intention of shouting a warn-
ing, had stepped out of the door of his tele- the blue uniform broke up his monologue
phone booth and struck the blow. The and called sharply, “Doc Savage!”
mouselike fellow eased back inside the fold- There was no answer.
ing doors of the booth like a snail writhing “Doc Savage!” the man repeated.
into its shell. He pretended to be talking into Silence replied. Then there were ex-
the phone. cited shouts coming over the wire, the noise
Monk’s collapsing bulk could not help of men moving about rapidly in Doc Sav-
but attract attention. Several men raced back age’s office. Finally, there was a cry, hoarse
from the cigar counter. and filled with horror.
Watches thrust his flat automatic into a “He’s dead!” a voice shrieked. “Doc
coat pocket and bent over Monk with an ap- Savage is dead!”
pearance of solicitude. The fake policeman hung up hastily
“Help me with him, will you?” he asked and left the booth. Ool came out of the adja-
the first clerk who came up. cent booth.
The man bent to help Watches lift “Did it succeed?” Ool asked.
Monk. “What’s the matter?” he wanted to “It did, ” the other grinned.
know.
“Fainted,” Watches said briskly. “He
gets these spells.” Chapter IX
“Look at the blood!” the clerk gasped. FROSTED DEATH
“He’s hit his head.”
“Afraid so.” Watches made a tsk -tsk WHITHIN the hour Watches Bowen,
sound and looked concerned. transporting the unconscious Monk, was
“We better get a doctor. ” back at the boat at the City Island dock. He
“I,” Watches said in a suavely authori- looked around irritably for Dimiter Daikoff.
tative voice, “am his doctor. Help me with “Where is the patriot?” he asked of
him, some of you fellows. We’ll put him in my Ham-hock Piney.
car.” The fat Negro shrugged ponderous
They carried Monk outside to the car. shoulders. “I donno, chief.”
Watches drove away with him. The big, dark, scarred man came in a
At the telephone booth inside the cigar few minutes later.
store the fake policeman’s conversation with “Where were you?” Watches snarled.
Doc Savage had proceeded according to “Out for some air,” Daikoff said gloom-
plan. ily.
“I’m O’Malley,” he had said. “Well, see if you can start some air cir-
“I recognize your voice,” Doc Savage culating in this.” Watches indicated the still
had replied over the wire. unconscious figure of Monk.
“Will you speak a little closer to the The big, dark man scowled fero-
mouthpiece, please?” the gangster re- ciously. When he did this, the scar on his
quested. “This connection is not good.” neck tightened like something alive.
Doc Savage raised his voice. He said, “Violence I do not like, except
“I still can’t hear you,” the gangster to traitors and political foes.”
lied. “Maybe if you’d talk a little closer still—” Watches regarded him bleakly. “You
“How is this?” Doc Savage’s words might call this guy a political foe of ours. You
were blurred, as if his lips were against the did a good repair job on Honey Hamilton.
mouthpiece. See if you can fix this one up, too.”
“That’s better,” said the fake officer. Daikoff clicked his heels, bowed, then
“Now, about this Beery Hosmer killing— commenced expert ministrations to Monk.
there is a point or two that I forgot—” Watches produced his eighty-year-old
He talked on, making conversation brandy and poured his own drinks. Ool and
concerning the murder of Hosmer, going Honey Hamilton, and the fake policeman,
over some of the points which he had al- O’Malley, came in a few minutes later. Ool’s
ready discussed with Doc Savage. face was as dispassionate as usual, but
He heard a crash. It was loud, brittle, Honey Hamilton’s cherubic features were
such a sound as the telephone at the other beaming.
end might have made if dropped. The man in
“What’s the dope?” Watches asked. “When?” Watches cut.

