The Land of Terror ds-2 Page 11

  The officials of the bank learned Doc was a great benefactor of mankind, that his purpose in life was the righting of wrongs. So they offered a generous reward of one hundred thousand dollars, thinking Doc would decline to accept, and that the bank would get a lot of good publicity.

  Doc fooled them. He took the money. And the next day ten restaurants began supplying free meals to deserving unemployed.

  The police never received a single one of Kar’s villains for trial and sentence to the penitentiary. Instead, Doc sent his prisoners to a certain institution for the mentally imperfect, in a mountain section of up-State New York.

  All criminals have a defective mental balance, otherwise they would not be lawbreakers. A famous psychologist would treat Kar’s men. It might take years. But when released, they would be completely cured of their criminal tendencies.

  "Which is what I call taking a lot of pains with ‘em!" Monk had remarked.

  Of Kar, there had been no sign. The man had gone into hiding, probably far from New York, Doc rather suspected.

  Despite the absence of any hostile move by the master villain, Oliver Wording Bittman had remained close to Doc and his men. This was a privilege Doc could not deny the man, in view of the debt of gratitude the elder Savage had owed him.

  "You can play safe," Doc said. "Although it is hardly likely Kar will tackle us again, now that his supply of the Smoke of Eternity is gone. We have him checkmated — until he can replenish himself with the ghastly stuff."

  "You think he will try to do that?" Bittman inquired.

  "I hope so."

  Bittman was puzzled.

  "I have put Ham to checking on the passports issued all over the country," Doc explained. "The moment Kar leaves the United States for the South Seas, we will know it."

  "You think Kar must go to Thunder Island for the unknown element or substance which is the main ingredient of the Smoke of Eternity?"

  "I am sure of it. The fact that Kar stole the rock samples from Thunder Island proves it. By stealing the samples from my safe, he told me what I hoped to learn by analyzing the rocks."

  Doc Savage was even now waiting for Ham to appear with an early morning report on the passports he had examined. Ham was having the pictures from all passports sent by telephoto from the west coast.

  While waiting, Doc Savage was taking his remarkable two-hour routine of exercise. They were unlike anything else in the world. Doc’s father had started him taking them when he could hardly walk, and Doc had continued them religiously from that day.

  These exercises were solely responsible for Doc’s amazing physical and mental powers. He made his muscles work against each other, straining until a fine film of perspiration covered his mighty bronze body. He juggled a number of a dozen figures in his head, multiplying, dividing, extracting square and cube roots.

  He had an apparatus which made sound waves of frequencies so high and low the ordinary human ear could not detect them. Through a lifetime of practice, Doc had perfected his ears to a point where the sounds registered. He named several score of different odors after a quick olfactory test of small vials racked in the case which held his exercising apparatus, and which accompanied Doc wherever he journeyed.

  He read a page of Braille printing — the writing for the blind which is a system of upraised dots — so rapidly his fingers merely seemed to stroke the sheet This was to attune his sense of touch.

  He had many other varied parts in his routine. They filled the entire two hours at a terrific pace, with no time out for rest.

  * * *

  HAM suddenly appeared, twirling his sword cane. He had an air of bearing important news.

  "You had the right dope, Doc!" he declared. "Look at this set of pictures which were telephotoed from San Francisco!"

  He displayed four reproductions, still wet from their bath of the telephoto apparatus. Doc examined them.

  "Four of Kar’s men!" he declared. "They’re part of the group Squint assembled!"

  "They sailed on the liner Sea Star, bound for New Zealand," Ham explained.

  "Sailed!"

  "Exactly. The vessel put out to sea yesterday."

  Doc swung to the telephone. He called the number of one of New York’s most modern airports. He instructed, "My low-wing speed plane, the large one — I want it checked over and fueled to capacity at once!"

  "There was no passport issued to Gabe Yuder," Ham pointed out.

  "Gabe Yuder may not be Kar!" Doc declared. "Kar would fear to monkey with a passport. Possibly he stowed away on the Sea Star, in the cabin of one of his men. At any rate, it’s up to us to stop that gang from securing from Thunder Island the element that is the basic ingredient of the Smoke of Eternity."