“Did it work?” “Since that poison was supposed to
“You tell it, Ool,” Honey sighed. have got him!”
“Doc Savage,” Ool announced, “is “Where?” the crook leader’s word was
dead.” a crash.
“You sure?” Watches frowned. “I been shadowin’ his place like you
“I know my poisons,” Ool said flatly. told me. He come out and I followed him. He
“This one, in my land, is known as ssl-yto- turns in at a cable office and sends some
mng. That name means ‘the poison that can radiograms—”
not fail.’“ “Radiograms?”
“He’s dead, all right,” said O’Malley. “I “Yeah—”
heard his men howling that he had croaked.” “Who to?”
Watches breathed heavily and “How would I know?” Squirrel asked in
reached for the brandy. “So Savage is out of an injured tone. “I couldn’t walk in and look.”
the way. Maybe that ain’t a load off my Watches jerked savagely at his watch
chest! Ool, you’re smart enough to be presi- chain.
dent of these United States!” “Get me a copy of those radiograms.
Ool nodded. “I have thought of that. Stick up the place, or blow the safe, or any-
Perhaps I shall be.” thing. But get ‘em!”
Watches stared. “Well, for—” Ool’s right hand floated out in Squir-
“What,” Ool questioned, “is to prevent rel’s direction in a loathsome moccasin mo-
me?” tion. His flat voice said ominously: “If you do
“Sure,” Watches muttered, a strange not manage better with the radiograms than
gleam coming into his bleak eyes. “You took you did with the goggles—”
me off my feet for a minute by being so cas- He left it unfinished for effect.
ual—” Squirrel Dorgan shuddered, mumbled,
“It is not too much to hope for,” Ool “Aw, I done my best.” Then he went out
said. hastily.
“Sure— Why, sure,” Watches said Watches turned, frowning, on Ool.
slowly, “if we put this deal across—hell, any- “The poison which never fails—” he
thing is possible!” began with biting sarcasm.
Watches gulped his drink and his hand Ool silenced him with a fluttering of his
trembled on his glass. right hand.
“Your hand,” Ool said, “is not steady.” “It was not the poison which failed,” he
Watches cursed softly. “You’d shake said. “It is your stupid men.”
too, if you were half human. When I think The fake policeman, O’Malley, pro-
about what we can do if this goes through—” tested desperately: “I smeared that poison in
He reached for another drink. the telephone mouthpiece!”
“Now that Doc Savage is out of the Watches rasped, “There was a slip
way,” Ool said, “we have only to appropriate somewhere.”
his dirigible—and the goggles—and leave. Ham-hock rolled his whitish eyes.
Right?” He made a gesture indicating sim- “Yassuh, an’ de way things turned out when
plicity, with his pale hands. we all went foah dem goggles—Ah done
mah best to pick ‘em up, but dey just wahn’t
dere, even if’n Ah could see ‘em.”
THERE was a series of five sharp raps Ool’s voice crashed flatly. “There is
at the door. They were insistent. another poison from my land, a sister poison
“That’s Squirrel’s signal,” Watches to this one which has failed. We call these
said. “Sounds as if something is on him. Let poisons the ‘twin sisters.’ The one which has
him in, Ham-hock.” failed is volatized by moisture. The other one
The corpulent Negro waddled over is turned into a deadly gas by the application
and opened the door, and Squirrel landed of heat. I shall prepare the heat poison.”
inside like one of his furry namesakes tum- The golden-fuzzed assassin paused. “I
bling out of a tree. suggest you, Watches, yourself, arrange that
“Watches!” he jabbered, “I seen Doc Doc Savage meet the other of the twin sis-
Savage and—” ters. We do not want another failure.”
Watches glowered. “I’ll arrange the in- Ool’s hand, after he had read the ra-
troduction, all right.” diograms, crept out instinctively in a butterfly
Watches absent-mindedly pulled a movement. But all he said was, “We have no
timepiece from his coat sleeve. There was time to lose.”
evidently a special pocket in the sleeve. The “We’ll finish him tonight!” Watches
watch was very large, of silver, and looked rasped. “That’s no pipe-dream, either!”
ancient. One of the radiograms was addressed
Watches looked at it, appeared to see to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police de-
it for the first time, seemed startled, and tachment at Aklavik, at the head of the
hastily returned it to its concealed sleeve Mackenzie River on the Arctic coast. The
pouch. other three were addressed to United States
government authorities in settlements on the
mainland of Alaska and on the Aleutian sI -
A DEEP and melancholy voice at lands. The text of all four radiograms was
Ool’s elbow asked: “What is the time, the same:
please, Mr. Bowen?”
Watches looked around, startled. He PLEASE SEND AVAILABLE INFORMA-
had not heard big Dimiter Daikoff approach. TION REGARDING GRAY FORESTAY
“Damn it!” he snapped. “That’s a good EXPEDITION OR ANY OTHER EXPEDI-
way to get yourself a lead vaccination— TION OPERATING THROUGH YOUR
slipping up behind me like that!” TERRITORY WITHIN LAST SIX MONTHS
“What is the time?” Daikoff asked STOP HAVE YOU ANY RECORD OF
again, unperturbed. SHRUNKEN-FACED ABNORMALLY
“That watch doesn’t tell time, ” the mob WHITE-SKINNED MAN FINE GOLDEN
chief growled. “Some of my watches tell
HAIR TALL BONY REMARKABLY
time—some of ‘em I carry for other reasons.”
STRONG FLAT UNNATURAL VOICE
He held out his wrist where Daikoff could
WHEN SPEAKING ENGLISH KNOWN
see the minute and hour. “That one keeps
time.” PERHAPS AS OOL STOP THIS INFORMA-
“Thank you,” Daikoff said. He turned TION OF UTMOST URGENCY.
and started away. Even bent over, and limp- CLARK SAVAGE, JR.
ing as he did, he looked enormous. There
was an aura of quiet power about him. “Yeah,” Watches growled, after read-
“How’s the patient?” Watches called ing the messages again. “We’ve got to nail
after him. him before he gets a line on you, Ool.”
Daikoff paused. “You mean the man
who resembles a huge monkey? The one
who seems to have been hit over the head?” SHORTLY before ten o’clock that
“Sure.” Watches nodded. “Is he gonna night, Doc Savage and his four aides were
croak?” gathered in the reception room of the bronze
“It is too soon to tell,” Daikoff’s deep man’s eighty-sixth floor headquarters. Talk-
voice boomed. “He must remain quiet for a ing little, they were waiting with some impa-
while. ” tience—except for big-fisted Renny, who
frowned at the telephone from time to time.
“How’d you ever get wise to that trick
EARLY that evening, Squirrel Dorgan poison, Doc?” he boomed. “The stuff was
returned to the moored yacht and put copies colorless, and it didn’t look wet like a liquid.”
of four radiograms in Watches’ hands. “Did you watch that fake policeman,
“They’re the ones Doc Savage sent,” O’Malley, when he was here?” Doc asked.
he said. “I just walked into the cable office, Renny nodded. “Sure.”
showed a clerk the noisy end of my gun, and “He was not very clever in fumbling
he coughed up.” the telephone,” the bronze man said dryly.
Watches scanned the radiograms “That made me suspicious. There was only
quickly, then cursed with soft deadliness and about one thing he could have been doing.
called Ool. So, immediately after the man who called
himself O’Malley had departed, I discon-
nected that instrument and substituted an- the bronze man rarely showed the emotions
other. ” which he felt.
Johnny, the big-worded archaeologist Ham tried to cheer himself. “After all,
and geologist, fumbled his monocle and Monk don’t often get into a spot that he can’t
murmured, “I wonder if your chicane histrion- get out of.”
ics were consummative?” “Yeah,” Renny said. “Monk’ll come
“He means that he wonders if that was through all right. What I’m worried about is
a successful act that you put on over the this call from the party who claims to be a
telephone, when you had one of us yell that friend of Beery Hosmer.”
you were dead,” Renny rumbled. “Right,” Long Tom concurred. “It’s got
Doc evidently intended to answer, but some of the earmarks of a phony.”
there was an interruption. The telephone The car rolled silently, a perfectly bal-
rang. The bronze man got up and swung anced motor virtually eliminating vibration,
toward the instrument. expert filling of the heavy body and chassis
“Holy cow!” Renny thumped uneasily. parts assuring no creakings. One of the indi-
“Watch it! Maybe there’s been some more vidual features of the car was the fenders of
poison smeared in that mouthpiece!” chrome construction, able to withstand a
It was noticeable that the bronze man terrific collision.
stood well away from the instrument as he Long Tom’s voice cracked, “There’s a
answered it. A shrill, whining voice came green coupé!”
from the receiver. The green coupé, a large one, was a
“Listen, guy,” it said, “I know who I’m block distant and under a streetlight.
talkin’ to, see. I know your voice. That ain’t A man leaned out, looked behind, then
all I know, either. ” turned swiftly and seemed to be giving direc-
“Interesting,” Doc said without emotions to the driver.
tion. “It’s that white-skinned scamp, Ool!”
“Beery Hosmer was my pal,” the voice Long Tom barked.
whined. “He got it dirty, see? He didn’t have “We’ll pull alongside,” Renny began,
it comin’. So I’m layin’ a finger on the guy “and—no, we won’t.”
that done it.” The green coupé, with a throaty snarl
“All right,” Doc Savage said sharply. from its exhaust, leaped from the curb, gath-
“Who are you and what do you know?” ered speed. Within a very few seconds it
The voice quickened over the tele- was breaking speed limits.
phone. Doc fed more gas. His own car eased
“Think I’m a sap?” it demanded. “All silently up to keep pace with the other. It
kinds of troubles have a way of lightin’ on began to close the gap between the two ma-
guys like me, so I ain’t tellin’ no names. But chines.
you go to that warehouse thing owned by the The green coupé began to rocket
Hidalgo Tradin’ Company down on the Hud- through night traffic. The car needed no
son River water front. Look for a green warning siren to secure a right-of-way. Its
coupé, see?” exhaust roar was ample. It cannoned the
“How did you get this information?” night with a pounding thunder which would
Doc asked. have drowned out a fire siren. Taxis scurried
The other hung up. to the curb. Pedestrians flattened back
against shop windows.
Holding close behind the roaring green
IT was half past ten that night when coupé, Doc’s low sedan was still almost si-
Doc Savage and his four aides approached lent.
the great warehouse hangar. The car in Renny flourished his supermachine
which they rode eased along with the silence pistol.
of an electric lift. The bronze man was at the “Shall I let ‘em have a dose?”
wheel. Doc shook his head. “Traveling too
Ham, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny fast!”
were all a little glum because of the absence Doc fed more gas—and more. His car
of Monk. The fact that Doc did not appear drew up alongside the other. His intention
worried did not cheer them much, because was obviously to get around the green
coupé, cut in front, and force the machine to “Watch out!” Renny shouted suddenly.
the curb. Directly ahead, crosswise of the street,
But the other car also had speed. The loomed an abandoned truck. Some one,
driver circumvented Doc’s maneuver by put- working in collusion with the driver of the
ting on a burst of speed as great as the green coupé, had driven the truck out of a
bronze man had managed. White lights, side street and left it, anticipating that Doc
green lights, red lights streaked past, would crash into it, head on, in the smoke.
blurred. Tires squalled on pavement as Doc
Doc commented, “They have quite a swerved the sedan in an attempt to clear the
motor under that hood.” obstruction. No ordinary car could have
“Wait until we get on an open road!” made it.
clipped Johnny, reverting to few syllable There was a sickening skid. They
words in the excitement of the pursuit. vaulted the curb. Metal crashed, rasped.
In anticipation of violent action, he They had glanced off a wall. Brick dust cas-
took his monocle from his pocket, wrapped it caded. The machine rocked, nearly went
in his handkerchief to protect it from break- over. Then it jarred back on the street, be-
age, and thrust it back in his pocket. The yond the truck.
monocle was not an affectation with him. In “Holy cow!” Renny gasped.
the past, before Doc Savage had exercised Long-winded Johnny blinked his eyes.
his surgical skill to restore complete sight to “I vouchsafe a kindred articulation!”
the wiry geologist’s left eye, injured in the The speeding cars were beyond the
World War, Johnny had worn eyeglasses, region of traffic lights now and streaking on
the left eyepiece carrying the magnifying open boulevards. Doc’s sedan crawled up
glass. Needing eyeglasses no longer, he immediately behind the other ear. At their
insisted that he needed the magnifier in his terrific speed, telephone poles were almost
work, so he still carried it in the monocle. like pickets in a fence. The green coupé
lurched a good deal, but Doc’s scientifically
weighted car held the road smoothly.
SUDDENLY the air in front of Doc Doc’s cabled bronze hands eased the
Savage’s hurtling car was choked with wheel over. The car swung around the green
smoke. Beams from the powerful lamps coupé, came up abreast. Plainly, Doc meant
were absorbed as completely as the sun’s to wedge the other car in, force it to stop.
rays behind storm clouds. A submachine gun nosed out of the
The driver of the green coupé was green coupé and a burst of bullets flattened
spreading a smoke screen from his exhaust harmlessly against the steel plating and bul-
in the fashion devised long ago by ingenious letproofed glass of Doc’s vehicle.
criminals. Doc’s car was coursing blindly at With the speeding cars side by side,
nearly a hundred miles an hour. Doc and his men could get a look at their
The bronze man drove a hand under adversaries in the coupé.
the instrument panel and touched one of an “Hey, that’s not Ool!” Long Tom said
array of switches concealed there. Then he tersely. “They’ve chalked somebody’s face
wrenched out large, somewhat clumsy eye- up to make him look like Ool!”
pieces. He peered through one of these. “Ool would hardly risk his neck with a
A fantastic change was wrought. A driver like that one,” Doc said.
weird light seemed to have suffused the pall “Well then, what—” Long Tom never
of black smoke. To a layman, it would have finished his sentence.
smacked of black magic, but an electrical
engineer would not have been more than
surprised at the efficiency of the apparatus THERE was a bump, a terrifying
for projecting invisible infra-red light rays, swerve, a crash, a crazy sword-slashing of
which have the faculty of penetrating smoke lights in the night as the two cars collided
and fog to a great degree. and one of them turned up end for end and
The eyepieces, highly ingenious, for rolled like a barrel off the road, over a ditch,
making the infra-light visible would have through a hedge of trees and far into a
been even more interesting to an electrical plowed field.
expert.
The insanely reckless driver of the Leaving his evergreen shelter, Doc ran
green coupé had tried to shove the other car for the spot where the autogyro had landed.
off the road. The distance was not great and, eventually,
The trick backfired. The other driver he located the windmill plane.
had not calculated on Doc’s reënforced The craft had settled in a farm lot, in a
fenders. It was his own car which went over. shallow valley not far off the road. There was
Doc’s machine held the road. It a house close by. Doc approached cau-
weaved, but not dangerously. Doc eased tiously. The moon added to the brilliance of
down on the brakes, cut the lights, and the stars.
brought the car to an abrupt stop. He heard a man curse, then heard his
What he did then was a surprise. own name spoken—”Doc Savage!”—in evi-
“Slide over here in the driver’s seat, dent alarm. A window went black in the
Ham,” he directed. “Take the car back to farmhouse. A man ran out and was joined by
town. You will hear from me at the office.” another outside. The two started racing
He opened the door, swung out, glided across the farm lot in the direction of the
across the road and disappeared in the autogyro.
shadow of a high hedge. Then one of them stopped, caught the
Ham hesitated, then drove away, car- other by the arm and pulled him in the oppo-
rying with him a puzzled and disgusted Long site direction.
Tom, Johnny, and Renny. “Nix!” The arm-puller’s words wafted
At the scene of the disaster, Doc Sav- clearly to Doc. “We can’t land in the gyro
age ascertained that both the driver and where we wanta go! The hell with it! We’ll
gunner were dead, killed instantly. take the car!”
He was examining the bodies, when a
peculiar rhythmic drone of a sound assailed
his ears. Doc looked up. THE men ran, stumbling, to the road.
Clearly against the star-lit sky he could Doc following them, heard the whine of a
see a huge shape poised against the night, starter, then the silence-wrecking roar of a
resembling, at first, a bird with grotesquely motor and a clashing of gears as a car got
whirling wings. Even as he looked, the object under way.
settled lower. It was a plane, an autogyro. The headlights switched on. Doc was
Doc exploded in a burst of furious enable to recognize the two men. Ool and
ergy, and barely reached the shadows of a Watches Bowen!
grove of trees as a sharp clatter sounded The car droned away, blurring into
from above and machine gun bullets rapped black distance.
the ground. After satisfying himself that he was
Doc was not carrying one of the ma- alone, Doc Savage ran toward the autogyro.
chine pistols so much relied upon by his He examined it carefully. He devoted par-
men; he preferred to depend for defense on ticular attention to the controls.
ingenuity and various scientific devices car- He found a bomb attached to the
ried in pockets of a specially constructed starter in such a way that it would have ex-
vest. ploded at the first revolution. The bomb ex-
Since the autogyro was not flying low plained the “act” which Watches Bowen and
enough for him to take any effective meas- Ool had put on in the farm lot. The perform-
ures against it, he contented himself with ance had been calculated to decoy the
outguessing the machine gun bursts. Re- bronze man into following the fleeing car
peatedly bullets snarled through the massed with the autogyro. It was just one more mur-
leaves, tracing patterns of death. But the der attempt.
bronze man kept clear. Doc Savage entered the house and
After a few minutes of ineffectual fir- began a searching examination of the
ing, the autogyro lifted and skimmed away to rooms. It seemed to be a small tenant
the west, still flying low. farmer’s house, deserted now, used, judging
Not more than two minutes later, Doc from the litter about, as an occasional hide-
saw it poise, then drop lazily to the earth in out by Watches Bowen.
almost vertical decent. The white beam of his flashlight poked
everywhere. In the room where he had seen
the light go out, papers on the floor and “Let’s lug it out to the car,” he sug-
more papers on a time-scarred desk made it gested.
look as if the criminals, in their haste to clear Together the two bent over Doc’s
out, had been forced to leave documents heavy frame.
behind. What happened next neither Ool nor
Doc picked one of the papers from the Watches could have correctly detailed.
floor. Light from the hand flash washed over There was a nightmare sensation, as though
it, revealing a maze of handwriting and fig- the roof had fallen on them and a tornado
ures— apparently some of Watches Bo- had funneled its way into the room.
wen’s calculations. Vaguely, of course, they knew that
Doc gathered all papers on the floor Doc Savage was not dead. The corded
and carried them to the desk. There was a muscles of the bronze man, which had been
lamp on the desk, with an electric bulb in it. slacked in apparent helplessness as he lay
Evidently there was an electric plant on the upon the floor, had suddenly become galva-
farm. nized with uncalculable force.
For greater convenience, Doc laid Both Ool and Watches Bowen were
down his flash and turned on the electric strong men. But they were helpless the in -
light. It was a dim bulb, heavily frosted. stant a metallic hand closed over the throat
Doc bent close to the light while sort- of each. Their blood seemed to turn to water,
ing over the papers. So intent was he upon their muscles got limp as rags, their eyes
the documents that he did not see the faint bulged in purpling faces, their tongues ran
vapor which crept out from the frosted bulb out.
as it warmed. Doc, with an unexpected movement,
He did notice it, finally. His arm cracked their heads together. They lost con-
slashed out. He smashed the bulb in his sciousness.
bare hand. But the vapor was already in the Searching the pair, Doc relieved them
air. of weapons. Then he devoted much time to
The bronze man took two staggering an examination of Ool’s right hand, the hand
steps, then keeled over, to lie inert on the which the thin, strangely white-skinned man
floor. seemed never to keep still.
He found nothing peculiar about the
hand.
Chapter X The bronze man dragged the two
THE PATRIOT UNMASKED senseless forms to the autogyro and calmly
detached the bomb from the starting mecha-
OOL and Watches Bowen did not nism.
drive into town when they fled the farm- He flew his two captives back to the
house, but turned into a near-by side road, city, landing in a vacant lot conveniently near
from where, after parking their machine, they his own water-front warehouse hangar. He
circled back to the farmhouse on foot, arriv- took a closed car from the big building and
ing in time to watch from a distance as Doc loaded the captives aboard.
Savage turned on the lamp at the desk.
When they heard the solid thump of
his body as it struck the floor, they came IN the skyscraper headquarters, Ham,
charging in. They stared triumphantly at the Johnny, Long Tom, and Renny stared as
bronze man’s prostrate form. Doc issued from his private elevator with his
“The second of the twin sisters got two prisoners in tow. Doc slumped the pair
him,” Ool spoke tonelessly. of limp forms on the floor.
Watches’ voice had a rasp in it. “After Long Tom, the electrical wizard, was
this, Ool, I vote for you and your fancy poi- first to speak. “You sure did a heavy night’s
sons every time. When that fool coupé driver work, Doc,” he said.
got himself wrecked, I was ready to quit.” “Let us hope it is all over but the ques-
Watches collected his personal papers tioning,” Doc said.
which had formed the lure. Then he ap- Big-fisted Renny handed over a sheaf
proached the body of Doc Savage. of radiograms.
“These came in answer to the radio- “—the new dirigible.” Ham added.
grams you sent up North,” he told the bronze “For the specific purposes,” Johnny
man. “They give us something to go on finished grandly, “of investigating the myste-
when we start questioning these two.” rious origin of one malicious malefactor hav-
The messages were all very long, and ing golden hirsute adornment, not to mention
all alike in one respect—they all conveyed delving into the mystery of a certain pair of
the information that no expedition other than goggles—and alleged mysterious things.”
the Lenderthorn party had left the Arctic-
American coast in recent months.
One message carried a surprise. It “HAM—jump!” Doc’s voice was a
described the members of the Lenderthorn crash of sound.
party. The descriptions were unmistakable. Ham jumped, suddenly, without ques-
Lenderthorn, the explorer, had been tion. The dapper lawyer leaped a yard in the
no other person than Watches Bowen him- air.
self. Assisting him had been a lieutenant Ool clutched his ankle at about the
who resembled Ool to perfection. half-yard level.
The expedition had taken off by plane Ham fell violently, sprawling his full
and had not been heard from since, the length on the floor, his sword cane clattering
message stated. out of his hand. He kicked, but he could not
One radiogram, from Point Barrow, on shake Ool’s relentless grip from his ankle.
the north Alaskan coast, contained additional “Hold it, Ham!” Doc rasped. “Do not
information regarding Ool. move!”
The weirdly white-skinned man, so the Ham lay still.
radiogram informed, had arrived mysteri- Ool spoke.
ously into the settlement some months ago. “You have done well to order him to lie
Ool had carried a strange pair of black still,” he droned. “Now listen to me. You have
goggles. He had been acting strangely witnessed my strength. I did not stay long
seeming to have not the slightest idea of unconscious, like this other one.” He indi-
what modern life was like, and being unable cated Watches Bowen’s limp form.
to speak any intelligible language. But during “I could give you,” he continued,
the short time he had remained there, he speaking with his sepulchral lack of tone, “a
had learned language and customs with more deadly exhibition of my powers. If I had
amazing rapidity. reached for your man with my right hand,
He had refused to divulge much infor- instead of my left, he would now be dead. So
mation about himself except to infer vaguely try no tricks on me, bronze man. You could
that he had come from off the Arctic ice kill me—yes; but not before I could kill this
pack, which obviously was a lie, it being re- man of yours.”
garded as an impossibility. He had disap- “What do you want?” Doc asked qui-
peared from the settlement as mysteriously etly.
as he had come. “First, the goggles.”
Several strange deaths among the Without further argument, Doc went
Eskimo population had been credited by into the laboratory and returned with the
them to Ool, but this was thought to be su- goggles. He tossed them to Ool.
perstitious fancy on their part, since no direct “You have discrimination,” Ool said,
evidence of Ool’s guilt could be obtained and flatly. “I could wish I had you for a partner
fatalities in each case having been attended instead of Watches Bowen.”
by severe local inflammation and swelling, “What else do you want?”
and no autopsies having been performed, “Escape—that is all.” Ool spoke like an
death had been credited by settlement au- inefficient phonograph. “I am not greedy. I
thorities to pernicious infection, or simple might bargain with you for your dirigible. But
blood poisoning. that would incur complications. I prefer to
Renny jarred his huge fists together consolidate my gains, and strike another
restlessly. “What say we take a trip, Doc, time.”
over—” “You propose to do what now?” Doc
“—over the Arctic ice pack,” Long Tom asked.
supplied. “We can use—”
“I am going to move back and enter “He never was under the influence of
your elevator,” Ool said. “I shall drag it. No man can embrace either of the twin
Watches Bowen, and I shall drag your man sisters and live.”
also. My right hand is death. Understand! “You mean he faked it—pretended to
But you have my word that it will function be knocked out in order to get us in there
only if you interfere with my escape.” and nab us?”
“What do you intend doing with Ham?” “Obviously.”
Doc demanded. “Then something’s gone screwy as
“I do not want him. Nor do I wish to hell!” Watches snarled. “There’s a leak
encourage reprisals from you by killing him. somewhere. Savage has been tipped off to
If you do not interfere with my escape, I shall every plan we’ve made.” The mob leader’s
leave him at the bottom of the elevator shaft hand clawed at the front of his vest, jerked
unhurt. Is it agreed?” fiercely at his gold watch chain.
Above everything else, Doc Savage Dimiter Daikoff came forward silently,
was solicitous about the safety of his aides. proffering cigarettes, but Watches knocked
“It is agreed, ” he said. the package out of his hand.
Without further words, Ool backed out “You’re beginning to get under my
of the door with his human burdens, entered skin!” he rasped.
an elevator, and sank the eighty-six stories “Hold onto your nerves,” Ool cau-
to the ground. tioned. He produced the goggles from his
Eventually the elevator came back to pocket. “We have these—that is one impor-
the eighty-sixth floor. Ham was in it, lashed tant thing.”
with his back to the handrail. Watches continued to stare malevo-
“Let’s go after that scut!” Renny lently at Dimiter Daikoff, at the scar on his
roared, crowding into the elevator. neck, the tragically-glowing dark eyes, the
Doc vetoed the proposal. “Not now. I high cheek bones, hollow cheeks, the su-
have other plans. You men wait.” perb muscular power that even the swarthy
The bronze man got them out, then man’s ill-fitting suit could not hide.
went down alone in the cage. Shortly afterward, Dimiter Daikoff
Doc’s aides crowded about Ham, firing found occasion to leave the cabin.
queries. Watches Bowen jerked a thumb after
“That while-faced, death-fingered fel- him.
low isn’t human!” Ham shuddered. “Savage knows too much; he evidently
finds out our plans,” he said. “I wonder if the
leak could be that damned patriot?”
ABOARD Watches Bowen’s moored Ool showed no emotion, but asked,
yacht, Dimiter Daikoff, the big, dark, scarred “Need we take chances?”
patriot, moved swiftly to bring out more “Hell, no!” Watches growled.
eighty-year-old brandy as Watches Bowen “I will shake hands with him when he
and Ool tramped aboard and shoved noisily returns,” Ool said emotionlessly. “I will use
through the door. my right hand.”
Watches was in a savage mood. His Dimiter Daikoff came back after a time
neck was swelling from Doc Savage’s chok- and Ool stood up.
ing, and his head felt like a thousand steel “I wish to compliment you on the ex-
mallets were knocking on it. He gulped the cellent serving of the brandy,” he said.
brandy greedily. “Shake hands with me, if you will.”
“Some stuff, them twin sisters of Dimiter Daikoff was standing very
yours,” he snarled at Ool. close. He reached out readily to take Ool’s
“There is no known poison in your proffered hand.
world more deadly than the twin sisters,” Ool But at the last instant the big patriot’s
replied. forward-reaching hand swerved, but down
“Then how come Savage snapped out toward the goggles in Ool’s left hand. His
of it so quick?” Watches demanded. flashing grab was accurately directed. He
“He did not come out of it.” got the goggles.
“What do you mean?” All in the same motion, it seemed, he
lunged to one side and his other hand
clawed out and caught Watches by the against the wall, badly shaken. His endur-
throat. He jerked the thick-waisted gangster ance was tremendous.
clear of the floor. At the same instant Monk, with his
For the second time that evening, chair, rushed Watches. The gangster had
Watches Bowen thought a tornado had fun- gained his feet and was whirling the watch
neled into the room and was stirring splin- which had been in the secret pocket up his
tered timbers about his head. sleeve. Since escaping with Ool from Doc
The big, dark man’s throat grip tight- Savage’s office, Watches had not re-armed
ened until the room was a red blur in himself with an automatic. He did not appear
Watches’ bulging eyes. Then Ool sliced to- to be concerned about it. His lips writhed in a
ward Dimiter Daikoff with his right hand flut- killer’s snarl as he opened his hand and let
tering. Watches felt himself lifted, hurled. He the watch fly.
crashed against Ool, knocked him down. The watch was one of Bowen’s pet
Watches worked his jaw spasmodi- weapons. The mechanism had been re-
cally, trying to talk. When he wrenched moved from the case and a quantity of mol-
words out, they came in a hoarse rasp. ten lead inserted. Bowen could hurl the
“It’s Doc Savage!” he choked. watch as accurately as he could aim a re -
“Yes,” came the tragic-voiced patriot’s volver.
affirmation. “It is Doc Savage.” The leaded watch plummeted toward
Monk with the speed of a projectile. Monk
ducked as the missile struck his chair. The
UPON hearing the struggle, Monk watch splintered entirely through the thin
came charging in from the other cabin where wicker of the boat chair and struck Monk
he had been lying on a bed in pretended lightly on the chest.
convalescence. Monk bellowed, came in with the chair
“Grab a chair, Monk,” Doc called out. as a battering-ram. The gangster lurched to
“Hold it in front of you. Ool’s touch is death!” one side. The chair scraped his shoulder
Ool scrambled to his feet ahead of and went into the wall with such force that
Watches. Crouching, he sidled in toward the legs splintered the cabin sheathing.
Doc, with his right hand weaving like the The gangster’s hand dipped to his
head of a coiled moccasin. wide coat pocket. It whipped out clutching
Doc did not wait for an attack. He another leaded watch. There was a chain
hurled forward, avoided the moccasin thrust attached. It was the gangster’s habit to use
of the assassin, and thudded bronze knuck- the weighted timepiece as a substitute for a
les on Ool’s jaw. blackjack. He swung the unique weapon at
Ool reeled back, collapsed against the Monk’s head.
wall. But he sprang up, cat-quick, and sidled Jerking the chair around, Monk side-
in again. Had Doc been able to throw more swiped the clumsy weapon in a vicious
weight into the jaw punch, Ool, unnaturally swing at the gangster. The chair knocked the
strong though he was, would have caved in leaded timepiece from Watches Bowen’s fist,
then. and went on to thud heavily against his
As Ool slunk in for a second attack, shoulder.
Doc drew out one of the small glass bulbs The gangster reeled back. There was
which were his anesthetic bombs. He a jangle of breaking glass as his heavy bulk
snapped it to the floor. It shattered. Doc held crashed into a porthole.
his breath. At the same moment, Doc Savage,
“Hold your breath!” Ool yelled at eluding Ool’s fourth successive moccasin
Watches Bowen. jab, sent the tall pale man crashing to the
Doc had half expected this, recalling wall. Ool struggled up again, but now no-
that in his office Ool had survived one of the ticeably weakened.
bombs in similar fashion. Watches Bowen’s voice roared in sav-
Doc made a pass at Ool, dodged the age desperation. “The hell with the goggles,
assassin’s finger thrust as before, and Ool! Let’s get out of here!”
planted a clean blow to the face. The gang chief hurled his heavy bulk
An ordinary man would have been backward out the broken, oversize porthole,
knocked out. Ool was only flung back
jangling the rest of the glass pane to the It was some hours before Johnny,
floor. Ool made a gangling lunge to the door. checking the airports and railway stations at
Outside, they tumbled head-first into a Doc’s suggestion, learned of the plane’s de-
speedboat which was moored under the parture.
stern.
“Give her the gun!” Watches yelled
frantically. Chapter XI
There was a sudden roar as the ARCTIC PROCESSION
speedboat engine came to life. A machine
gun stuttered out. It must have been lying in LIKE a moonbeam caught up, con-
the boat. The rain of slugs drove Doc and gealed, and set adrift again, a cruising dirigi-
Monk flat on the deck. ble, a silver sliver against the bleak, sub-
The speedboat, running without lights, Arctic sky, droned over the Canadian north-
roared swiftly away with water piling up in its west at a rate of speed highly unusual for
wake. Doc and Monk stood on the deck and such ships. The speed of the dirigible—
stared after it. almost two hundred miles an hour—was
Before Monk’s admiring eyes, Doc achieved through improved propulsion
Savage obliterated the Dimiter Daikoff dis- power and lessened wind resistance.
guise. He gouged from his mouth the wad- Doc Savage had personally developed
ding which had produced the effect of high the alloy motors, and Doc, with help from
cheek bones. A deft movement of his thumb Monk, had succeeded in synthesizing an
and finger removed a pair of dark glass cup- inflating gas, noninflammable, with substan-
like lenses which had fitted snugly over his tially greater lifting power than helium or hy-
eyeballs. A chemical paste cleared the last drogen.
trace of blackness from his bronze hair. He At the settlement of Resolution, on
peeled off the collodion-manufactured scar Great Slave Lake, the silver dirigible nosed
which slanted from the lobe of his ear down down for refueling. Doc and his five inquiring
across his neck. aides learned there that a two-motored
Monk grinned. “The patriot un- transport plane carrying ten men had
masked,” he said. “I didn’t know you myself touched for gas and oil two hours before
at first as Dimiter Daikoff. Say, was there them.
sure enough a Dimiter Daikoff?” “Ool and Watches Bowen, ” Monk mut-
“The police radio calls were legiti- tered.
mate,” Doc supplied. “I merely took advan- “Deduction corroborated,” Johnny
tage of them to gain Watches Bowen’s con- agreed.
fidence.” In the air again, boring into the north-
west, the slender dirigible was like a bright
needle threading together a thousand-mile
AN hour later, from an obscure Long line of tall spruces and black monzonite
Island airport, there sounded the multiple ridges. Hour after hour, the craft drilled over
drone of airplane engines as a big ship, the great, lonely land, rising higher as it ap-
massive of hull and with a wide wing spread, proached the Alaskan border, in order to
barely cleared the twinkling line of lights clear the Yukon Rockies.
marking the edge of the landing field. In the cabin, enclosed in the hull, Doc
Under its heavy weight of men and and his aides were comfortable. Ham was at
fuel, the ship rose sluggishly, circling the the controls. Long Tom, in charge of radio
field and gaining altitude, then it put on communications, kept in regular contact with
speed and throbbed away into the north- ground stations for the purpose of determin-
west. ing weather conditions over their intended
For passengers, the ship carried line of flight.
Watches Bowen, Ool, Ham-hock Piney, There was no great need for this how-
Honey Hamilton, Squirrel Dorgan, and four ever, since the streamlined bag cut down
other men. Nine of them, and a pilot. As vi- wind resistance greatly over conventional
cious an assortment of criminals as had ever designs, rendering the craft easily manage-
disgraced a good plane. able in any wind less than a hurricane.
Appointed by Doc as navigator for the exactly. The paper was a bill for such a di-
trip, Renny spent much time looking over rection finder that had been built for Watches
charts. Bowen.”
Monk did nothing more creative than “Maybe it’s a phony?”
to recline in his bunk and tickle the ear of his “Maybe. ” The bronze man made a
pet pig with his toe. slight gesture. “We have no better clue. ”
The pig, Habeas Corpus by name, had “Learn anything else?” Monk asked.
missed the hostilities in New York. The rea- “Very little as applies to this case.”
son was unusual. A certain famous psy- “You didn’t find out what the goggles
chologist, amazed at the intelligence which were for?”
the porker seemed to possess, had re- “Regrettably, no.”
quested, in all seriousness, permission to Habeas Corpus made insistent grunt-
seclude the pig for study. ings. Monk resumed his lazy rubbing of the
Not less than fifty times, Monk had told porker’s ear.
all who would listen of the learned man’s “I’d give the curl out of Habeas’s tail,”
findings. the homely chemist declaimed, “to know
“The guy said Habeas was a wizard of what those goggles are good for.”
a hog,” Monk repeated. “He said that Ha- Big-fisted Renny looked up from his
beas—” charts.
Ham snarled, “Will you shut up about “Listen, Doc,” he said, “have you the
that porky freak, you missing link!” slightest idea of what is behind all of this?”
Monk only grinned. The bronze man shook his head
Habeas Corpus was a remarkable slowly.
sight to behold. He was a runty razorback, “That is not yet clear,” he said.
with the snout of a possum, legs of a stag,
and great flapping ears that took the wind
when he ran and looked like they were going AT Point Barrow, on the north Alaskan
to fly away with him. Coast, the silver dirigible settled down for its
Habeas Corpus, reacting contentedly last refueling. As in Resolution, Doc learned
to Monk’s foot massaging, emitted soft here that Watches Bowen’s plane had pre-
grunts. ceded him by a short time.
Whenever Monk went on a trip, he And, since it was from Point Barrow
took Habeas. Habeas Corpus was an intelli- that the radiogram had been transmitted to
gent porker; Monk had trained him until he Doc concerning the original appearance into
could perform things which amazed those civilization of Ool, Doc made further inquir-
whose acquaintance with porkers had been ies. In particular he contacted an old Scotch
limited to a slab of bacon. fur trader, who had harbored Ool for a time
in his cabin, and who knew the North Alas-
kan coast as few men did.
MONK shifted his administrations from “I understand,” Doc said, “that it is
Habeas Corpus’s left ear to the right, then considered an impossibility for Ool to have
asked, “Doc, have you any idea where we’re come off the ice pack, as he claimed.”
gonna run into that gang?” “Aye, ‘tis that,” the rosy-cheeked old
“Yes,” Doc answered, “I have.” Scot replied, pleased to have the famous
“Huh?” Monk squirmed. “After we bronze man coming to him for information.
leave Point Barrow, I thought we were going “Why?”
to run blind.” “On account of nae mon could
“We will cruise over the ice pack, us- wi’hstand the exposure, ” explained the
ing our radio direction finder in an attempt to trader.
locate specific static disturbances,” Doc said. Doc nodded. “I know. No food, no fuel,
“Where in blazes did you get onto that chunked-up ice to make hard traveling, open
hunch?” leads where a man might slip into the water,
“The information,” Doc supplied, “was a wind like rawhide—it would be beyond
contained on some papers of Watches Bo- human endurance for a man to make the
wen’s which I examined while playing the trip, you think.”
part of Dimiter Daikoff. It was not a clear clue
“Aye. ‘Tis self-evident, mon. The Arctic A hodge-podge of noises, conven-

pack lies unexplored tae this day, a dead tional static disturbances, came through the
white space on the map.” loud-speaker. There were buzzes and burrs
Doc nodded again. “What is your idea and whines and crackles. But they could
about it? Where do you think Ool came have been duplicated at almost any point on
from?” the earth.
The old Scot shrugged gnarled shoul- Suddenly, the dirigible filled with a soft
ders. “In my life, I ha’ seen strange things, low note which throbbed and ran high up the
but Ool be the strangest.” musical scale and back again; the sound
Doc held up the goggles. “Have you was not new static disturbance, but Doc
seen these?” Savage’s trilling, that weird sound, so un-
The old Scot’s face lighted with recog- consciously a part of him, which he made in
nition. “Ool had such things. The sun, he moments of surprise or puzzlement.
said, hurt his eyes. He lay in my cabin for a The bronze man’s inordinately sensi-
solid week, not venturing out. That was tive ears, conditioned by intensive training to
when first he came off the ice pack—” catch sounds above and below the usual
“But I thought you said it was impossi- range considered possible for human recep-
ble for him to have come off the pack.” tion, had identified a peculiar static sound
“Aye,” the old Scot replied imperturba- coming from the finder.
bly, “but where else could he ha’ come To Doc’s aides, the finder continued to
from?” pour out the usual din of static. But Doc,
Doc, looking intently at the man, said turning the loop device, gave steering direc-
nothing. tions to Johnny at the controls. Johnny
The trader met Doc’s gold-flecked swung the dirigible in a more westerly direc-
eyes without flinching. He said: “I know not. tion.
Certain ‘tis, there be more of the devil to Ool Within an hour the eerie static distur-
than of mon or the heavenly speerit. At first, bance, which at first only Doc had heard,
this Ool were not like a human being.” was audible to all. It came over the loud-
“What do you mean?” Doc asked. speaker in a high, rhythmic thrumming, each
“There were such things like this: note being throttled off in an entirely un-
Fire—Ool tried to catch it in his hand, as earthly manner, only to swell again in a fash-
though it were a bird. When he got so’s he ion even more unearthly.
could talk a bit, he said he had never before As Johnny drove the dirigible toward
seen fire! Such things as that.” the sound, the noise grew louder, filling the
“Why did he leave you?” gondola with its strange pulsing clamor. It
The old Scot’s face grimaced. “I drove grew so insistent that Doc cut down the loud-
him out at the end o’ my shotgun.” speaker volume control to almost the abso-
“Why?” lute minimum.
“I was afeered a’ him. One day I There came a moment when Monk let
picked up his goggles, bein’ curious. Worth- out an excited bellow. Standing in the rear of
less things they be. You canna see through the gondola, looking out behind, the pleas-
them. But he came at me wi’ sech a unholy antly ugly chemist had been experimenting
look in his flat eyes, and his hand—the right with the strange goggles, trying them on his
hand, I mind ‘twas—reachin’ out for me eyes, squinting, ogling, attempting in every
somehow like a snake. It gave me the shud- way possible to see through the thick lenses
ders. I tossed him the goggles and drove of obsidian blackness.
him out.” “What’s eating you?” Ham clipped,
startled at Monk’s show of excitement.
“Down here—everybody—look!” Monk
TAKING the air again, Doc headed his clamored without turning around.
silver dirigible out over the sea at Point Bar- “Look where?” Renny complained. “I
row in a northerly direction. After a few hours don’t see anything.”
above the desolate Arctic pack, which “Are you blind?” Monk blared. “Right
looked, from their great height, like a sink full below us!”
of chipped ice, he turned on his radio direc- “You’re crazy!” Long Tom put in.
tion finder. “There’s nothing there but ice.”
“Don’t kid me at a time like this!” Monk The predominating tone, however, was
howled. “See that pillar of fire? It must be a golden; not so much the gold of solid flame,
hundred feet high! What is it?” but as of a thick fog in which every separate
“Fire! Fire on the ice?” particle of moisture was a floating globule of
“Yeah! Comin’ out of the ice. It’s kind gold.
of weaving—not like regular flame—more At about the hundred-foot level, the
like liquid fire!” writhing pillar, in a thinning golden haze,
Ham laughed derisively. “A column of blurred into nothingness.
liquid fire a hundred feet high coming out of Johnny had nosed down to a hundred
the ice! Nuts! There’s nothing there at all— feet and drifted in as close as he dared.
only ice and some fog.” From the low height it was apparent that the
Monk turned around angrily to face pillar—whatever it was—issued from a rock
Ham in the gondola. He could not see Ham. crevice. A long, black rent in the dismal wel-
He became conscious then, that he was ter of pack ice was clearly identifiable as
wearing the black goggles. He pawed off the rock.
goggles and pointed downward. “Work the dirigible in closer,” Doc di-
“Right down there—look.” He stared rected. He adjusted the black goggles to
himself. His jaw fell. Johnny’s eyes to make the mysterious flame
“Blazes!” he ejaculated. “Gone now!” visible to him.
“Yeah, but Doc, we’ll burn!” Johnny
objected in quick dismay.
DOC’S compelling voice broke in. “Let But he did as Doc suggested. Closer
me have those goggles, Monk.” and closer the silver dirigible floated until, in
Monk handed them over. Doc adjusted Johnny’s eyes, it was very close to the
them quickly to his eyes, looked down. His weirdly writhing flame.
weird trilling note throbbed through the gon- With motors idling, and the dirigible’s
dola. One after another, the bronze man had silver sides bathed in the living golden glow,
his aides look down through the goggles. Doc pointed to the sensitized thermometer
Expressions of confused surprise and awe visible on the outside of the gondola wall.
came from each. “Heat!” Monk squalled. “Then it is a
“Well, I’ll be a pork chop off Monk’s fire!”
pig!” Ham exclaimed. “It is only up to room temperature,”
Each man, when he looked through Doc corrected. “There is no flame, as we
the goggles, saw precisely what Monk had know it.”
seen—a tall writhing column of what was “Enough to give a guy the jitters!”
apparently liquid fire issuing from the ice. Monk grunted. “A flame a hundred feet high,
When the goggles were removed from the making no noise, giving off no more heat
eyes, the column of fire disappeared. than a hot-air register, and not even visible
“What is it?” Monk gasped. unless you’re looking at it through black
“I do not know,” Doc said flatly. “It cer- goggles.”
tainly is not a gas flame.” He continued Johnny lost his trepidation and sent
studying the phenomenon through the black the dirigible directly into the mysterious light
goggles. “Nose the dirigible down, Johnny. which was visible only through the goggles.
Slack speed and float in as close as you Nothing happened. They flew down lower,
can.” seeking to examine the cleft in the ice from
“It looks like this clears up the mystery which the thing came. This, it developed,
of the black goggles,” Renny said excitedly. was larger than had at first appeared. It was
“Ool needed them to locate this place.” many feet wide, more than a half a mile long.
“I think there is more to it than that, So interested were the occupants of
Renny,” Doc answered. the dirigible in examining the source of the
At closer range, the thing which fiery plume that the new development all but
seemed to be fire took on more detail. There took them by surprise.
seemed to be a living, liquid, white-hot core “Here!” Doc Savage said sharply, and
swelling out smoothly in a golden blush, lunged for the controls. “Let me have them!”
tinged with flashes of opalescence-glazed “What’s wrong?” Johnny demanded.
yellows, purples, reds, greens, and blues. Doc pointed. “Look!”
The big-worded geologist stared. “Holy cow!” Renny exploded. “It’s

“I’ll be superamalgamated!” he ex- gonna be tough if they’re carrying much artil-
ploded. lery.”
“They will be careful not to cripple the
dirigible,” Doc said positively. “Remember,
A PLANE was hurtling toward them. It they have wanted this ship from the first.
was a gray machine, hard to distinguish “And the only way they can get it,”
against the leaden sky. It came on swiftly. gaunt Long Tom said, “is to cripple us.”
Details became distinguishable. Renny bounced his big fists together.
“Watches Bowen,” Doc decided. “It “That’s a job they won’t find easy.”
answers the description of the craft in which Doc settled the dirigible downward.
he came from New York.”
“Hey!” Johnny gulped. “You’re going Chapter XII

down into the crack that flame is comin’ out THE GOLDEN GODDESS
of!”
But to all except Johnny, the landing THE crevice made a snug shelter for
process appeared to be merely an expert the dirigible. They tied down the bag. Doc,
maneuvering job in clear air. To the electrical with Long Tom’s assistance, removed a fe w
wizard, wearing the black goggles, the silver delicate parts from the silver craft’s ignition
sliver carrying its freight of human lives was system, parts necessary for the operation of
nesting down in a bath of fire. the dirigible; since there were no other simi-
As softly as a leaf falling through a lar motors in the world, the removal of these
golden autumn haze, the dirigible came to
rest on the crevice floor.
key parts rendered the dirigible positively MONK, from his position of safety
theft proof. within the cavern entrance, called frantically,
Overhead, Watches Bowen’s plane and when the animal, dazed, did not re-
wheeled slowly, like a huge buzzard hung spond, Monk leaped out like an anthropoid
between the pale glaze of the sky and the ape springing from a tree.
leaden gray of the far-stretching ice pack. Bullets slashed around him. One went
“They must be waiting for us to move through his coat. He paid no heed. With the
away from the dirigible, ” Monk decided. ease of an anthropoid picking up a coconut,
Johnny had been busy studying the the homely chemist swept up the pig and
rock formation with his monocle magnifier. lunged back for the cavern mouth. He made
The wiry geologist was an expert field man it.
as well as a theoretician. His geological ex- Ham groaned in pretended disap-
perience now bore fruit. pointment. “For a minute,” he said, “I thought
“The configuration of this rock cleft in- we were going to have pork chops for sup-
dicates a substantial cavern opening may be per.”
expected at about that point.” His lean hand Monk glared, breathing heavily. “Some
indicated. day, you two-bit shyster, you’ll make one
Doc agreed. “We seem to be on an crack too many against this hog!”
uncharted island or rocky reef thrust up Above them, the noisy airplane motors
through the ice pack. The steady current of cut out. The sudden stillness seemed to
warm air along this crevice is of sufficient press down like something tangible, alive.
volume to indicate the presence of an un- The Arctic hush, which lay interminable over
derground labyrinth.” the desert of ice, was broken only by the soft
Doc’s gold-flecked eyes squinted up at complaining whine of wind in struts and
Watches Bowen’s circling craft. Now and wires as the huge plane dipped down and
again the plane, wheeling above, was mo- leveled off.
mentarily obscured. “They’re going to crash!” Ham ex-
Doc eyed his men. “You have your claimed.
emergency packs?” “Yeah!” Monk growled. “But they’re
They nodded. comin’ down in the cleft.”
Monk said, “I’ll put Habeas Corpus There was a cracking as the undercar-
under my coat.” riage of Watches Bowen’s plane was
“The next time their plane is out of wrenched from the fuselage by contact with
sight,” Doc warned, “we will make a break. up-rearing ice cakes frozen into position as
We might as well look this place over while solidly as though they were cement.
we are here. ” The plane nosed half over, poised like
They watched tensely. The plane an off-balanced bird, then flopped back, tilt-
drifted out of sight. ing on one crumpled wing.
Doc said: “All right!” The door in the side of the cabin burst
They made their dash. The plane open. The mobsters spilled out, half leaping,
sliced into view before Doc and his aides half falling. All carried submachine guns.
quite reached their objective. They were “It’s dog eat dog now,” Renny rum-
sighted by the flying crooks. Machine guns bled, and his long puritanical face grew more
from above with a macabre cackle; gun mournful than ever in anticipation of the
sound pummeled against the sides of the fight.
rocky crevasse. “Yeah,” Monk agreed. “Notice where
Rock chips mingled with spattering they landed? We gotta smear ‘em to get
lead as Doc and his men lunged for the back to our ship.”
safety of a great overhang. They made it “They would not have risked landing if
safely, but at the last instant a flying rock we had not come down first,” Doc said.
chip struck sharply against Monk’s coat. Ha- “They probably have been aware that we
beas Corpus was on that side. The ungainly were trailing them across Canada.”
shoat squealed in pain, flounced and fell out, Long Tom nodded. “Their radio receiv-
landing heavily. He rolled about, squealing ing set could have picked up our communi-
under the leaden hail. cations with ground stations.”
Doc whipped out his flashlight and

turned it on the darker recess below the THE relatively narrow granite cleft
ledge. which they had entered led into a limestone
“Hey!” Renny boomed. “That looks like labyrinth. They produced flashlights. The
that cavern Johnny was predicting!” caverns progressed down at a sharp angle,
and widened out into rooms of awe-inspiring
proportions.
THAT Watches Bowen had not acted It was suddenly not at all cold.
without forethought, soon became evident. Stalactites and stalagmites looked like
One of the men was carrying a wooden massive ivory columns. There were whole
case. He opened this and produced a domes of crystalline formation which glit-
weapon resembling a shotgun. He charged tered like massed diamonds under the pry-
the barrel with a slender rod to which was ing glare of the flashlight beams. Some of
attached a cylinder resembling that on a sky- the rooms were cathedral arched, and so
rocket. He aimed at the ledge and fired. high that the white pencil paths of light from
The results were cataclysmic, for the the hand flashes could not delineate them.
man had shot a rifle grenade. There was a Monk craned his bull neck in rapt ad-
tremendous concussion. Rock fell. Frozen miration.
ice and some snow clouded up. “King Solomon’s temple must of been
“Holy cow!” Renny boomed. “We’d like this,” he said, and turned to call to Ha-
better get back inside. They’ve got us in a beas Corpus, who was lagging behind.
spot!” “Yeah.” he continued soulfully, “this sure
“We’ll see how far back this goes,” would be a swell setup for a harem.”
Doc agreed. “But wait. We’ll insure that they “You would think of that,” Ham said
don’t entomb us in here. ” dryly, aware of Monk’s weakness for women,
In a loud voice, the bronze man now singly or in numbers.
yelled at Watches Bowen and his followers, Echoes bounded back and forth be-
conveyeing the information that important tween the cavern walls in a bewildering and
parts had been removed from the dirigible. oftentimes frightening manner, foot scufflings
“They won’t blast the roof down on us and voices going out into the air and being
now for fear of damaging the parts,” he said. wafted back in distorted sound splashes.
They moved back into the cavern. It Doc, in a low voice, called a halt.
was small at first, and gave indications of “Nobody talk,” he ordered.
playing out. No one did talk and no one moved;
“I sure hate to leave that dirigible,” yet, disturbingly, the echoes of foot scufflings
Ham said anxiously. and garbled conversation did not cease. In
“It is perfectly safe,” Doc assured. fact, as they waited there, listening, the ech-
“Since they expect to be the ones to ride oes grew alarmingly. They welled to a veri-
back in it, they will be careful not to cripple table clamor.
it.” “I thought so,” Doc said guardedly.
“Doc,” Monk said, “let’s stay here and “The echoes are not all our own.”
fight it out.” “From the sound of them,” Long Tom
“Nothing would be gained by making a whispered, “Watches Bowen and his gang
stand,” Doc pointed out. “They would use must have stumbled onto a shortcut. They
those grenades, if they could do so without sound close.”
burying us.” “They are close,” Doc affirmed.
“O. K., Doc,” Monk said, resignedly, The bronze man conferred for a mo-
“but I’m craving heavy action.” ment under his breath with Johnny on a
“You may get it,” Ham reminded, “if question of geology. Although Doc, as a re-
we run into a pack of the black things back in sult of his exhaustive studies, his self-
here.” imposed mental, physical, and emotional
Ham spoke half jokingly, with no ink- discipline, had accumulated a store of
ling that the time was close when he was to knowledge greater in every case than that of
take the black things in anything but a joking his five aides, he nevertheless consulted
way. frequently with them on questions involving
their specialty.
He did this because he was a thor- The attackers counted up their losses.
ough man who preferred to check his rea- “Three men knocked out by their
sonings. On the present geological question, damned mercy bullets!” Watches Bowen
Doc and Johnny came to quick agreement. grated. “Find better cover, you birds—no,
“Come on,” Doc called out, and wait!” His voice stabbed with soft intensity.
whipped his light ahead as he led off into a Speech echoes of Doc and his men
cavern which narrowed rapidly as they hur- were wafting clearly to the attackers from
ried along. down the tunnel. They were echoes of
Renny, casting backward glances in alarm.
the darkness, caught a glimpse of a flash- Long Tom was talking.
light carried by one of the pursuing gang- “I’ve been back a few rods with Doc,”
sters. he barked. “We examined the rock walls—
“They are close,” he rapped. “Look and this is a dead-end tunnel!”
behind!” “You mean it don’t lead nowhere?”
Monk demanded loudly.
“Right!” Long Tom agreed. “The only
THE others looked. They were not way we can get out is the way we came in. ”
quick enough to see the white beam of the “And that gang has that opening
flashlight, but were quick enough to see the blocked with machine guns!” Ham clipped.
saffron flare which coughed from the muzzle “Holy cow!” Renny’s huge voice
of an automatic. roared. “Ain’t there no way out back here at
Pursued by roaring echoes, the bullet all?”
slammed down the narrow entry past the Even Doc’s cautioning voice was
heads of Doc and his aides, making musical picked up by the malicious echoes and car-
sounds against hanging stalactites. ried back clearly to Watches’ avidly listening
“Down on the floor!” Doc ordered. mob.
“Douse the lights!” “Do not speak so loud!” Doc warned.
More saffron flashes bloomed at gun “They will hear us. We will have to keep
tips and more bullets slammed with echoing them from knowing the jam we are in.”
thunder down the narrow stone corridor. Back at the open end of the tunnel
“Back up,” Doc called to his men, Watches Bowen became galvanized in ac-
“around the bend here! Find cover before tion.
you open with your superfirers!”
As they felt around in the dark and
flopped behind protecting rocks, the saffron “THIS is our chance,” Watches purred.
blobs which marked the exploding pistols of “Ham-hock, you’re carrying that grenade
their enemies became obscured by slow gun. We’ll blow this opening shut.”
angry streaks of red, as the gangsters The fat Negro’s appreciative voice
opened up with their machine guns. Lead echoed back.
and flying rock chips sprayed the rock tun- “Lock dem in dar foah a hundred
nel. Echoes resembled close thunder. yeahs, huh?”
Loud above everything else sounded “Lock ‘em in, hell!” Watches whis-
the bullfiddle bellow of Doc’s supermachine pered. “We’ll close it up, then give ‘em a day
pistols, as his aides returned the fire. Pale or two to think it over. They’ll be ready to say
greenish-gold flares fanned out from the ‘uncle,’ when we blast it open again.”
heavy snouts of the strange mercy weapons. Watches selected a crack, rupture of
The efficient superfirers, manned expertly by which would cave in the entry. Ham-hock
Doc’s men, were having an effect. took careful aim.
Back at the crooks’ end of the rock Careful though Watches and his men
corridor, Watches Bowen cursed savagely had been to speak in undertones, the cavern
and gave his men word to hold up their fire echoes had carried their voices.
until they could determine the extent of their Monk’s reckless voice sounded. “Let’s
injuries. His words were plainly audible. charge ‘em, Doc. I ain’t cravin’ to be locked
Doc’s men quit firing, also. Slamming in here.”
echoes settled down like thunder rolling “Do not be a fool, Monk,” echoed
away. Doc’s chastising voice. “We could never get
through in the face of half a dozen machine hastily along the rock-strewn floor. Their
guns.” flashlights cut fantastic white swaths in the
“We could clip some of ‘em with our Stygian gloom.
superfirers!” Monk pleaded desperately. Ool was following certain trail marks,
“What good would that do,” Doc rea- vague scratches, a pile of rocks here and
soned logically. “In the end, they’d wipe us there. His manner, his sureness, indicated
all out.” he himself had placed the guiding marks.
“What are we gonna do then?” Renny The labyrinthian chambers were
bawled. empty, dead, devoid of all life or living mat-
“Do nothing. We will stay here and ter. Everywhere, under the flashlight glare,
take our chances with the explosion. It is the the walls, floor and roof showed coldly with a
only thing we can do.” kind of leaden glaze.
Watches Bowen’s malignant voice “Dis heah place give a man creeps,”
crashed loud in the tunnel. He was not Ham-hock Piney asserted, rolling his eyes
speaking to his men this time. He was uneasily. “Dat’s accordin’ to any man’s fig-
speaking to Doc. urin’!”
“This is the payoff!” he yelled. “S av- “These particular caverns,” Ool said
age, you can come out, or stay there! Take enigmatically, “are known as the Land of the
your choice!” Lost. No man penetrates them far and
Doc made no reply. comes out alive.”
A thundering detonation came as “But yo’-all done dat very t’ing,” Ham-
Ham-hock used the grenade gun. There was hock insinuated plaintively.
a blaze of flame. Tunnel ceiling came down. “I did,” Ool agreed. “I was the first to
The walls heaved. do so.”
All the way to the far back end of the The crook party continued onward for
tunnel the rock crashed down, choking the hours.
passage so completely that an object so
small as a rat could not have escaped crush-
ing destruction. The cataclysm was far SUDDENLY, Ool paused in mid stride.
greater than Watches Bowen had expected. He stood looking down. Watches Bowen,
Watches Bowen and his men were coming close behind, bumped into him be-
thrown off their feet by the terrific forces of fore he could stop.
the explosion. Sound throbs assailed their “What’s the matter?” the crook leader
ears with a force almost strong enough to asked.
crack their eardrums. White limestone dust Ool’s long arm pointed to the floor.
billowed. Watches looked, then cursed nerv-
The sound salvos wafted away finally. ously. The others crowded about, staring.
Dust settled. The crooks’ flashlights Clearly defined in white rock dust on
streamed over the piled rock wreckage. the floor were footprints. Small footprints,
“Choked from floor to roof,” Watches delicately formed. The maker of the prints
shrieked. “Those dirigible parts—they’re bur- had apparently been wearing skin-tight moc-
ied!” casins. The indentations showed a firmly
Ool spoke up quietly, “We are dumb modeled heel, high arch, and five toes as
fools, if, given sufficient time, we cannot uncramped and rounded as a child’s. But the
fashion new parts. But it would be much bet- mature spacing of the footprints as they led
ter if we had the black goggles.” off into one of the side chambers, revealed
“We’ll get by,” Watches muttered. clearly they were not the prints of a child.
“Let’s get away from this dust. We might as “What could Sona be doing here?”
well go in it, Ool?” The white-faced man’s flat voice actually
“Yes,” Ool said. “We will go in now.” carried a modicum of emotion.
“Sona?” Watches questioned.
Ool indicated barely discernible
GUIDED by Ool, Watches and his webbed markings in the footprints.
men, carrying the three men made temporar- “It is Sona,” he stated positively. “She,
ily unconscious by the mercy slugs, turned and she only, is privileged to wear footgear
into another of the caverns and stumbled with the imperial design in the weaving. ”
“Who in the hell is Sona?” Watches “Say!” he exploded. “Somebody