  Doc now called the large banking house with which he did business.

  "Has it arrived?" he inquired of the firm president.

  "Yes, Mr. Savage," was the answer. "The sum was exactly six million dollars. It was cabled by the National Bank of Blanco Grande, in the Central American Republic of Hidalgo, exactly on schedule."

  "Thank you," said Doc, and hung up.

  This fabulous sum was from Doc Savage’s secret reservoir of wealth — a lost valley in the impenetrable mountains of Hidalgo, a valley inhabited by a race of golden-skinned people who were pure descendants of the ancient Mayan nation. In the valley was a great treasure cavern and a fabulous mine of gold — the treasure-trove of ancient Maya.

  It was from this amazing spot that Doc’s limitless wealth came. But the money was in a sense not his — he must use it in the thing to which his life was devoted, in traveling to odd ends of the world in search of those needing help and punishment, and administering to them.

  His method of letting the Mayans know when to send him a mule train laden with gold was as strange as the rest — he broadcast from a powerful radio station on a certain wave length at high noon on a seventh day. The chief of the Mayans listened in at this hour.

  "We don’t need to worry about cash," Doc told Ham.

  At this point Oliver Wording Bittman, the taxidermist, spoke up.

  "I hope you may consider my assistance of some value."

  "You mean you wish to accompany us?" Doc inquired.

  "I certainly do. I must confess my contact with you thus far has been very enjoyable and the excitement highly exhilarating. I should like to continue in your company. My experience on the expedition which I took to New Zealand with Jerome Coffern should render me of some value."

  "You speak any of the native dialects?"

  "One or two."

  To Doc’s lips came words of a language native to the South Seas. Bittman replied, although rather uncertainly, in the same tongue.

  But Doc still hesitated. He did not want to lead this man into danger, although the fellow seemed pathetically eager to go along.

  "Perhaps I can assist in finding natives who accompanied Jerome Coffern and Kar to Thunder Island," Bittman said hopefully. "Talking to those men should help us."

  That decided Doc.

  "You shall go with us if you wish," he said.

  * * *

  PREPARATIONS were pushed swiftly. Doc’s five men knew what they might possibly need.

  Monk took a unique, extremely portable chemical laboratory which he had perfected.

  Long Tom took some parts from which he could create an astounding variety of electrical mechanisms.

  Renny, the engineer, took care of charts and navigation instruments, as well as machine guns — for Renny was a remarkable rapid-firer marksman.

  Johnny posted himself on the geology and natives of the district they were to visit, while Ham cleared up aspects of law.

  "We’ll have to wait two days on a liner from the Pacific coast," Renny complained.

  "I have a scheme to remedy that!" Doc assured him.

  The afternoon was young when they took off in Doc’s speed plane. This craft was a latest design, tri-motored, low-wing job. The landing gear folded up into the wings, offering little
air resistance. It had a cruising speed of about two hundred miles an hour.

  It was the final word in aircraft.

  The ship climbed rapidly. At sixteen thousand feet, it found a favorable air current. The Appalachian Mountains squirmed below. Later, clouds cracked open to give a sight of Pittsburgh.

  The passengers rode in comfort. The fireproof cabin permitted them to smoke. The cabin was also soundproofed. The all-metal ship had a gasoline capacity that, in an emergency, could take it nonstop across the Atlantic.

  Doc flew. He was as accomplished at flying as at other things. His five friends were also pilots of better than average ability.

  At Wichita, Kansas, Doc landed to refuel, and to telephone long-distance to the San Francisco office of the shipping firm which owned the Sea Star, the liner which Kar’s men had boarded.

  The Sea Starwas already some hundreds of miles offshore, the owners informed him.

  It was night when they swooped down upon an airport near Los Angeles.

  "This is what I call traveling!" Oliver Wording Bittman said admiringly.

  They took on sandwiches. Monk purchased a can of tobacco and cigarette papers. The fuel tanks were filled to capacity with high test. Bittman went off with the word he was going to shop for some medicine effective against air sickness.