wanted to know. oughta—”
Ool, flashing his light in the direction of “Exactly!” Ool interrupted. “We will
the disappearing footprints, did not answer. hold her hostage to guarantee our own
Instead, he said, “She passed a few minutes safety, and to bargain for that which we
ago.” want.”
His arm waved out to call attention “Sure,” Watches emphasized, tugging
ahead, to a fine haze of rock dust which at the gold chain which sprawled across his
hung in the air with a crystalline glitter. vest. “That which may make you boss of the
“Yes, she was here very recently. U. S. A., in a manner of speakin’.”
Come. We will get her. ” Ool turned to Sona with a harsh order.
He turned in the direction taken by the Then suddenly a vast roaring filled the
footprints. He loped along in an ungainly tunnel with so terrific a noise as to make
manner. The others followed closely. past sounds seem, in comparison, a feeble
It was a mere matter of minutes before murmur.
they sighted their quarry—a girl. Watches cursed.
She ran at their approach. She had “An attack from some of your blasted
long flowing hair, gold in hue, and she was countrymen, Ool!” he rasped.
clothed in some sort of gossamery stuff But Ham-hock Piney had another idea.
which clung close, moulding lithesome “Dat’s Doc Savage’s spooks a-
curves as she ran. She wore goggles with shootin’!” he wailed.
enormously thick lenses.
At Watches’ direction, Honey Hamilton
chopped a few machine gun bullets over the Chapter XIII
girl’s head. The caverns had narrowed down FLASHLIGHT TERROR
at this place; the gun thunder was terrific.
The girl did not stop, and it was evi- HAM-HOCK PINEY was correct, but
dent that bullets and gun thunder were only partially so. The bludgeoning sound
something strange in her experience. echoes could be identified as they crashed
“Outrun her!” Watches rapped. closer.
Eventually, they did that. They seized They were the hooting sounds of Doc
her, held her. Savage’s supermachine pistols.
Ool approached with his deadly right “Dat Doc Savage dead!” screamed
hand fluttering in butterflylike motion. The girl Ham-hock. “Dey got to be his ghosts firing
recoiled. It was evident that the butterfly ges- dem hoot guns!”
ture was not new to her. As the crooks doused their lights and
Ool said something to the girl in an un- scattered, leveling automatics and machine
intelligible gibberish. The goggles which she guns in confused haste, one of them
wore were similar to the ones which Ool had dropped his gun and crumpled to the
possessed. Their grotesqueness contrasted ground, a victim of one of the machine pistol
oddly with the softly exquisite curve of her mercy slugs.
cheeks, with her natural blond complexion. Ham-hock stooped and dragged the
Ool snatched the goggles from her unconscious man around a right angle turn
eyes with such ferocity that he left a red into a blind-end tunnel. The other crooks
scratch on her smooth cheek. made a desperate stand. Their thundering
Then Ool turned to Watches. “To have guns stabbed wild flame spurts.
run across her is such luck as I could never The attack, coming unexpectedly and
have hoped for,” he said. from such an unexplainable source, had dis-
“It’s as clear as Manhattan mud to organized them and they did not even real-
me,” Watches growled. “Who the hell is ize for several moments that their guns were
she?” the only ones roaring; that, after the first bull-
“She is—Sona,” Ool said. “In your so- fiddle fusillade, the superfirers of Doc Sav-
called civilization, she would be called Prin- age and his men had stopped firing.
cess Sona.” Then, swooping from out of the dark-
The gang chief’s mind began to work ness, a giant of bronze, by this time a famil-
along his conventionally lawless pattern.
iar phenomenon to Watches Bowen, invaded Doc directed a cessation of fire. Quiet
the cavern. Doc’s aides were close behind. settled down except for the wrangling of
Frenzied yells mixed with gunfire. Fist blows Watches Bowen’s mobsters as the gang
thudded. The last flashlight went out. Dark- chief verbally beat them into line. A horrified
ness was intense. silence followed.
“Don’t shoot!” Watches screamed to Then a new voice sounded. It was
his men. “You’ll kill each other!” Monk’s hoarse bellow.
The gang chief’s hand, wielding his “So long, Bowen!” he taunted. “I’ll tell
leaded watch by the end of its stout chain, ‘em you died brave! We got you right where
chopped down, swinging the deadly weapon we want you now!”
against a human bulk which thrust up close Desperate as was their situation,
against him in the dark. Ham-hock Piney could not throttle a natural
“Hey, don’t do dat to me,” bleated curiosity.
Ham-hock’s aggrieved voice. “How yo’-all done come to life?” he
Ool, throughout the fighting had re- shouted. “We done dynamite a million tons
mained silent, holding onto Sona with one of rock on yo’-all!”
hand, and with the other trying to adjust her “You never dynamited any rock on us!”
goggles to his eyes. Suddenly a flashlight Monk bellowed down the entry.
blazed not six inches from his face. Before “We did so!” the Negro yelled back.
his right arm could moccasin out, the light Monk’s laughter rolled down the black
disappeared and a metallic fist crashed into passageway.
his face, knocking him down. “That wasn’t a dead-end passage you
He lurched to his feet again and blew down,” he advised. “We went out
pawed frenziedly for the girl, Sona. She was through the back of that tunnel. All our talk
gone. took place a block away. You can’t tell about
Doc Savage had developed a faculty voices in this place.”
of judging distance almost to the inch. As the “All right, Monk,” Doc called tolerantly.
last of the flashlights had blacked out, Doc “Let’s get stationed. We have these plotters
had fixed Ool’s position in his mind. Flat- bottled up. Our next job is to smoke them
tened close against the side wall of the tun- out.”
nel, the bronze man had worked forward. Doc flashed on his light and wandered
Then he battered his way through the white beam quickly about, seeking good
Watches’ men. When he flashed his light, he vantage points for his men to crouch behind
was close upon Ool. His fist blow had fol- in a super-machine pistol bombardment of
lowed. At the same instant his other arm the dead-end tunnel.
streaked out to catch the girl around the There was no danger of the light at-
waist. tracting enemy bullets, since Watches Bo-
wen’s men were around an angle. Doc’s
aides added to the single searching beam by
HOLDING her firmly, Doc leaped to switching their own lights on. Monk curiously
one side in the dark and deposited the girl in turned his beam on Doc. What Monk saw in
a position of safety behind a pile of rock the glare caused him to drop Habeas Corpus
fragments which in some past age had fallen from under his arms and stare. He sighed.
from the roof. “I ask you, ” he said at large, “ain’t it
By giving a sibilant signal in the Mayan perfect?”
tongue, Doc indicated to his men that the girl He was referring to the picture which
was safe. His aides responded by unleash- the bronze giant made, standing beside the
ing new blasts from their superfirers. golden-haired girl Sona—she whom Ool had
This new attack demoralized Watches called princess. The girl clung to Doc with
Bowen’s crew completely. They broke and the instinctive trust of a child.
ran, slamming against each other in the “Do you,” Doc asked, “want to get us
dark. They got around the right-angle turn shot at?”
into the blind-end tunnel. Here, Watches and The homely chemist grinned and re-
Ool, screaming orders, managed to rally moved the light from them. Doc stepped to
them. one side to examine the tunnel opening.
“Who is she?” Monk called after him.
“She has not offered that information,” by a terrific blow. Its mechanism was shat-
Doc replied. “She responds to none of the tered.
languages I have spoken with her. Nor can I Doc called a sharp warning to his
understand a word of hers.” men.
Monk suggested, “As soon as you find “Hold onto your machine pistols,” he
how to talk to her, put in a good word for me, rapped. “Do not shoot until we get light. You
will you?” might hit each other.”
From somewhere in the darkness, “It’s the things!” Ham yelled shrilly.
Ham snorted loudly. “What in the devil are they?”
Monk said angrily, “What’d you “We’d better get together,” Doc ad-
mean by that hoot?” vised. “Come over here, all of you!”
The bronze man’s aides never
reached him. There, in the cavern of un-
THE two growled at each other, warm- known horror, something soft and slimy en-
ing up for a battle which never extended be- veloped them, an odious material at which
yond the verbal stage, no matter what the they tore helplessly, accomplishing nothing
provocation. by their most desperate efforts. They could
Monk came over and thrust this face not use the machine pistols.
close to Ham’s. Then, suddenly, Monk’s The material, whatever it was, pressed
flashlight was knocked from his hand. The closer and closer to their faces with a softly
knocking was done with deftness. It went out insidious force which burned their eyes,
from the impact. seared their throats, and imparted weakness
“You lowlife!” Monk gritted at Ham. to their limbs.
“Pick up my flashlight.” One by one, they fell to the floor of the
“Pick it up yourself, ” Ham retorted. cavern, tumbling down and squirming gro-
“You dropped it.” tesquely, to grow weaker and weaker and
“You’re a liar!” Monk bellowed. “You eventually became slack.
knocked it out of my hand!” Doc Savage himself did not escape
“Who’s a liar, you hairy—” Ham broke the fantastic terror, although the bronze man
off as his own flashlight was knocked to the did last longer than the others. He held his
ground and extinguished. breath for minutes in an attempt to escape
“You bush-ape,” he began again, with the noxious substance which, he believed,
new vehemence, “pick up m y flashlight!” exerted its effect by suffocation, and, during
“Pick it up yourself!” Monk blustered. those minutes he rammed about, straining
“You dropped it.” his cabled muscles to their utmost capacity,
“Dropped it nothing! You knocked it seeking to free himself from the slimy en-
out of my hand!” compass. But the material molded about
“Hey, one of us is nuts!” Monk said. him, hemming in his movements and, in the
Both were silent. Ham’s grip tightened end, utterly restraining them.
spasmodically on his sword cane. Monk He had to breathe finally. And when
clawed absently at his bristling red hair. he did, he crumpled to the floor, as com-
Then the cavern resounded with pletely overcome as the others.
Renny’s great bellow.
“Something got my flashlight!” he
howled. Chapter XIV
The cavern was now absolutely dark. BLACK TIDINGS
Doc had felt the golden-haired girl,
Sona, leave his side. She went suddenly, as DOC SAVAGE and his five aides, re-
if torn away by a terrific force. Doc reached viving, found themselves lying on a smooth,
out for her in the blackness. His metallic hard floor in utter darkness. Doc, first to re-
hands closed only on air. He leaped to one cover, called the roll of his men, finding them
side, then the other, groping furiously. He all to be with him, with no one seriously
found no trace of the girl. damaged.
He paused to pull out an emergency “Ugh!” gasped the fastidious Ham.
flashlight. But it was smashed from his hand “When I think of that slimy stuff—”
“Save it,” Monk growled. “We know all “Ham! You hurting my pig?” Monk
about it. Boy, I’d trade Habeas’s left ear for yelled ominously.
some good daylight.” “No, but I will if I get hold of him!” Ham
“Where do you figure we are, Doc?” promised enthusiastically.
Ham questioned. Ham, sitting in the dark, next felt a
“Judging from the pressure against my cold, wet contact against the back of his
drums, and from the change in the tempera- neck, the kind of touch that the pig’s inquisi-
ture, we are a great deal farther down in the tive snout might have made.
earth than when we were captured.” Ham struck out again, felt nothing, but
“We’re not even tied,” Long Tom re - as before the quick action of his hand
marked, hope in his voice. evoked from out of the darkness a strange,
“That is not necessarily a good sign,” small squeal.
Doc reminded. “Monk!” the fastidious lawyer rapped
“Why not?” angrily. “Get your hog away from me!”
“It probably means that whoever or “Nuts!” Monk called inelegantly. “Ha-
whatever is responsible for bringing us here beas is over here.”
considers escape so impossible that binding
us would be a needless precaution. ”
“They frisked our clothes,” Renny SOMETHING tweaked Monk’s ear. He
rumbled. “My pockets are as bare as the slapped at what he thought to be Ham’s of-
Arctic ice pack.” fending fingers; his slapping hand sliced
“And our machine pistols are gone,” empty air, then, suddenly, Habeas was lifted
Renny clipped. away.
“Did they get the goggles, too, Doc?” Monk reached for his pet; his hand
Ham asked. encountered nothing, but he could hear the
“Yes,” Doc said thoughtfully. pig’s frantic squealing. Monk pushed his sim-
“I wonder what happened to Watches ian bulk up from the floor and lunged forward
Bowen?” Renny rumbled. in the darkness, groping. The pig’s squeals
“Hey!” Monk howled suddenly. “Where sounded apparently at his finger tips, as
you suppose my pig is?” He pursed his lips though some one held the animal shoulder-
and whistled, then called: “Habeas! Habeas!” high.
There was a squeal and a pattering “Ham!” Monk grated. “Dang your soul!
rush in the darkness, and the pet pig, an- Put that pig down!”
swering Monk’s call, rammed against his Stumbling about, Monk fell over Ham
legs. Monk was sitting up on the floor. The who barked wrathfully at him.
pig climbed over him like an excited terrier. “Gimme my pig!” Monk thundered in
Then the pig romped in the darkness, his Ham’s ear.
sensitive snout feeling out the others of the Ham jerked away. “I haven’t got your
party. pig! I don’t want your pig! I hate your pig!
“Stay away from me, hog!” Ham Can you get that through your dumb skull?”
warned in a positive manner. “The only way “Yeah,” Monk said in a voice suddenly
I’d welcome you is on a platter with an apple gone very small, “I think I get it. Ham—you
in your mouth. And brown gravy over you, other guys—” He did not finish.
and maybe mashed potatoes.” “Elucidate specifically—” Johnny be-
Doc had been feeling over the floor. gan, then dropped his big words. “Which one
Now he stood up, groped out, contacted a of you just now grabbed my monocle? I call
wall and started feeling along it. that carrying a joke too far.”
“We are in an artificially constructed “Johnny,” Monk questioned, in a voice
room,” he decided aloud. “The floor and ominously calm, “how could anybody see to
walls are tiled. And not a bad job. The sur- take it?”
face is very level.” “I’ll be superamalgamated!” Johnny
Ham, feeling a light jar against his exploded. “It’s the things!”
back, as if Habeas Corpus had touched him, Some distance away in the jet black-
struck out behind him. He hit nothing, but ness, Habeas Corpus commenced squealing
there was a squealing sound. again.
“They took my pig!” Monk bellowed, here. It marks one end of a long, narrow
his voice welling up. room.”
“Something tried to yank a ring off my Doc’s aides came jostling toward him
finger!” Ham shouted. There was the sound in the darkness.
of his furious groping. “I can’t get hold of “String out,” the bronze man directed.
anything!” “You will be close enough together that you
Suddenly bedlam broke out among can touch hands on either side.
Doc’s men. From all sides their clothing was They lined up at the end of the room
plucked as though by tiny pinchers, and tiny, with their backs against the wall.
hammerlike blows rained on their faces and “All right—now forward, slowly,” Doc
bodies. New sounds broke through the commanded. “I will keep talking. Keep pace
blackness, strange, unintelligible sounds— with my voice and with each other. Bend
squeaks, hushed whistlings, harsh clackings. low. Keep sweeping your fists to each side.
Doc’s men fought, shouting, groping Do not let anything get behind you! ”
and clawing. Each time they collided or got Under Doc’s guidance they started
their hands on a moving object, it turned out grimly forward, a human broom that started
to be one of their own number. at one end of the dark room and swept for-
“If I could only hit something,” big- ward. Just as it is the function of a broom to
fisted Renny boomed. keep all débris in front of it, so this human
Monk, hearing renewed squealing, broom strove to push ahead of it the myste-
clearly recognizable as coming from Habeas rious inhabitants of the darkness.
Corpus, appointed himself a one-man res- Forward they moved, slowly, fists
cue party and plunged forward. With his swinging fast. Nothing opposed their pro-
second step he rammed solidly against the gress; it was as if the weird bedevilers were
wall. A shock sent him back to the floor, falling silently back before them, impressed
stunned. by the coöperative attack.
“Doc!” he called. But suddenly there was a thup of a fist
“He was over here, the last I knew,” against some substance.
Long Tom jerked out. “Ouch!” “They’re real!” Renny boomed. “I hit
The thin electrical genius had been one!”
probed sharply by an invisible bedeviler. “Good!” Doc said. “Pick up whatever
you hit and keep moving ahead. ”
“There’s nothing to pick up,” Renny
“TAKE it easy!” the bronze man’s complained. “But I sure slugged something.”
voice was a welcome sound. Thup! Thup! Johnny and Long Tom
“They’re like air!” Renny roared. “You connected simultaneously with solid objects.
can’t hit ‘em. You can poke your fist clear “Grab hold of anything you can!” Doc
through ‘em, and you can’t even feel ‘em!” directed.
“Utterly denuded of tangibility!” Then his own metallic fist hit a soft,
Johnny concurred. yielding object. He grasped with lightning
“I doubt it,” Doc answered. “More likely speed, but found nothing to pick up.
they are creatures with strong muscle re- “They are fast,” he said grimly. “Try to
flexes. They can quickly dodge out of our catch one. Concentrate on forcing them
way.” back.”
“But how can they see?” Ham de- Ham’s sweeping fist was the next to
manded. “This darkness is absolute.” find a target.
“It is a puzzle,” Doc said. “Hey!” he called excitedly. “I got hold
From out of the terror-taut darkness of this one!”
the protesting squeal of Monk’s pig sounded “Stand in your places!” Doc ordered.
again. “Do not let anything pass us! Can you han-
“They’re devilin’ Habeas!” Monk raved. dle it alone, Ham?”
“Maybe, ” Ham said, sarcastically, “I—think so! Ouch, it bites!”
“they’re human, after all. I’ ve had the same There were brief and furious struggle
itch for a long time.” sounds. Then came taut silence.
Doc’s voice issuing crisp orders. “Over Ham’s disgusted voice said, “It’s that
here with me, everybody! There is a corner damn pig!”
Then they were assailed with a furious “What have they got down here to
battering. make anything out of?” Ham wondered.
From out of the dark, high and low the Doc pushed at a triangular-shaped
blows drove. All in the advancing line were panel which he encountered. It was a pon-
subjected to the same violent treatment. derous door, but it opened readily. A dank,
“Hold your positions!” Doc’s voice near-suffocating smell came through, engulf-
called sternly. “Keep driving. We are nearly ing them.
at the end of the room.” Doc slammed the door. He hesitated.
Then he opened the door again, stepped
through and called his aides.
THEY fought stubbornly on, pummel- “Use your hands,” he told them. “I
ing, kicking, sometimes butting with their think you will find answers to several puz-
heads. Not once did their fingers clutch on zles.”
an assailant. They explored, and their hands came
But all at once the darkness emptied in contact with a satiny object—smooth,
before them. They bumped heavily against a curved, cool to the touch, and soft.
wall. “Now do you recognize the odor?” Doc
There was a loud grating sound. questioned.
“A door!” Doc rapped. “Here! They got “Mushrooms!” Monk exploded.
out and are trying to close it!” “Cultivated fungi of a gigantic and un-
“Wonder where they got wood down known variety,” Johnny seconded. “I’ll be
here for a door?” Renny muttered, doors superamalgamated!”
being one of the heavy -fisted engineer’s in- “I guess this must be what the—the
terests in life, since it was his boast that one things eat,” Long Tom commented.
did not exist that he could not break down Doc said, “The fungi may be the basis
with his fists. for the lightweight composition material out
“It is not wood.” Doc informed. “It is of which everything here seems to be con-
some unfamiliar substance, apparently of structed.”
artificial composition.”
They managed to force the door open
and get through. Once outside the room, AS they turned to go back to the door,
they were not, for a time, molested. They felt something slapped their faces wetly, and
their way forward carefully in the darkness, they recoiled; then their heads were envel-
and their feet found well-formed steps, while oped in a soft, slimy grip.
exploring hands located walls which were “Throw it off before it gets a firm hold!”
intricately ornamented in places, and perfo- Doc shouted. “And hold your breaths! I think
rated by man-size openings shaped in accu- this is the same thing which got the best of
rate geometric designs. us the other time. ”
They found other geometric objects Doc rammed forward to the door. The
which rested solidly on the floor—evidently door was closed. All the bronze man’s prodi-
articles of furniture, and all in the shape of gious strength could not bulge it. Renny
circles, oblongs, squares, and triangles. came lunging alongside in the dark, but the
The articles were strongly made, but combined battering of their four fists evoked
out of extremely light materials. Monk, lum- only sodden echoes.
bering around, knocked over one object that The insidious stuff which wrapped
seemed as big as a piano. It did not break, their heads pressed softly tighter. They tore
and he righted it with one hand. at it frenziedly. Then, from all sides, Doc and
“What a life!” he groaned. his aides were assailed by battering blows.
Doc Savage said, “One peculiar fea- Clawing at the unseen enemy, they
ture is that everything seems to be con- could find nothing to seize except the slimy
structed of the same unfamiliar substance as horror. Their enemies were as elusive as
that door. If these people—or things—have they had been in the long prison room.
learned the art of synthesizing building mate- Reacting to a sharp blow against his
rials, we are pitted against no mean intel- face, Doc finally grabbed something. His
lects.” great hand clutched a moving object. His
cabled fingers closed down with the preci- over his prone body like ants onto a stricken
sion of a steel trap. beetle.
His fingers got it. A small, hard article
of peculiar shape. Doc’s inordinately devel-
oped sense of touch made him instantly Chapter XV
aware of what he had snatched from the GOLDEN BLACKNESS
dark.
A pair of goggles with amazingly thick THE sound of a compelling voice of
lenses. pleasing musical quality caused the black
Backing up, pawing at the mysterious assailants to stop their attack. The voice
substance which sought to envelop his head, sounded again, apparently issuing an order,
Doc fitted the goggles to his eyes. and the foes withdrew from Doc, standing
Instantly, to his gaze, the air became back around him in a thick ring. Then, at an-
filled with a weird, golden yellow haze. The other order from the haunting voice, the cot-
blackness vanished! In its place there was ton fungus was removed.
the fantastic golden aura, shot through and Doc’s five men each felt deft fingers
through with a faint opalescence. about their eyes; when the fingers were re-
After the first moment or two, Doc be- moved, they discovered they had each been
gan to identify objects in the uncanny light. equipped with strange goggles.
He saw the ghost-stuff which his aides were They were slower than Doc had been
fighting. He recognized it for what it was—a in accustoming their eyes to the weird
gigantic species of the fungus growth which golden light, but gradually, through the all-
dangles like soft moss from decaying over- pervading golden shimmer, they were able
head timbers in coal mines. This fungus, to make out hazy outlines in black.
Doc knew, thrives on a total absence of light. “You see what I see?” Monk gasped.
This particular growth, revealed to Doc Doc Savage’s voice sounded: “Focus
through the black goggles, had obviously your eyes steadily on the object. They will
been cultivated in the exotic cavern, and had soon take on detail.”
attained gigantic proportions, reaching ten- They did this, and the black monsters
sile strength. stood out as individuals.
Doc’s aides were dimly revealed to “They’re men!” Renny boomed.
him through the golden haze. They were “Keep looking,” Doc advised. “You’ll
black forms, seen through the goggles. They develop a color sense.”
were engaged in a terrific grapple with the “Sure,” Long Tom gasped. “I’m getting
enveloping fungus. it. I can see the mushrooms. They look pink-
Doc leaped to aid them, but from all ish.”
sides shapeless forms converged toward “Look behind you,” Doc requested.
him. In the uncanny yellow light, the figures They turned their goggled eyes.
stood out in vague black. The black things! There, standing a pace in advance of the
The black creatures were about the black monsters, was the girl, the Princess
height of men. Some of them clutched long Sona.
poles with which they were jabbing the nox- She stood there like a fairy-book figure
ious fungus into the faces of Doc’s men. seen through a golden autumn haze. The
Others moved as free agents. Rushing Doc, curves of her youthful body were alluring,
they pummeled him from all sides. revealed by a clinging robe. Her golden hair,
The bronze man’s scientific para- silken heaps of it, hung down to her waist
phenalia had been taken from him at the and seemed a part of her diaphanous garb.
time of his first capture; he had no means of Her lips were perfect, her features ex-
defense now, except his superb fists, and quisitely chiseled. Her appearance was
these he used with all the effect possible, marred only by the presence of a pair of the
causing the black assailants to fall in rows grotesque goggles.
under the flailing of his fists. But always, new In pardonable feminine vanity she re-
rows took their places. moved the goggles for a moment while she
From front, back, and from the sides flicked imaginary dust from their thick lenses.
they hurled upon him, and in the end, the
bronze man fell. The fantastic attackers piled
The effect to the battery of admiring mascu- angular door—and her followers, now re-
line eyes was annihilating. vealed clearly as goggled men, closed in
“Holy cow!” Renny breathed. behind.
“I’ll be superamalgamated!” Johnny in- Immediately outside the door two gog-
toned. gled men, apparently guards, made ges-
“I’m in love, ” Monk advised. tures—their right hands drifted up from their
Doc Savage’s calmly analytical words sides with an eerie movement, like the flut-
brought them back to earth. terings of crippled butterflies.
“You are witnessing an amazing phe- At a sharp word from Sona, the hands
nomenon,” he expounded. “You are seeing subsided.
where there is no light, as we know light. Air “Get that!” Johnny said excitedly.
particles have apparently been treated in a “Ool had that habit!” Ham gasped.
way to make them luminous when viewed Monk came close to the two whose
through the black-lensed spectacles. Ob- hands moved so peculiarly.
jects, which first appeared black to our unad- “These even look like Ool,” he decided
justed vision, now stand out in something aloud. “Not so shriveled up and flat-eyed,
near natural colors, tempered slightly by the maybe.”
effect of the golden haze.” He scanned the faces of the other
Monk said dreamily, “It’s like when the male members of the escort. “These others
sun is slanting rays over the earth in the au- don’t look so bad.”
tumn. You know, just before twilight, how it “This seems to solve the identity mys-
is, with the sun’s rays filtering through the tery of Ool,” Doc said. “He came from this
trees in a kind of soft golden blush—” underground world. But why he returned and
“What are you doing?” Ham cut in brought Watches Bowen with him is still
sourly. “Waxing poetical?” something we do not know.”
“Nuts to you, you shyster,” Monk sug- Long Tom took a deep breath which
gested. expanded his deceptively hollow chest to an
amazing extent. “I’m sure glad to get out of
that mushroom house and get some fresh
DOC SAVAGE was not unaffected by air.”
the charms of the girl. But the bronze man, “Judging from the way the place is
in his inflexible resolve to spend his life help- guarded,” Doc offered, “we were probably
ing those who needed help, punishing those correct in assuming that the mushrooms are
who deserved punishing, had made bitter of vast importance to both the economic and
enemies, unscrupulous foes who would stop physical life of these people.”
at nothing to end his career. “I wonder what they eat?” Monk pon-
The bronze man was able to care for dered.
himself, but if adversaries struck at him “We can try to find out,” the bronze
through some one he loved, his hands would man said.
be tied, and hence he had steeled himself
against thought of attachment with one of
the opposite sex. IN the spacious outer room, Doc made
“Can you talk to them, Doc?” Renny motions indicating hunger to which the girl,
asked. Sona, gave understanding smiles and nods,
“I’ll try,” Doc said. and clapped her hands sharply. Then she
As a linguist, the bronze man was motioned Doc and his aides to be seated.
probably unsurpassed. He now spoke rap- They reclined on geometric-shaped,
idly, using different languages. But to every padded divans, not uncomfortable, they dis-
tongue he articulated the girl only stared, covered, with a yielding fiber remindful of
smiling, and replied in soft tremulous tones, sponge rubber.
as stirring to the senses as vi olin music— Monk’s small eyes popped when he
and as analytically unintelligible. saw the array of dishes set before him, an
She came forward finally and took the amazing assortment, artistically prepared.
bronze man by the hand, indicating that he The food was as tasty as attractive.
and his aides were to accompany her. She All ate lustily. But Monk, in particular,
then led the way through the ponderous tri- gorged himself.
“I don’t know what I’m eating,” he said, used the least amount of material possible
“but I can take more of the same for supper.” for the purpose.”
Doc waited until Monk had finished,
then he said, “You were eating only one
thing, Monk.” AS they stood there, they became
“Yeah? What?” aware of a faint, steady clicking sound. It
“Mushrooms.” was very regular.
“Holy cow!” Renny grunted. “What’s that noise I keep hearing?”
“They have devised ways of disguising Long Tom questioned.
appearance and flavor in order to avoid mo- Monk looked around, puzzled. “Yeah, I
notony, I presume,” Johnny commented. been noticing that. It sounds like a big clock
“But how can you live on mushrooms ticking.”
alone?” Monk demanded. “The kind of a noise you wouldn’t no-
“Undoubtedly these people have had tice after you got used to it,” Renny offered.
to build up a unique economy,” Doc sug- They were quiet for a time, listening to
gested. “Probably they have plants other the sound which tremored in the golden
than mushrooms, but of a kindred nature. haze with a muffled cadence like the beating
Chemicals from these and from natural de- of a slow pulse.
posits, perhaps, furnish fertilizer for their Then between smoothly-rearing walk,
specialized culture. Since these people are along a lane spotless and clean, Sona
living, and with rather astonishing vitality, it is guided them.
safe to assume they are able to extract from They began to see the living apart-
their surroundings all the elements neces- ments of the weird metropolis. These tow-
sary to sustain life.” ered through the golden air to the dome of
“This air smells funny,” Renny added. the arched cavern, each separate apartment
“I think we will find out they manufac- set back from the one below, in the fashion
ture, or at least purify their air, too, possibly of skyscrapers. The quarters looked as effi-
out of oxygen extracted from water. ” cient as an electrical switchboard in a dy-
Monk blinked. “These birds are not namo room.
dumb. They seem to take things which we Monk pointed out a many-windowed
can accomplish only as laboratory experi- structure, obviously a manufacturing plant of
ments, and employ them in everyday use.” some type, built over a rushing stream.
The girl, Sona, had waited patiently, “What’s that?” he asked. “Looks like a
but now she came close, plucked at Doc’s modernistic fish design over the door.”
sleeve and led the way out of that cavernous “It is,” Doc said dryly. “Here, probably,
room. they process fish taken from the river. They
Outside, Doc’s men stood and stared. evidently have something besides mush-
Doc himself gazed intently. On all sides, rooms.”
bathed in the soft golden haze, smooth walls Long Tom also pointed. “That building
towered. They were white, and shimmered in over there with what appear to be modern-
the golden atmosphere. Just as inside the istic mushrooms on it, must be the fungus
room they had left, everything was laid out in processing plant.”
strict geometrical conformity—here straight “Some factories!” Renny boomed in
lines and broad sweeping curves were beau- appreciation. “No smoke, no dust, no smell!”
tiful in their gaunt simplicity. “There is no waste anywhere, appar-
“It—it’s plenty modernistic!” Monk ently,” Doc commented. “Factories as effi-
stammered. cient and scientific as a technocrat’s dream.”
“The most striking example of func- They moved on and their group was
tional architecture I have ever seen,” Renny, joined by more goggled figures who dribbled
the civil engineer, said in admiration. in from all sides, attracted by the amazing
Doc said, “They had to build within the spectacle of men from another world.
limited confines of this underground cavern. Women, too, dressed in robes only slightly
Also, being cramped as to quantity of build- less lustrous and diaphanous than Sona’s,
ing materials, they have abandoned all frills joined the throng.
and false fronts. In every instance, they have
Long Tom called attention to a set of poses. At least, the air was fresher, brighter
structures built in a large open court. These near here. It was a high, circular building,
he inferred to be government buildings. The topped with a complicated array of weirdly
structures were as rigidly functional in design curved pipes and conduits. This was called
as the others. in the local language, they learned later, the
The most spacious structure of all was equivalent of “Central Mechanical Plant.”
one in the heart of the metropolis, and which “Hey,” Monk called out, “that pulse
seemed to contain scientific laboratories, beat that keeps ringing in our ears—doesn’t
and possibly housed machinery for process- it sound louder here?”
ing air for breathing and illuminating pur-
“Yes,” Doc answered, “that is un- Doc Savage veered to one side, to -
doubtedly the source of the noise.” ward what was apparently a storehouse for a
They stood listening. Like the muffled type of pressed fibre tile. The tiles were in
beatings of a giant heart, the sound perme- squares measuring some six inches across
ated the golden air. and an inch thick. The bronze man picked up
Doc decided, “The noise must be in several of these and tossed them to his
some way incidental to the manufacture of aides.
the luminous air. The sound might truly be “Hold them as you would guns!” he or-
called the heart beat of the metropolis.” dered. “This yellow light is tricky. We may
Without warning, yells ripped out; a fool them into thinking we have our machine
loud, malignant clatter burst on the air. Ech- pistols.”
oes rebounded fearfully under the vast cav- The ruse was more successful than
ern dome. they had expected. Watches Bowen and his
“Hey,” Monk shouted, “that ain’t no men, already unnerved by the failure of what
heart beat!” must have been intended as a surprise at-
“Machine guns!” Ham ejaculated. tack, saw Doc and his five approaching.
Sona recoiled close to Doc Savage in “Dey got dem hoot guns!” Ham-hock
quick dread of the unaccustomed noise. Her Piney bawled.
escort, their strange, loose garments flutter- Yelling loudly, Watches ordered a re-
ing, commenced milling about in panic. treat into one of the near-by, tall habitation
“Sounds like an attack on the Central buildings. There was much uproar and more
Mechanical Plant,” Doc said quickly. shooting inside, but soon Watches and his
Gently and firmly, Doc removed him- gang appeared on top of the structure.
self from Sona’s vicinity, then made signs to From the roof, they could direct an un-
the milling underground men that they interrupted stream of machine gun slugs at
should surround her with a protective guard. the Central Mechanical Plant and at the
“Come on!” He called to his five aides. same time be immune to attack from above.
Machine gun lead drove Doc and his
party to shelter; more bullets hammered at
Chapter XVI the walls of the Mechanical Plant, making a
COLD LIGHT patter like the insistent chatter of hail.
“The slugs don’t seem to be penetrat-
AT the Central Mechanical Plant, ma- ing the Plant walls!” Long Tom shouted as
chine gun bullets mauled the smooth, they ran along, keeping under cover and
rounded surface of the walls, making a flat heading for the circular plant itself.
drumming noise. The gunners were They were running alone, the inhabi-
bunched—and working toward the structure, tants of the vast underground domain of
endeavored to get to the big doors. weird yellow light having sought cover be-
The latter had closed at the first out- cause of the uproar. There were, it was later
burst of firing. The doors were enormous, ascertained, strong, buried chambers to
clumsy appearing, but they had operated which the populace fled on the rare occa-
smoothly. sions when there were roof cave-ins—
Doc Savage caught sight of the gun- although the latter had become rare through
ners. the last few centuries, due to the strengthen-
“Watches Bowen and his gang!” he ing, by scientific means, of the populated
said grimly. portions of the subterranean labyrinth.
In front of the Central Mechanical “What is their idea of the attack on that
Plant, perhaps half a dozen limp bodies Mechanical Plant?” Monk pondered aloud.
were sprawled—cavern men who had no “Some scheme of Watches Bowen,”
doubt discovered Watches Bowen and his Renny rumbled. “Guess they must’ve got
gang approaching the plant, and had given goggles through Ool.”
an alarm that had cost them their lives. They were fired at by the machine
These slain cavern men were without gunners. The distance was too great for ef-
their goggles. fective shooting. A few moments later Doc
Savage, in the fantastic golden light, issued
orders.
“We’ll try this,” he said quietly. “You “Ool!” he barked. “That was Ool who
five men endeavor to gain entrance through just came running up. He was dressed in the
the rear door of the Mechanical Plant and garb of these cavern people. Bet they didn’t
organize those inside into an emergency recognize him!”
defense unit.” Figures began to close in on Doc Sav-
Monk exploded. “But we can’t talk their age’s men. Their attitude was anything but
lingo!” friendly.
“Make signs,” Doc said. “They are “Now what’s eatin’ these birds?” Monk
adept at understanding gestures.” muttered uneasily.
“What you gonna do, Doc?” “It must have been what Ool shouted,”
Doc said grimly: “I will see what I can Ham said.
do about stopping the machine guns.” The dapper lawyer’s fears were justi-
fied, for inside the gleaming plant harsh or-
ders were shouted in the same unfamiliar
DOC glided away, and before his language Ool had used. Unexcited orders,
aides could protest had disappeared among they seemed. Like Ool, all these other cav-
the modernistic maze of unusual buildings. ern people seemed to have achieved a high
“Watches Bowen has nine men with state of emotional control.
machine guns,” Long Tom muttered doubt- “Betcha,” Monk barked, “Ool told these
fully. “Doc is unarmed. He may have some boys we were in with Watches Bowen!”
trouble.” Renny knocked his big fists together.
“Don’t sweat about that!” Monk “Yeah, he probably told ‘em we were trying
snorted. “My bet is that he’ll stop ‘em.” to bluff our way in here and take the place.”
At the door of the Central Mechanical The next instant, the cavern men had
Plant on the opposite side of the bombard- stalked forward and surrounded Doc’s aides
ment, Doc’s aides pounded for admittance. in a tight ring. They made a grim appearing
A black-caped observer from a posi- circle with their dark capes, black goggles,
tion in a pill-box turret on top of the plant had and white, emotionless faces that, because
obviously noted their approach, and had of the mother-of-pearl texture, did not seem
seen that they came from the Princess quite human.
Sona’s party. He evidently thought they must “Now what?” Long Tom grunted.
be all right, for he signaled that the door be His answer came soon. The right
opened for them. hands of the cavern men began drifting out
Silently, the door opened wide enough from their sides in a vague butterflylike flut-
for them to squeeze in, and one by one they tering.
crowded through, Ham being the last to en- “Blazes!” Renny gasped. “I wish Doc
ter. was here to help out!”
As the door was closing upon the
heels of the dapper lawyer, a black-caped
figure charged frantically to the plant build- AFTER Doc Savage dispatched his
ing, shouting something in flat-voiced gibber- men toward the Central Mechanical Plant,
ish unintelligible to Doc’s aides, but not, he himself hurried through a maze of mod-
however, meaningless to the cavern men ernistic passageways and circled to reach
controlling the door to the Mechanical Plant. the rear of the fantastic home-cell house on
The door slid shut with a silent fury top of which Watches Bowen and his men
that caught the always impeccably dressed were ensconced with their machine guns.
Ham and ripped off the entire rear of his He looked up through the shimmering
coat. golden haze. The bronze man could catch
The one who had raced up was left glimpses of the mobster men as they
outside. chopped bullets in the direction of the Cen-
Remarkably enough, Ham was not in tral Mechanical Plant.
the least concerned about his wrecked ap- The home-cell house, which Watches
pearance. Just before the door closed, a Bowen had chosen as his machine gun nest,
backward glance had disclosed something was high, pressing its roof close to the arch-
which concerned him infinitely more. ing dome of the gigantic cavern. There were
no fire escapes on the building, such as a
dweller in American cities might have ex- “Dat’s ol’ bad luck hisself!” the big Ne-
pected, for the reason that the construction gro stuttered.
was probably absolutely fireproof. He seemed too paralyzed to swing
Due to the lack of fire escapes, down his submachine gun. The other man
Watches Bowen and his men seemingly be- leaned over with his and bore down grimly
lieved themselves secure from a rear attack, on the trigger. A leaden thread of death
and therefore concentrated all their attention streamed downward.
on firing at the Central Mechanical Plant. Then a startling thing occurred. The
A professional human fly, accustomed golden haze went out of the air. Utter black-
to scanning the walls, would no doubt have ness clamped down on the cavern metropo-
eyed the sheer surface lifting upward story lis.
after story to the cavern dome, and would “Mah goggles done gone bad on me!”
not have attempted the climb. According to Ham-hock shouted.
the discussions which took place later, not “Hell,” rasped the other. “Something’s
even the cavern people, for all their strength happened!”
and agility, thought it possible of accom- The man did not let the darkness inter-
plishment. fere with his job at hand. He hosed machine
But Doc Savage ascended the first gun lead along the side of the building where
hundred feet in a flat two minutes. After that, last he had seen Doc, using an entire drum
his pace was considerably slowed. The of ammunition to make a thorough job out of
structural indentations which marked the it.
lower part of the building became less pro-
nounced as the height became greater. But
although the bronze man’s pace was “HE’S gone now!” the gunner shouted
slowed, it was not stopped; up and up he loudly in the darkness.
climbed, depending entirely on precarious “Sure he doan swing himself in t’rough
finger-holds that at times seemed non- a window?” Hamhock mumbled.
existent. “There wasn’t a window in thirty feet of
The windows were not closed by him.”
glass, since there was no rain or cold to “Good work, you two,” Watches Bo-
keep out of the building; there were only wen called. “That’s a load off my chest, and I
shutters for privacy, hinged in the window don’t mean maybe!”
frames. “You won’t be havin’ no use now for
The bronze man might have made that special gold watch, chief.”
better time if he had used the window ledges The special gold watch Ham-hock re-
for extra purchase, but not wishing to attract ferred to was a new addition to the mob
attention to himself, he scrupulously avoided chief’s collection, one especially reserved for
the windows. As things turned out, he might the annihilation of Doc Savage. Bowen had
as well have used them. even indulged in a whim, and had engraved
A cavern dweller, looking out, sighted Doc Savage’s name on the case.
the bronze man. The observer was a He had not revealed wherein lay the
woman, a housewifely sort of person who deadly nature of the watch, boasting only
looked as if her life might be devoted to the that this watch would finish Savage off if the
care of her man and her children. The spec- proper chance came.
tacle of the great bronze man mounting the “She sho am dahk,” Ham-hock mum-
side of the building unnerved her, and she bled. “Ah done think my trick specks done
clutched her children closely and screamed gone wrong. Only Ah guess dey ain’t. Dat
shrilly and repeatedly. This occurred only a yaller light done just plumb gone out’n de
few stories from the top of the building. sky, ain’t it?”
One of Watches Bowen’s crew, at- Watches Bowen’s curse rasped
tracted by the screams, looked over the through the pitch blackness. “This wasn’t on
edge. He wore goggles. He sighted Doc, the program. Ool’s bungled down below, or
yelled. this couldn’t have happened. They’ve done
Ham-hock, also wearing goggles, something at the Central Mechanical Plant.
dived swiftly to the mobster’s side. The latter That’s where their cold light comes from.”
pointed.
“Ah don’ lak dis place,” Ham-hock “What is it?” Watches exploded.
grumbled. “Dis heah dahk—it don’t seem like “Where?”
regular dahk. Dis dahk—it sorta jams down “Sticking in Joe’s neck. It pulls out
on yo’, if yo’ know what Ah mean?” hard. Feels like a little weighted ball, with a
Came a sharp, chattering noise in the kind of webbed thorn stuck through it—”
blackness near by. Watches cursed. “Drop it, Honey!” the mob leader’s
“Squirrel,” he snarled, “keep them voice slashed. “Don’t scratch yourself on it!
teeth still, or I’ll knock ‘em down your throat.” Whatever it is, it must be poisoned to kill Joe
A certain quaver in the mob chief’s like it did.”
voice showed he was more than a little jittery There was a noise in the darkness be-
himself. hind Watches, a sound not unlike a load of
“I ain’t scared!” Squirrel Dorgan in- rock unloaded suddenly and heavily.
sisted in a false voice. “It’s just a habit.” The gang chief whirled.
“Break the habit, or I’ll break your “Ham-hock!” he yelled, “has it got
neck!” Watches promised. you?”
In spite of Watches’ warning, Squir- There was no answer.
rel’s teeth kept chattering. Then suddenly “Ham-hock!”
they quit chattering. There was something This time there was an answer. “Ah—
unnatural about the way they stopped. Ah’m all right, chief!” the big Negro stuttered
“Squirrel!” Watches Bowen called the words out. “But-but Ah wouldn’t uh been
sharply. if it had come any closer.”
There was no answer. The darkness “If what had come closer?” Watches
seemed to press closer, so blackly intense demanded.
that it appeared thick enough to handle. “One uh dem things lak what Honey
Watches cursed nervously and called again. pulled outa Joe’s neck, Ah reckons,” said the
When there was no answer, his hands Negro. “Ah could feel it come past mah face
pawed out, feeling in the darkness. in de dahk.”
They found Squirrel Dorgan, found “Why in the hell didn’t you say so?”
him slumped over the rooftop railing—dead. Watches snapped, unreasonably.
Watches Bowen cursed savagely, and There was a faint hiss in the air above
Ham-hock mumbled some vague incantation Watches’ head. He ducked instinctively,
to his personal mistress of luck, this being cursed, and followed Ham-hock to the floor
the way each had of keeping his courage up. to get the protection afforded by the low
The other mobsters crowded close together. parapet.
“It must’ve been heart failure,” one of “Flatten out!” he ordered. “They’re fill-
them growled. “Squirrel always had a ing the air with poison darts. Shootin’ ‘em up
chicken heart.” with air guns or sling shots or something, I
His voice broke off sharply, and there guess.”
was a soft thump in the darkness, as of a Flat on their stomachs on the roof, the
body striking the rooftop. Watches and his men listened in near-panic as the air above
men hurriedly groped, and encountered a them was filled with the whirring of the death
silently huddled body. missiles, many of which struck with sharp
“Dis am Joe!” Ham-hock wailed, nam- clicks against the protecting parapet.
ing a member of the gang. Ham-hock Piney howled dolefully,
“Joe never had a weak heart!” “What Ah wants to know is why we done
Watches rasped. “Say, what the hell’s goin’ mess wit’ dat Meck-a-nickel Plant foah, any-
on—” how?”
“It was Ool’s idea,” Watches snapped.
“If we get that Plant, we can take over this
THERE was taut silence, graveyard si- place. It’s the heart of their existence down
lence, while the gangsters huddled closer here. The roof above is reënforced so it can-
together, as though, in the darkness, an un- not come down. It’s the strongest place in
seen menace was tightening an invisible the cavern.”
noose about them. “Ah wishes we had nevah come up
“I found something!” Honey Hamilton’s heah,” Ham-hock stated.
mild voice stated.
“Well, what could we do?” Watches They pulled off their black goggles—
yelled angrily. “Doc Savage’s men cut us off. they had taken them from the cavern men
Say, you rascal, are you criticizing my way of they had shot down near the Mechanical
running this?” Plant—and used their flashlights. Access to
“No, suh,” Ham-hock denied. “Ah the lower level of the great house-cell was
thinks things am goin’ jes’ fine.” by a moving stairway similar to an escalator,
and riding down on this, they kept their flash-
light beams playing, and several times shot
THROUGH it all, the “heart beat” of at inquisitive heads.
the processing machine at the Central Me-
chanical Plant had been throbbing through
the blackness, a slow, muffled cadence REACHING the floor level of the cav-
which impinged on their ear drums with omi- ern, they set off swiftly, using their guns
nous insistence. freely. Ham-hock Piney, more courageous
Ham-hock breathed heavily, taking now, fired the grenade rifle several times.
three quick inhalations in succession. Then The air was better down here.
he gasped, “Don’ it seem like dat tickin’ am Watches Bowen seemed to have a
slowin’ down?” very definite idea of where he was going. He
Watches listened. veered sharply to the right and came to a
“Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “And they’re very steep wall. He stopped and called up-
not shooting up so many of those darts. ward.
They probably figure they’ve rubbed us out. “Lower away!” he shouted. “And don’t
Wait’ll they turn on their screwy yellow light show a light!”
again. We’ll fog somebody plenty with lead.” An answer wafted from above. “O.
Ham-hock’s ponderous wheezes were K.!”
getting so loud now that they even drowned Watches moved about, groped, got his
out the insistent clicking emanating from the fingers on the rung of a rope ladder which
air machine in the Central Mechanical Plant. had been lowered. He tried his weight on it,
Nor was the fat Negro the only one who was then swung on and started climbing up.
breathing hard. All were wheezing. It began “Come on,” he hurled back to the oth-
to sound like a contest. ers. “Don’t forget to bring Joe’s and Squir-
Honey Hamilton’s mild voice inquired rel’s machine guns.”
between gaspings: “Doesn’t it seem—to Twenty feet up, Watches squirmed
anybody else—like it’s getting hard—to through a narrow rock opening in the cavern.
breathe?” He stood by at the aperture while the others
Honey got an emphatic agreement climbed, one after the other, up the twisting,
from everything on the roof. dangling ladder. He counted the men as they
Ham-hock gasped, “Could dis have— arrived at the top and scraped past him in
somethin’ to do—with dat clock-tick busi- the darkness, puffing and blowing.
ness? Dem ticks am soundin’—mighty slow “What the hell!” he exploded. “I
now. ” counted one too many!”
Watches Bowen ripped out short vol- He ordered the ladder hauled up.
leys of profanity. He seemed to lack the Then he flashed his light, slithering the white
breath for as extended profanity as he would beam around in the low limestone passage.
have liked. “Where’s Ool?” he asked.
“You hit it, Ham-hock,” he gasped. “Not back yet,” said the man who low-
“That clock-tick controls the air down here. ered the ladder. “Say, what went wrong?”
What they’re doing is—thinning it out on “Everything!” Watches snarled.
us—high up here—under the dome—where This natural passageway led around
we are— It’s worse than—below—” some distance in an indirect connection with
He gagged, made awful hacking that labyrinth of tunnels, the so-called Land
noises. of the Lost, which straggled underground for
“Takin’ de bref right out our mouths,” miles to the surface cleft where the dirigible
Ham-hock’s frightened voice sounded. was moored.
“What kind people is these? Le’s get out’n This passage was fed by the same
heah.” sluggish current of air as circulated through
the Land of the Lost—in a sense, exhaust air The slow fire of the liquor did little to
from the city in the domed cavern. sweeten the mob chief’s temper. His pudgy
Watches’ flashlight revealed the faces hand tugged continually at his watch chain,
of his men. All were here except Ool and the and he prowled about, cursing everything in
two who had been killed on the roof top. The sight, and many things not in sight. Most
nervously poking light revealed no one else. particularly he cursed Ool.
“My mistake,” Watches muttered. “I’d Honey Hamilton put up a mild defense
have sworn I counted one too many.” of the maligned assassin.
But Watches Bowen’s first hunch was “It wasn’t Ool’s fault that we bumped
right, for he had counted one too many men into them men near the Central Mechanical
in his outfit. The third to mount the ladder Plant, chief,” he pointed out.
behind the mob chief had been the extra “Yeah, I know,” Watches growled, “but
man. he might’ve stuck around and helped us
It was Doc Savage. Doc had not been out.”
shot off the side of the building by machine One of the mobsters, a man with
gun fire. When darkness clamped over the small, overly bright eyes, scowled and mut-
cavern, and the bullets sliced toward him in tered, “There’s a lotta screwy things about
a leaden stream, he had let go his finger this place.”
hold, leaped twenty feet down and ten feet to Honey Hamilton cleared his throat
one side and landed on a thick conduit pipe gently.
which entered the building from another “Watches, the boys been wantin’ me
across the way. to ask somethin’ for ‘em,” he said.
Out of the tail of his eye he had photo- “Yeah?” Watches growled. “Shoot!
graphed the position of that aërial conduit in Who’s stopping you?”
the last glimmer of the failing golden light. “It’s only that this is working up into a
His leap was gauged precisely. In utter plenty bloody business,” Honey Hamilton
darkness, he caught the conduit against his said apologetically. “That’s all right. We ain’t
steel-thewed thighs, breaking his fall suffi- backin’ out. But we figure it’s time we know
ciently for his cabled arms to wrap around exactly what we’re takin’ the risks for. ”
and drag up his dangling legs. “Didn’t I tell you we come after a
In silence, he had recommenced his treasure that will set the richest guy in the
climb up the side of the building, and eased country way over the other side the tracks?”
over the parapet in the darkness. He had Watches demanded.
been present, lurking below the roof open- “Yeah, you told us that,” the other
ing, when Watches’ two men were killed by agreed. “But it don’t mean a hell of a lot to
the poisonous darts hurled up by the out- us.”
raged cavern inhabitants. Watches laughed harshly. “So you
He had followed the gang chief to the want details?”
dangling rope ladder. And he was present “That’s right,” Honey said in his
now, in the passageway, crouched behind a mouselike voice.
pile of broken rock fragments just outside the Watches shrugged. “All right— We
range of flashlight beams. came after light.”
There was a stir among the men.
“Light—hell!” some one snorted.
Chapter XVII Watches continued, “The yellow light
RENDEZVOUS TRAP that’s in this air down here—to be more spe-
cific.”
UTTERLY unaware of the crouching “Dis golden stuff what we see with
presence of Doc Savage in the passageway, dem goggles?” Hamhock questioned. “Y o’
Watches Bowen brought out a flask of the wouldn’t fool us, boss man!”
eighty-year old Napoleon brandy which he “Go on, Watches,” Honey Hamilton
had brought along; he killed half the flask in urged. “You’re still way ahead of us. Where
two greedy swigs, then passed the rest to does that stuff make us a buck?”
his men. “You dope!” the mob chief retorted.
“Don’t you see that the formula for this
golden air is worth more than all the heavy light? It would put every electric light com-
gold that ever came out of the ground?” pany in the world out of business. We’d
“No, ” Honey’s gentle voice stated. make them power pirates pay plenty! I mean
“Damned if I do!” plenty!”
Honey Hamilton’s awed voice
sounded insistently.
“THE way I get it from Ool,” Watches “Ool—according to the way I been
continued. “His ancestors came under- hearing him talk, has got even bigger ideas
ground here thousands of years ago, to get than that,” he said.
away from the cold. It used to be hot country “Nothing the matter with Ool’s imagi-
up here a few hundred thousand years ago nation,” the mob chief chuckled.
or so. Then everything started freezing up, He pulled a watch out of his pocket by
like it is now. It didn’t happen overnight. the end of the chain and started swinging it
Took thousands of years, I guess. around unconsciously.
“Anyhow, the ancestors of these peo- “There’s nothing the matter with my
ple developed ways of takin’ care of them- imagination either,” he said. “I’m stringing
selves,” Watches continued. “They had to along with Ool. We’ll go just as far as money
make their light to see by. But by the time will take us. And that’s plenty far.”
the ice closed in for good, they were all set. “Yo’ sho’ nuff goin’ have a knob on
They had learned to make their air, too. Ool somebody’s head, too,” Ham-hock pro-
says they’ve got tanks of liquid air at the tested, “if’n yo’ don’ quit swinging dat watch
Central Mechanical Plant that would refrig- so wild.”
erate all of New York City.” Watches quit spinning the watch. His
“What do they do with it?” Honey thick fingers shoved it back in his pocket.
questioned. “You’re right, Ham-hock. We’re a little ahead
“I’ve read about that stuff. It’ll freeze a of ourselves. We’ve got to make a success-
rubber ball so bad that it’ll break like glass,” ful raid on the Central Mechanical Plant,
Watches said. “They use it to make breath- first.”
ing air out of—something like we do in sub- Honey Hamilton, lost in a mental con-
marines, I guess.” sideration of what he had just heard, had
“Yassuh!” Ham-hock interrupted. “Dey wandered off to one side humming to him-
put me in one of dem submarine things in de self. He was not sure that they could hold up
war. Ah know about submarines.” the electric power companies —either in sell-
“Shut up, ” Watches growled. “The yel- ing them the secret, or by getting them to
low, or golden color in the air down here is pay to keep it from being used, and thus
nothing more than a kind of phosphores- damaging great utilities investments. But
cence. It’s caused by treating the air some- Watches must be right. Watches had a busi-
how, then turning a form of X ray, or some- ness head.
thing on it. In other words, these cavern Watches turned a flashlight on one of
dwellers have realized a dream of modern his timepieces.
science. They have perfected a method of Then Honey Hamilton stopped dream-
getting so-called ‘cold light’ on a practical ing. He kept humming, however, and contin-
basis. ued on a few steps farther, then turned and
“At their Central Mechanical Plant they walked slowly back to the group. He said
treat the air particles in a way to make them something to Watches Bowen out of the cor-
luminous when seen through specially de- ner of his mouth, barely opening his lips. But
vised goggles. That’s the long and short of Watches heard him.
it.” The crook chiefs face went plaster-
One of the men stirred restlessly. “It’s white, but there was no illumination on his
a nice history lesson. But where does the face, so no one noticed. He did not answer
treasure come in?” Honey, but kept on talking to Ham-hock.
“You mug!” Watches rasped. “You ha- He paused, looked at his wrist watch
ven’t got the imagination to dodge a bullet! for the time.
Don’t you see what it would do back in “I’m supposed to meet Ool in an hour
America, in Europe—everywhere—if we and a quarter, down the passage here, in
showed up with a formula for making cold
that little room off to the right,” he said. “I’m One of them said sullenly, “Watches, I
going to sit down and rest.” don’t want no part in it. This bronze guy is a
He sat down. The others sat down jinx for us. Hell! We’ve tried to kill him twenty
also. At his order they crowded together in a times.”
close circle with their flashlights ready and “Going canary?” Watches sneered.
machine guns across their knees. “Yeah, when it comes to him, I am.
“You never know when somebody And I ain’t ashamed to admit it.”
may come snooping around,” Watches “Me neither,” another sullenly defiant
growled in explanation. voice agreed.
Ham-hock’s mountainous bulk shiv- Watches Bowen did not get angry. He
ered. “De way dem fellers move them hands did not even swear. He surprised everybody
of their’n makes dis baby t’ink of dem ol’ c ot- by laughing quietly.
tonmouth snakes dot used to go fo’ mah “That’s all right, boys,” he said. “I know
bare feet when Ah was a boy down in Gaw- how you feel. We won’t any of us take any
gia. Ah wonder how Ool kills by touchin’ more chances with this baby. We’ll leave all
you?” the dirty work to Ool and any of these cavern
“I’d give plenty to know that myself,” guys he can get to take a risk.”
Watches admitted sourly. “He never has ex- He paused.
plained it.” “You see, Ool has some friends down
They talked on. Then Honey Hamilton, here,” he said.
at a nudge from Watches, got up and wan-
dered a short distance away. He was hum-
ming to himself again as he retraced the IN the small rendezvous room, Doc
course he had taken before. Savage waited. Watches Bowen’s act had
He came back, and said in a voice au- been convincing; the bronze man held no
dible to all this time: “O. K.” suspicion of the trap which had been set. He
“What’s O. K.?” Ham-hock demanded. stood silently in a man-sized niche in the
“What yo’-all talkin’ about?” rock-cluttered cavity.
Watches Bowen turned on the fat Ne- He did not have long to wait, for the lit-
gro viciously. “Not you, Ham-hock! You told tle room soon caught up the shuffle of ap-
me you’d bumped Savage, didn’t you?” proaching feet on the rocky tunnel floor. The
“Ah sho did not! Dat was Joe, de boy sound came closer, and Doc flexed great
dat got hisself killed. ” muscles and waited.
“Doc Savage was right here, listening He tried his goggles, found them inef-
to everything we said!” Watches grat ed. fective still, and pushed them up on his fore-
“Honey saw him a little while ago when one head. No doubt the ray device which caused
of the flashes went on. He came back and the air to become luminous was still shut off.
whispered the dope to me.” As the steps came closer, a sudden
aura of light danced on the roof a stone’s
throw distant, such a display on the pitted
NOBODY said anything. Their tongues roof as might have been the work of a flash-
were frozen, for they held the bronze man in light beam. The person who approached had
greater dread than they did the dart killers of rounded one of the final curves in the
the cold-light cavern. Watches laughed crooked passage.
grimly. The next instant the flash beam was
“Take it easy,” he purred. “That ap- spurting into the rendezvous room itself. The
pointment I claimed I had with Ool was one who carried the light approached within
faked.” a few feet of Doc, stopped, shook the flash,
“Lawsy me!” Ham-hock moaned. pounded it with a hand as though he thought
“Savage doesn’t know it’s faked,” a jolting would make it function better, and
Watches went on. “He thinks he’s got finally turned the white rays toward his face
straight dope. He’s on his way now to trip up while he examined the reflector.
Ool. But Ool will be here soon. We’ll fix it for It was Ool’s face that was revealed in
Ool to get Savage. And no guesswork about the flashlight glare.
it this time.” Doc sprang.
With the precision of a leaping puma, Doc and his captors passed through.
the bronze man’s hurtling weight landed im- The door closed softly behind them. That he
mediately behind Ool. His hands clamped might walk more easily, the bronze man was
Ool’s arms just below the shoulder joints; his given goggles—for the cold light was work-
thumbs dug into the flesh. Ool became help- ing again—and donning them, found himself
less; the whole maneuver having taken the once more in the metropolis of fantastic
bronze man only split-seconds. buildings.
Adjusting the flashlight in a wall niche, The throbbing which was the heart
Doc Savage examined Ool’s hands, particu- beat of this city under the dome, permeated
larly the right one. He found nothing. Ool the “cold light” realm more strongly, and the
spoke, and in spite of the pain he must be place seemed to have settled back to its ac-
suffering, his tone had changed little from its customed routine.
normal expressionlessness. Many of the populace came to stare at
“My right hand interests you, does it the bronze man. They did not seem friendly.
not, bronze man?” he asked. Doc was conducted to a chamber in
Doc Savage did not answer. one of the government buildings, a room that
“You are due for a surprise,” Ool said was obviously a prison cell; he was left alone
quietly. “You were interested in capturing with the door locked behind him, and was
me, so interested that you did not hear my allowed to keep the black goggles.
men come close.” The room was large, with a wall-like
Doc Savage became slightly tense. partition at the opposite end. Beyond the
The other felt the stiffening. partition, he discovered other prisoners—his
“There are at present a vaex of men five aides.
surrounding you,” Ool said. “In your lan- “And Habeas Corpus,” Monk muttered,
guage, that number is equal to the total of all after the first excited greetings were over.
the toes and fingers which a normal man “They put him in their dang jail, too.”
has. Twenty!”
The bronze man suddenly picked up
his light and streamed it about, cutting a THE meeting of Doc Savage and his
white path in the close-pressing blackness. It men would have been considerably damp-
was true. The mouth of the room was literally ened in spirit could they have listened to an-
packed with white-faced, dark-caped figures. other meeting which was taking place in the
executive palace. There, Ool faced the dicta-
tor, Anos.
THESE newcomers moved forward Anos, father of the girl Sona, wore a
slowly, purposefully, closing in on Doc and red cape as mark of high position. The girl,
his prisoner. And as they approached closer, Sona, had acquired her name by a simple
their right hands drifted up from their sides in reversal of the letters of the male parent’s
vague butterfly gestures which seemed as name, a custom in all father-and-daughter
natural as nature itself. relationships in the cavern metropolis.
“You had best not resist,” Ool warned. Anos, the dictator, occupied a low,
“You are not, at this time, to be killed.” thronelike affair which stood near a design
There was a cold certainty about Ool’s on the throne-room floor, a mammoth four-
actions which said he was not bluffing, and teen-pointed star inlaid with an opalescent
Doc Savage did the only thing left to do—he substance. Around the points of the star
allowed himself to be taken. were arrayed the chairs of the government
Ool stood clear and worked his arms council, the Nonverid, the members of which
experimentally. In his long black cape he wore slightly less gaudy capes.
looked very grotesque. He gibbered an order Ool stood in the middle of the star and
to the cavern men, and they moved down faced the dictator.
the passage, conducting Doc Savage in their “My repentance is great,” he said.
midst, until they came to a smooth wall com- “That is fitting,” the dictator replied
pletely blocking the passage. Here, one of slowly. “You have been noted in the past for
the men gave signal knocks on the wall, and your greed and treachery, and for your in -
a wide door slid slowly open. sane thirst to take over the government here.
It was for attempting to take over the gov-
ernment that you were banished to the Stor, “Why do you wish it?” the other coun-
the working squadrons. When you tried to tered.
lead the Stor in revolt, you were sent to the “I thirst for knowledge,” was the best
Land of the Lost.” excuse Ool could offer.
Ool spoke contritely. “It is a strange thirst, considering your
“I have repented,” he said. “And I have record,” he was told. “Your request is de-
proved it by bringing you the giant man and nied. We suspect a trick, to speak without
the other five, and the strange insect with fur falseness.”
upon it which they call a ‘hog.’” Ool did not have much success
“You say these five are allied with the masking his disappointment. He bowed.
others who attacked us with their carrying- “I have another boon to ask,” he said.
rods which roar and kill?” the dictator asked. “What is this one?”
“They are,” Ool lied solemnly. “I saw “The giant bronze man and his five
them together in the Land of the Lost. I companions—” Ool said. “They are danger-
joined them and learned their language, ous. For the common good of my people, I
which is simple. And for days, I tried to keep ask that they be put to death. That is the
them lost in the desert caverns. But finally, boon I ask.”
they no longer heeded my counsel, and Anos, the dictator, considered.
found this place. ” “It is a matter for the Nonverid to de-
At that point the girl, Sona, spoke up liberate and pass judgment upon,” he said.
vehemently. Ool had brought one bad habit back
“Those are not true words,” she said. with him from the outer world. He swore a
“This man Ool, who has always caused good mule-skinner oath, one he must have
trouble, is one of the leaders of the men with picked up among Watches Bowen’s men.
the carrying-rods that make noise and death. Then Anos, the dictator, added some-
The six whom we now have prisoners—the thing which made Ool feel much better.
big man with the strange skin and the other “It would appear that this giant of a
five—are not our enemies, but foes of Ool man and his five companions are our ene-
and the others.” mies,” Anos said. “It is equally probable that
Ool said in an injured manner, “It is the Nonverid will decree their death.”
true that I was with these men when you Ool, to hide his delight, put back his
were seized in the outer caverns, and acted head in the strange kowtow, for his deadpan
as one of them. But have I not told you that I features were showing more emotion than
was deceiving them.” usual.
Anos, the dictator, said, “We will delib- “How will death be decreed?” he
erate over the matter of the truth of your asked.
statements.” “In the traditional manner,” said Anos.
Ool threw his head far back and be- “It is well,” Ool said, and walked back-
came rigid for a moment, eyes upcast. This ward from the audience chamber with his
seemed to be the local method of kowtow- head bent stiffly, eyes upturned.
ing.
“I wish a boon, a favor, for my ser-
vices,” he said. Chapter XVIII
The dictator did not seem very enthu- TERROR IN GOLD
siastic.
“What is it?” he asked. BACK again in the desert labyrinth of
“The formula for the ‘cold light,’ which the Land of the Lost, Ool conferred with
only your scientific men know, ” Ool said. Watches Bowen and his gang.
“You could not understand it,” Anos “We will have to fight,” Ool said.
pointed out. “You were not trained in that Watches objected. “But you said their
branch of science. In fact, I recall you as a whatcha-call-it—Nonverid, could be per-
very stupid, unruly youth who learned little.” suaded—”
Ool made a faint scowl under tile re - “That old fool, Anos, put his foot
buke. “What about doing me the honor of down,” Ool said. “They will not give up the
giving me the formula?” formula without a fight.”
Watches Bowen jerked nervously at within a short time, had found this one espe-
his watch chain. “Our guns didn’t do much cially obtuse. But he hazarded a guess.
good last time.” “It was something serious,” he said.
“We will plan more carefully,” Ool “The man’s expression showed that.”
stated. “We will capture the Central Me- Monk said, “That pretty girl we helped
chanical Plant with the help of the Stor.” out, the one they call Sona, or some thing—
“Stor?” Watches grunted. “What’s you’d think maybe she’d help us out. I think
that?” she took a fancy to Doc.”
“Workers,” Ool explained. “I guess there’s nothing she can do
“Ah didn’t see nobody workin’ much,” about it,” Ham said shortly.
Ham-hock Piney put in. “Most of ‘em was There was a ventilating opening to one
jus’ restin’ around. Ah would like a job like side of the room, a large square, closed by a
dey-all got.” stout lattice of pressed fibre. Doc and the
“The Stor are not great in number, but others now coöperated in trying to break the
bitter, vicious,” Ool explained. “We will use lattice down, but with no perceptible suc-
them. It is what I had in mind.” cess.
“Just who are these birds in the Stor?” They were straining at it when, as
Watches persisted. though wafted in on the soft, aureate air, the
“In your country, they would be called girl, Sona, appeared noiselessly on the other
criminals,” Ool told him. side of the lattice, then went to the door.
“When do we start this?” Watches “Am I a prophet!” Monk grinned.
Bowen questioned. The girl’s voice made music as she
“Savage is to be sentenced to death spoke in low tones to the guard, who an-
by the Nonverid, I hope,” Ool said bluntly. swered in brief gutturals, occasionally shak-
“That will make it simple. We will wait until ing his head vigorously, but finally nodding,
Savage has been disposed of.” mumbling under his breath. He opened the
“I hope it ain’t long,” Watches offered. door. The girl entered.
“It will not be,” said Ool. “It is probable She went directly to Doc, hesitated,
that the bronze man is being sentenced then rested a hand on his arm. Her exquisite
now. ” face was serious. She took the bronze man’s
right hand and made motions as though she
were attaching something to the hand. She
IN the prison cell where Doc Savage went through the same motions with each of
and his five aides were confined, gloom was Doc’s aides.
thick, both physically and spiritually. The “It feels swell when she holds my
gaunt Johnny paced steadily—as Monk had hand,” Monk chuckled. “But what in the devil
expressed it a moment before, “Like some- is she trying to show us?”
body’s lost skeleton.” The fact that they were The girl now seized Doc’s right hand
listening to a dire pronouncement did not and moved it in the butterfly manner charac-
deter him, for he could understand no word. teristic of Ool.
Anos, the dictator, was speaking. “Holy cow!” Renny boomed.
“And so our ruling council, the Non- Without a word, the girl left their cell.
verid, has deliberated fairly and found you to
be enemies of ours,” he was saying. “It is
further considered that you were responsible DOC SAVAGE stood up suddenly. “I
in whole or in part for the deaths of certain of think the girl was trying to tell us how we
our population and that, as is customary only would be killed,” he said. “But that suggests
in cases of murderers, you shall receive the an idea.”
death penalty, wielded in public, for all to He drew his men together. They whis-
witness and be warned. ” pered.
With that, he turned and walked out. Doc Savage approached the lattice.
Anos had spoken the local language, He made gestures for the guard to come
of which Doc Savage and his aides under- close. The latter did so, having no idea of
stood nothing. The bronze man, usually able how far Doc could leap. When the bronze
to acquire a smattering of strange tongues man’s left hand streaked through the grating
to pin the guard’s arm, the guard’s eyes
bulged with fear. When Doc made a butterfly Monk swerved toward the open door.
motion with his right hand, the guard’s ca- The dart raked along his arm, barely missed
pitulation was sudden, complete. He opened it.
the lattice. It did not miss Habeas Corpus,
Doc and his aides, swarming out, were gripped securely under Monk’s arm. Before
sighted almost immediately by cavern men Monk’s horrified gaze, the poisonous dart
down the shimmering golden corridor. These sank deep into the pig’s neck.
rushed forward to cut off escape, but Doc Habeas Corpus emitted a shrill squeal.
and his men, pushing the mysterious power Almost instantly, the porker became limp.
of the right -hand phenomena to its utmost,
made horrible grimaces as they hurtled for-
ward. DOC dragged the raging Monk inside,
Their right hands they held out in a then got the door closed. With his right hand,
manner dreadfully familiar to the “cold-light” he kept a grip on Monk. The few cavern men
people. These gave way. inside the plant offered only shouts by way
Back in the prison building, a penetrat- of resistance.
ing gong started clanging, apparently an They mounted steps. Monk still carried
emergency signal audible far out in the fan- the limp pig. They came to large rooms
tastic cavern. People began filling the which seemed to be laborat ories.
streets. “Lookit!” Renny boomed.
“We can’t make it into the outer cav- Through the welter of strange scientific
erns,” Doc said suddenly. “We’ll try for the apparatus. Renny had sighted various arti-
Central Mechanical Plant.” cles of equipment which they had brought
They made it nearly all of the way to along from the dirigible. Obviously the
the Central Mechanical Plant without their equipment had been brought here by the
progress being seriously threatened, but cavern men for analyzing and study, some of
were sighted by many persons. Occasional the things no doubt being as strange as im-
poisonous darts, of the type which had plements from another world.
brought death to two of Watches Bowen’s Gathering their duffel, gripping their
mobsters, were sent against them, the lethal recovered supermachine pistols, they left the
bolts being fired from peculiar compressed laboratory. Doc rested a hand on Monk’s
air tubes. shoulder.
Nearing the Central Mechanical Plant, “Better leave Habeas,” he advised.
Doc’s aides fell in on each side of him to “You’ll need both hands for fighting.”
form a flying wedge. On they hurtled, with “Leave Habeas for these heathens to
Monk slightly behind the others, carrying his dissect?” Monk snorted. “Nix!”
pet pig. Doc said no more about that.
Those in the Plant apparently consid- “Get set,” he told his aides.
ered it impossible that six men could make it He opened the door a crack, looking
to the doors, and they had not closed the out into the corridor which led to another part
panels. of the plant. Instantly, a sizzling jet of some-
Before they awakened to the possibili- thing streamed inside. Doc slammed the
ties, Doc was almost in the aperture. He door, leaping far back inside the laboratory
lunged, drove a fist out and knocked a foe and dragging the others with him. The air
away. seemed to be filled with a sudden, bitter
If Monk had been satisfied with Doc’s cold. Gray stains appeared on the fiber door
blow, the thing which happened next might and spread outward over the surface.
never have occurred. The homely chemist, “Br-r-r!” Renny exploded. “What’s
fired with fighting fever, expressed himself happened to the heat?”
by shoving the stunned victim out of the way. “I’ll be superamalgamated!” Johnny
This occupied a fractional moment —long barked. “Liquid air!”
enough to allow another enemy to lunge in “Huh?” Renny ejaculated.
with one of the deadly darts held knife- “Air compressed to a liquefied state,”
fashion. Johnny said seriously. “Permitted to vapor-
ize, it has the effect of producing terrific
cold.”
Long Tom looked toward Monk. While the others stood guard at the
“Bad?” he questioned. doors and windows, Doc and Monk worked
“Liquid air is cold enough to freeze over Habeas Corpus. They worked for a long
dang near anything,” Monk muttered. “They time, surrounded by an array of tiny test
probably use it in their air-conditioning sys- tubes and extremely small phials of chemi-
tem, and have pipes close to this door.” cals which had come from Monk’s chemical
Doc Savage’s strange flake-gold eyes pack, which was in itself a marvelously com-
roved the room. The door was the only exit. pact and remarkably complete analytical
The windows gave on a sheer surface that laboratory.
even the bronze man himself could not There was much angry shouting from
climb. This wall was not like that of the the cavern people, and this kept up steadily,
home-cell structure, being of infinitely finer but nothing drastic was done.
workmanship. Doc Savage worked steadily. Needing
Ham went over to Monk, who still certain chemicals, he surveyed the big labo-
clutched the form of the pet pig. Monk was ratory, noting the multiplicity of apparatus in
hit harder by what had befallen Habeas than view. The purpose of many of the devices,
by any misfortune he had encountered in a he recognized; although they differed greatly
long time. in appearance from those, for instance, to be
Ham dropped a hand on Monk’s arm. found in Doc’s New York City headquarters
“Monk,” he said slowly, “I’m damned laboratory, their functional process was simi-
sorry. Guess I never really meant all I said lar.
about that hog.” Other devices baffled him in the brief
“Sure,” Monk muttered. “I know.” moments he devoted to examination, and
Ham reached out a hand and ruffled carried conviction that in many respects
the stiff bristles on Habeas’s back. And then these strange cavern people were far ahead,
an unexpected thing happened. A shudder scientifically, of the so-called civilizations on
coursed over the body of Habeas Corpus. the outside of the globe.
His big ears flapped feebly; from his long The cavern people apparently had no
snout came a faint grunt. system of writing, or if they had, did not use
Doc and the others crowded about. it, for there were great filing bins to one side,
Monk’s eyes were staring in disbelief. Ha- and these held spools of stiff, thin, bright
beas Corpus shook his head, commenced to wire; while near-by were apparatus resem-
kick ungainly legs. bling phonographs. The bronze man recog-
“He’s comin’ to life!” Monk said nized this as mechanism for recording
hoarsely. speech magnetically on wire.
As time passed, the cavern men be-
came more impatient. The violence of their
WITHIN a few minutes, Habeas Cor- assaults increased. They drilled holes in the
pus was able to stand alone on the floor. His walls; and although Doc and his men fired
little eyes in their fat pockets sighted Ham. mercy bullets through some of the apertures,
He grunted a friendly recognition and trotted the cavern men eventually managed to in-
toward him. sert nozzles which began spraying liquid air.
The dapper lawyer glared. “Monk, Vaporizing, the stuff condensed the
keep that strip of bacon away from me!” moisture in the air, causing clouds of steam.
“You said you liked Habeas!” Monk Most of the liquefied air was forced in
snorted. through holes in the ceiling. Some of it fell on
“When did I ever say that?” Ham ques- a large wad of soft cottonlike fibre which Doc
tioned belligerently. “Keep this flea garage had used in his ministrations to Habeas Cor-
away from me!” pus.
Doc Savage had been keenly obser- The fibre was knocked off the table,
vant of Habeas Corpus’s revival, and now he struck the floor with a sharp rap and, frozen
commented on the phenomenon. incredibly solid, broke into a myriad of parti-
“Break out your chemical pack, Monk,” cles.
he suggested. “Let’s do some experiment- “I’ll say that’s potent stuff!” Ham said
ing.” grimly.
Doc tried the doors. These were their necks, wrists and ankles, Doc Savage
locked from the outside now, it developed. and his five men were hauled ignominiously
“Br-r-r!” Monk shivered. “Surrendering to the rostrum and boosted upon it.
means they’ll probably croak us.” As they were thus put within view of
Doc’s face was bleak and he contin- every one, an insistent drone went up to the
ued to pound on the door, signifying their high roof of the weird cavern, the multitude
readiness to surrender. calling out in their unintelligible tongue and,
“We cannot stay here,” he pointed out. judging from the insistent tone, demanding
the events be hurried.
The babble of talk drowned out com-
THE bronze man produced a bottle of pletely the throbbing of the processing ma-
fair size and handed it about, ordering each chine from the Central Mechanical Plant,
of his men to drink. They did so, making which ticked so interminably through the
faces over the vile green contents; then Doc golden haze; but as the time for the climax
drank some himself. came close, the hubbub of talk quieted, al-
The men did not ask questions. They though for another few seconds, echoes
knew that the bottle was filled with some haunted the luminous cavern. Then these,
substance which the bronze man had mixed too, sank into nothingness, so that silence
in the laboratory. It was awful stuff to the settled, broken only by the throbbing from
taste. the Central Mechanical Plant, which was
The door was opened shortly, but only now audible and accentuated the grisly
wide enough to let them out one at a time, quiet.
and they were seized by a number of cavern Six cavern men, stalwart, half a head
men, which made resistance futile. They taller than the average of the “cold-light”
were disarmed, searched thoroughly. people, stepped out, one beside Doc Sav-
Their captors spent much time exam- age and one beside each of the bronze
ining their right hands and seemed puzzled man’s five aides. Attired in hooded capes,
when they found nothing. and with their black-goggled white faces
“They really thought we could kill peo- grimly emotionless, they looked the very
ple by waving our right hands like that bird personification of death itself.
Ool,” Monk muttered. Each of these six gripped a flat fibre
Ham said, “What worries me is what case in one hand.
they’ll do with us now.” Anos, the dictator, came on the scene
There was a great multitude in the at the head of a procession which included
streets, a throng which was ominously un- his own daughter, Sona, the members of the
easy, and it spread around Doc Savage and Nonverid, or governing council, and various
his aides in waves as they were conducted minor functionaries. These took up a position
toward the executive buildings. on the rostrum.
They did not enter the buildings, but “Damn it!” Monk growled. “If we could
circled to a vast amphitheater in the rear, the only talk to these people!”
center of which held a platform of consider- The dictator, attired in a blood-red
able areas. This was raised just sufficiently cape, stood facing the prisoners, the Non-
to be in view of the throng. verid flanking him on either side, and the girl,
“Holy cow!” Renny rumbled. “Kinda Sona, standing directly behind the father.
looks like they’re gonna make a public ex- The young woman seemed to be argu-
ample of us!” ing. She had been arguing as they entered.
Her speech was vehement, but to it the dic-
tator returned only a gesture which seemed
Chapter XIX to be the local equivalent of a headshake.
EXECUTION This was a quick convulsing of the shoul-
ders.
THE ceremonies following were un- Then the girl tried to move forward to
pleasantly meaningful. Unbound, but ludi- Doc and the five others, crying out loudly,
crously helpless simply because they were angrily. She was grasped and drawn back.
held and led by leashlike cords attached to “Good kid,” Renny rumbled. “She’s do-
ing her bit.”
Anos, the dictator, shouted out, and They advanced. Showing no scruples,
the six large men grasping the fibre cases no human feeling, they cut down the first
stepped even closer, opened the cases and cavern man to discover them, using a blast
took out slender, shining objects. These from a submachine gun. At the terrifying roar
were poison darts. of the gun, bedlam broke loose in the multi-
“I’ll be superamalgamated!” gulped tude gathered to witness the execution.
Johnny. “The executioners!” Anos, the dictator, kept his head, and
dispatched squadrons of men to take up po-
sitions in various buildings commanding ap-
ANOS cried out again. The execution- proaches to the Central Mechanical Plant.
ers leaped suddenly. These were equipped with the little air tubes
Doc and his men were taken, in a way, launching the poisoned darts.
by surprise. They had expected more pre- Watches Bowen defeated the menace
liminaries. They struggled, struck, wrenched of the darts by a simple device. He and his
about. But several men were on each leash, men, according to a prearranged plan,
and they were spread-eagled in a trice, help- rushed a certain building and got large
less. sheets of the compressed building fibre. This
The darts were plunged into their material was light, and the darts would not
flesh. penetrate it. They served as shields. The
The results which followed were much advance on the Central Mechanical Plant
like those that had accompanied the death of began.
Beery Hosmer, long ago, in front of the Complications developed to aid them,
candy store in New York. Doc and his men complications which they had planned.
flounced about, struggling feebly, and their Members of the Stor, who were at work—not
movements became weaker, less violent, so having been permitted to witness the execu-
that, finally, when the leashes which held tion—began revolting. Somehow they had
them were slackened, they did not move at gotten darts and the air guns, and they pro-
all. ceeded to wreak destruction of their own.
Anos, the dictator, said in his native From the fabrication plants, they ran
tongue, “Justice is done.” along ramps toward the home-cells, or habi-
The girl, Sona, wailed shrilly. tation structures. On top of one of these,
On the outskirts of the multitude, a Honey Hamilton had established a machine
man detached himself and scuttled away. So gun nest.
great was the interest in the execution that The cavern men released repeated
his action was not noticed. barrages of poisoned darts, but these had
little effect, since the ramps were protected
by waist-high walls, and Honey Hamilton
THE man who had departed so fur- was sheltered by a parapet.
tively went by devious ways to a spot where Closer and closer, the raiders came to
he encountered Ool, Watches Bowen and the Central Mechanical Plant. Honey Hamil-
his men, who were gathered with a consid- ton, shooting expertly, kept down the worst
erable number of vicious -looking members of the opposition.
of the Stor, or forced labor squadrons. Those of the Stor in the Central Me-
“The giant man and his five are dead,” chanical Plant, having overcome their
advised the messenger, addressing Ool. guards, got the doors open and stood in the
“It is good,” said Ool. Then Ool spoke apertures, howling a welcome, as well as
his stilted English to Watches Bowen. advice.
“The bronze man has been executed,” It seemed that Watches Bowen and
he said. “We will rush the Central Mechani- his crew would soon enter.
cal Plant now. Once we reach it, members of But there was an interruption.
the Stor, who are working with us, will admit
us. The plant is strong; we can hold it. And
by cutting off the warmth from the air, and ANOS, the dictator, had himself taken
the ‘cold light,’ as you call it, we can make charge of a picked squad in a desperate ef-
our own terms.” fort to stem the raid. He had bunched his
“Let’s go,” said Watches. men, and they rushed in a body, striving by
superior force to beat down Watches Bowen The Stor men fell back. The matter of per-
and his shielded party. sonal safety dictated that Watches, Ool and
Honey Hamilton, that he might not be the others keep in their midst, for men of the
cut off on top of the home-cell, had de- Stor were being used as human shields to a
scended, and with his guard was rushing degree.
along the street. Fortune brought him in di- The dictator’s seized machine gun
rectly behind the dictator’s squad. The next stuttered to emptiness.
instant, they were embroiled in a hand-to- That changed the situation. Watches
hand fight. Bowen roared and rushed forward. He had
Yelling, Honey Hamilton managed to his peculiar watch out, whirling it on the end
fight clear of the fray. He jacked a fresh of its stout chain. With hoarse cries, the Stor
ammo drum into his machine gun, and, in lunged to help him. The end came quickly,
order that its recoil would not get the instru- for the darts were no match for the machine
ment away from his control, he snapped it to guns.
a large belt which encircled his middle. The Anos, the dictator, was taken prisoner,
bit of delay was his undoing. and along with him, various members of the
Anos, the dictator, himself, rushed ruling Nonverid, who had been with him.
Honey Hamilton. Anos gripped one of the This had the effect of breaking the backbone
darts, and was endeavoring to get it into a of the entire defense. These cavern people
pneumatic tube. He gave that up as being were not a fighting race, and with their lead-
too slow, and hurled it, spear fashion, at the ership shattered, were virtually helpless.
mouselike killer. The raiders went on and took the Cen-
Honey Hamilton dodged, but just a lit- tral Mechanical Plant.
tle too late, for the dart caught him in the
face and clung there, flipping up and down
as he jumped about. TWENTY minutes later, in a latticed
But he did not jump for long. His eyes chamber of the executive building, Anos, the
lost their glitter; for a fleeting instant, they dictator, his daughter Sona, the entire mem-
held a bewildered expression as if the brain bership of the Nonverid, and certain other
behind them were groping for something. dignitaries, stood prisoners.
Then the eyes blinked shut. The machine “They must be executed, ” said Ool.
gun fell and hung by the belt fastenings. “That will insure us having no more trouble. ”
Honey Hamilton ups et on the smooth stone. Members of the Stor, who packed the
Anos, the dictator, lunged and tried to room, roared their approval of that sugges-
pick up the machine gun, but the belt fasten- tion.
ings, being unfamiliar, baffled him, and in - “Sure,” said Watches Bowen. “It’s jake
stead, he lifted the dead thug up bodily, us- by me.”
ing the lifeless form as a shield. Anos had Ool translated, and the roars of fierce
some luck then, or perhaps it was not luck, approval from the Stor echoed to the cavern
for he had observed closely the position of roof.
the hands when the gun wrought its havoc. “I got an idea,” Watches said. “Get the
He found the trigger. bodies of Doc Savage and his men and
The weapon’s bawl wrought havoc on bring ‘em here. We’ll bury the whole crowd
friend and foe alike. Shrieks arose. Men together.”
went down. Misdirected slugs streamed up Ool agreed, and dispatched men to
to the roof, flattened, and came back like bring the bodies.
slow leaden rain. Cries from both sides “We will hold off the execution for a
pierced the uproar. time,” he said.
The effect of having one of the guns “Why?” Watches wanted to know.
turned on them was unnerving to the rebel- “The secret of the ‘cold light’ may not
ling Stor members. They wavered, milled. be on the voice wires in the laboratory file
Then they began to retreat. bins,” Ool explained. “We can get the secret
“Hold it!” Watches squawled, forgetting by studying the machinery, of course, but
his command could not be understood. that will take much time. We may find it con-
Ool put the same orders into the cav- venient to make some of these prisoners tell
ern dialect, but without perceptible results.
us, that we may be saved the labor of a There was a sudden hooting roar, a tremen-
search.” dous sound that blasted up a million echoes.
The men sent to bring the bodies of Watches and his men had heard it be-
Doc Savage and his five aides, returned un- fore.
expectedly soon. They were excited, and “Ol’ bronze bad luck ag’in!” Ham-hock
stuttered out excitedly to Ool. Piney wailed. “Ah knowed he wasn’t dead!”
Ool swore one of the oaths he had The outer fringe of Stor was collaps-
picked up in association with Watches Bo- ing, mowed down by mercy bullets from the
wen. rapidfirers.
“What’s wrong?” Watches demanded. “Back!” Watches roared. “Get under
“The bodies have disappeared!” Ool cover!”
explained gloomily. In the uproar, it was impossible that
many could have heard, but hearing was not
necessary. Shrinking instinctively before the
Chapter XX devastating hail of chemical-charged lead
COLD FATE slugs, the men poured backward around the
nearest corner. Not all made it. Fully a score
THE failure to find the bodies of Doc of the Stor had gone down.
Savage and his aides worried Watches Bo- While Ool was getting some sort of or-
wen and the others, but they did not let it ganization, Ham-hock muttered to Watches,
interfere with their desires. They left the “Ah reckons yo’-al goin’ have a chance to
prisoners under guard and headed for the use dat special watch, huh?”
Central Mechanical Plant and its laboratories Watches could only moan, “But I
to search the voice wires in the file bins in an thought he was dead!”
endeavor to locate the formula for the mak- They retreated on around to the other
ing of the “cold light.” side of the building, a home-cell habitation
“The absence of the bodies means structure, and took up positions behind a low
nothing,” Watches snorted. “Somebody took ramp where they could not be reached by
‘em away. That’s all.” the supermachine pistols.
“Ah done feel bettah if Ah see dat Ool and Watches conferred earnestly;
bronze man put in de ground wit’ mah own then Ool, who knew the metropolis well,
eyes,” Ham-hock Piney advised. He shook pointed out a route whereby they could gain
his knob of a head on its many chins. “Ah the nearest door of the Central Mechanical
don’ know if Ah would feel plumb safe even Plant.
den.” Watches ordered fresh drums in the
“Nuts!” said Watches. submachine guns. He planted himself and
Ham-hock moistened thick lips. his men in the midst of the remaining Stor,
“Watches, yo’-all nevah did get to give dat and the charge started.
Doc Savage man de special watch what yo’- They reached the door of the Me-
all been carryin’ foah him.” chanical Plant with no losses in Watches’
“I’ll bury it with him,” Watches said. group, and with only a loss of about a third of
The mechanism of the Central Me- the Stor allies. This was because the hooting
chanical Plant was throbbing steadily, mo- of the supermachine pistols ceased when it
notonously, as they approached the wide was evident Watches and his party could not
doors. Although the excitement was seem- be kept out of the Plant.
ingly over, Watches and his party had The reason for that interruption in fir-
brought along a group of the Stor, in the cen- ing was soon evident. Doc Savage and his
ter of whom they walked, in order to be safe men had retreated and also entered the
from an unexpected attack. Central Mechanical Plant, but by another
They had sought to gather up the poi- door.
son darts and the pneumatic tubes used to Shots began to crash in the confines
discharge them, but many of the darts, they of the great plant.
knew, were still at large. Over and over, Ham-hock Piney mut-
When they were very close to the Me- tered, “Dat bronze boy jes’ ain’t human.”
chanical Plant entrance, things happened.
ACTUAL explanation of how Doc Sav- The crash of shots inside the Plant
age had maneuvered the escape from the was terrific. In various spots, cavern men not
dart death would probably have been in- engaged in the fighting were yelling out.
comprehensible to Ham-hock, for it entailed Some seemed to be battling scattered mem-
the use of numerous chemicals—the con- bers of the Stor.
cocting, in short, of an antidote. Doc Savage and his men reached a
The fact that Habeas Corpus had not narrow ledge which had a parapet that of-
perished from the dart venom had indicated fered some shelter. They crouched behind it,
it was not necessarily as fatal as they had at unlimbered their machine pistols. The hoot-
first thought. The survival of Habeas was ing blasts brought Watches Bowen’s gang
simple—hogs are frequently immune to up sharp.
snake bites, due possibly to their fatty struc- The Stor shields were more reluctant
ture. Doc’s work in the laboratory, while be- now. They milled about, hung back. Watches
sieged, had been for the purpose of concoct- cursed them. Ham-hock Piney was too
ing the antidote which he had persuaded his scared to be of much aid. Ool was making
men to drink just before their capture. fierce darting gestures with his mysterious
As a matter of fact, the inoculation had right hand, menacing the Stor men.
not been as effective as was hoped, Doc Watches Bowen fell to glaring at the
and his aides all having lost consciousness ledge where Doc Savage and his men lay.
at the execution. But the serum had pre- Below the ledge was a sheer drop of fully
vented death, and they had revived after a fifty feet, and then moving machinery.
time. The confusion during the thick of the “Here’s where I deliver that special
fighting had covered their escape. watch!” Bowen gritted.
“Ah wishes Ah was back home!” Ham- He dived a hand into a pocket.
hock Piney was wailing somewhere.
Big-fisted Renny rumbled, “He’ll wish it
even more if I can get hold of him!” THE timepiece which Watches Bowen
The Watches Bowen party were be- brought out was the one which he had re -
low, behind a fabulous tier of pipes which peatedly assured members of his gang was
seemed to be heavily insulated and very a special gift destined for Doc Savage. The
strong. watch was unusually large. Bowen drew
“We will try to get above them,” Doc back an arm to throw it.
said grimly. Doc Savage saw the move.
There was a series of rungs, hardly a “Don’t!” His remarkable voice was a
stairway, but intended as such, to the right. It crash of sound.
worked up through more tubes, past tanks. “Sure!” Watches yelled. “I’ll do that!”
The ticking of the plant was a sound of With a quick twist of thumb and fore-
enormous volume here. They reached a spot finger, the mob chief turned the stem of the
where they could look down in a machine watch as if he were winding it. There started
room, and there they saw the source of the a faintly audible whir. His arm arched back,
ticking. and he prepared to throw.
It was a huge compressor which It was doubtful if Watches Bowen ever
worked with rhythmatic strokes, actuating fully comprehended what happened next.
tremendous pistons. Ool, apparently sensing Watches’ intention,
They went on. Twice, Watches Bo- clawed out desperately to stop the throw.
wen’s party saw them. Bullets rained. Doc Their arms collided.
got a bad scratch over one leg. Then The watch flew forward and upward
Watches Bowen and Ool whipped their Stor and landed in a maze of pipes almost over
allies into a compact group and forced them their heads.
to charge forward. Watches screamed, “Damn you!
Up the stairs, the Stor men came, real- What—”
izing they were being used simply as “Fool!” Ool said. “The pipes are carry-
shields, but more afraid of the raging threats ing what you call liquid air—”
behind than the possible death in front. Whoo-o-m! The watch was a small,
“Holy cow!” Renny stuttered. “They’re violent grenade, and it let go. Steel frag-
liable to head us off!” ments rained from above. There was a shrill
roar, not of powder unleashed, but of some- things to the bodies; one, apparently freez-
thing else—something gray and smoking ing while sprawled over a pipe, had later
that boiled down in great sheets from rent upset, and being brittle, had broken as if it
pipes. were glass.
“The liquid air!” Ool screamed. “Run!” It was Monk who first made an exami-
His words were in the cavern lan- nation of Ool’s right hand, which had not
guage. Watches and the other thugs did not been affected greatly by the liquid air, pro-
understand, at first—and when they did, it jecting as it did through the pipes.
was too late, for the liquid air was spilling “The light dawns!” he exploded.
upon them and vaporizing, causing unearthly “Lookit!”
cold. The secret of Ool’s hand-waving death
It engulfed Ool and Watches Bowen, was a bit complicated, but simply under-
and seemed to congeal them where they stood. It was a tiny pneumatic cylinder, dis-
stood, for the insidious stuff came down in charging a dart, and this, being of a color
tremendous quantities, by hundreds of gal- almost identical with his hands, would es-
lons. cape ordinary eyes. It was held in place by a
Ool, having brief advance knowledge particularly strong adhesive which did not
of what was going to happen, leaped and harden, and thus being quickly detachable,
gained a little distance, but he fell down try- could be removed and hidden quickly.
ing to wedge between pipes, and he lay That last, it was evident, accounted for
there, his right arm outstretched through the Doc Savage not finding it on the occasions
pipes so that it was visible to Doc Savage when he had searched Ool.
and his men where they stood on the bal- Ool’s particular dart was very small,
cony. Doc had a pistol which he had seized, and driven with such force that it entered,
intending to shoot down the watch grenade bulletlike, entirely under the skin, leaving a
in the air, were it thrown, a trick he could wound that was perceptible to no ordinary
have accomplished, having done so on other examination.
occasions. Although Doc Savage and his men
Ool’s hideous right hand weaved, had not been equipped with the minute hand
twisted for a time, then became still, for he darts when they escaped from the latticed-
was in the path of the flood of liquid air. windowed jail, it was evident that the guard,
Vapor, like steam, was coming from after seeing Doc’s hand wave in butterfly
the flood of liquid air in tremendous quanti- fashion, had surmised the girl Sona had
ties, filling all of the Mechanical Plant. given Doc one of the small hand darts. It
Doc Savage and his men, able to see was this ruse which had caused his fright
nothing, retreated, taking up positions at the and allowed Doc and his aides to escape.
doors, lest Watches Bowen or some of the
others come out.
None came. THE final fight in the Central Mechani-
cal Plant marked the end of Doc Savage’s
trouble with the cavern people, it being dem-
SOMETHING like ten hours saw the onstrated that he was a friend.
end of the Stor revolt which Watches Bowen Learning their language, so that he
and Ool had fostered—the men of the Stor could speak it even passably, required the
did not stand up for long against the ma- expenditure of nearly a month. Not the entire
chine pistols of Doc Savage and his aides. time was spent learning the speech, how-
Anos, the dictator, Sona, his daughter, ever. There were other things—experiments
and members of the council were released, with the strange “cold light,” for instance.
unharmed. Those were not so encouraging.
Since sufficient time had elapsed for It developed that the manner of illumi-
the liquid air to vaporize in the Central Me- nating the cavern air was not efficient where
chanical Plant, Doc Savage and his party there was any considerable amount of mois-
entered to examine the remains of Watches ture in suspension. That made it virtually
Bowen, Ool and the others. The sight was useless for the outer world. The cavern air
not pleasant. The incredibly low tempera- was fully as dry as that over the Sahara, and
tures of the liquid air had done strange even it was a bit damp for efficiency at times.
“It works nicely here,” Long Tom ex- Spook Legion, for no man could see it. Yet it
pressed it. “But it’s no good outside. ” fell upon Doc Savage to go against the new
Monk snorted. “Too bad we didn’t terror, and in doing that, he was ordained to
know that. Watches Bowen and Ool could find a foe beside whom past enemies were
have had it.” mere tyros.
The question of the population of the It was not true that the departure of
cavern came up. Doc offered them transpor- Doc Savage from the cavern land was un-
tation to the outer world. It was feasible, us- marked by regret. The remarkable bronze
ing the dirigible. man had made an impression, especially
The cavern people asked many ques- among the members of the scientific groups,
tions about the outer world. Doc told them. who found his knowledge surprising.
They learned of blizzards, of summer heat, The girl, Sona, was reluctant to see
tornadoes, snowstorms, of modern transpor- him go. That was evident. And out of that,
tation. Then they talked it over. there grew a parting complication as Doc
“We stay here, ” Anos, the dictator, ad- Savage and his aides, having been guided
vised Doc Savage. “Yours does not sound to the outer cleft where their dirigible still
like such an attractive world. But we do have rested, and having gotten it ready for the air,
one boon to ask.” prepared to take off.
“What is it?” Doc questioned. Habeas Corpus could not be found.
“Keep the existence of this place se- There was an uproar. Departure was de-
cret,” said the other. “Revealing its existence layed while Monk charged about, hunting his
can accomplish naught but trouble for us.” porker. Eventually, he appeared with Habeas.
Doc Savage agreed. It was not the “Where’s Ham?” he howled. “I’ll wring
only fantastic secret he was keeping. Fan- that shyster’s neck!”
tastic things had a way of coming in his di- Ham was, prudently, not in sight.
rection, he reflected. “The princess wanted a souvenir of our
visit,” Monk roared angrily. “What did this Ham
do? I ask you? The shyster up and gave her
BEING no clairvoyant, the bronze man Habeas!”
had no inkling of the next fantastic adventure The homely chemist grinned.
which was to come his way, a thing more “Now, if she had wanted me for a sou-
amazing, more inexplicable than any puzzle venir, I might have stayed,” he chuckled. “But
connected with this fabulous cavern land. leave this hog? Nix!”
The Spook Legion was the fantastic
foe next to confront Doc Savage. Horror
came with this Spook Legion, and a terror THE END
that threw a nation into panic and fear. It was
a foe which no man could oppose, this
Amazing! Unbelievable!
But True!
THE SPOOK LEGION

Battling an enemy you can see is one thing; fighting a menace not
visible is another. No man has yet lived who could down Doc Savage and
his scrappy pals in a battle of wits or of fists. But when you cannot see an
enemy, how can you fight? When you do not know where the enemy is,
how can you plan to outwit him?
Fighting The Spook Legion proves a tremendous task for Doc Savage.
It will prove a tremendous thrill for you to read this amazing story which
comes to you in the next issue of
DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE

EVERY MONTH AT ALL NEWS STANDS TEN CENTS

025 - Land of Always-Night

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025 - Land of Always-Night

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LAND OF ALWAYS-NIGHT

A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson

Chapter I moved again, with something about it that

Chapter IV “Look out!” Doc called sharply. “Get

Monk and Ham squirmed.

He was Major Thomas J. Roberts,

“What’s the dope?” Watches asked. “When?” Watches cut.

“Aye. ‘Tis self-evident, mon. The Arctic A hodge-podge of noises, conven-

The big-worded geologist stared. “Holy cow!” Renny exploded. “It’s

“Hey!” Johnny gulped. “You’re going Chapter XII

Doc whipped out his flashlight and

“Who in the hell is Sona?” Watches “Say!” he exploded. “Somebody

THE SPOOK LEGION

DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE

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