  In the meantime, workmen had been supplanting the plane’s wheels with long floats. A tractor hauled it to the water. Doc had purposefully selected a flying field near the shore. The whole thing required less than two hours.

  Taking the air, Doc nosed straight out into the Pacific.

  "Good Lord!" Bittman gulped. "Are we going to fly the ocean?"

  "Not unless Renny has forgotten how to navigate, and Long Tom can’t take radio bearings," Doc replied. "We’re overtaking the Sea Star."

  "But the plane — "

  "The owners of the Sea Star, at my request, radioed the captain to lift the plane aboard his craft."

  Long Tom worked continuously over the radio equipment, his pale fingers flying from dial to dial. Periodically, he called to Renny the exact direction from which the Sea Star’sradio signals came, as disclosed by the directional loop aлrial he was using. It was ticklish business, flying directly to a ship so far out to sea.

  * * *

  DAYLIGHT had come again before they sighted the Sea Star. The liner was steaming in a calm sea.

  Doc landed near by. He taxied expertly into the lee of the massive hull. A cargo boom swung over. Lines dropped from its end. Doc secured these to stout steel eyes which had been built — with thought of this very purpose — into the speed plane.

  Passengers crowded the rails and cheered as the plane was hoisted aboard the liner. Curious speculation was rife. Doc’s bronze, giant figure created the sensation it always did.

  After seeing his plane lashed down on the forward deck, Doc closeted himself with the Sea Star’smaster.

  "You have four desperate men aboard," he explained. "Here are their pictures." Doc exhibited the telephoto copies of the passport photographs of Kar’s four men.

  The ship captain eyed them. He gave a gasp of surprise.

  "Those four men transferred to a small, but very speedy and seaworthy yacht which overhauled us yesterday!" he declared.

  "Then we’re out of luck for the time being," Doc murmured, his powerful voice showing none of the disappointment he felt.

  Doc now described Gabe Yuder — repeating Bittman’s word-picture of the man. "Is such a fellow aboard?"

  "I do not believe so," replied the commander. "There is no one by the name of Gabe Yuder, or Kar, and no one answering the description you have just given me."

  "Thank you," replied Doc.

  He left the captain’s cabin slowly and conveyed the bad news to his companions.

  "But how on earth did they know we were coming?" Oliver Wording Bittman murmured, twirling the watch-chain scalpel about a forefinger.

  "Yes — how did they know?" Monk growled.

  "Kar must have had some one in New York shadowing us," Doc offered. "When we took off by plane, Kar received the news and put two and two together. Possibly the fast yacht which took his men off was a rumrunning vessel he got in contact with through underworld channels."

  "Well, what do we do about it?" Renny inquired.

  "The only thing left to do — tangle with Kar on Thunder Island."

  * * *

  THE following days aboard the Sea Starwere nothing if not monotonous. Doc and his friends had rambled the world too much for an ordinary ocean voyage to prove interesting.

  They did not know what Kar might be doing. Further conversation with the master of the Sea Starconvinced Doc the yacht which had taken Kar’s men aboard was very fast indeed — speedier even than the liner!

  "The fiend may be ahead of us!" Bittman wailed.

  "Probably is," Doc admitted.

  When some hundreds of miles from New Zealand, Doc could have taken a short cut by transferring to the air. But at the moment the Sea Starwas bucking a South Sea gale, a thing of whistling winds filled with shotty spray, and gigantic waves which all but topped the bridge.

  The plane was fortunate to exist, lashed down on the forward deck. It could not possibly have been lowered over-side, so as to take off. And the Sea Starwas not equipped with catapults for launching planes, as are some modern ocean greyhounds.

  So Doc remained aboard.

  Auckland, the Sea Star’sport of call in New Zealand, was a welcome sight. The water was calm enough in the harbor to permit the unloading of Doc’s plane, although the gale still raged.

  Johnny, the geologist, visited various local sources of information and dug up what he could on Thunder Island.

  "It’s a queer place," he reported to Doc. "It’s the cone of a gigantic active volcano. Not a speck of vegetation grows on the outside of the cone. It’s solid rock."

  Johnny looked mysterious.

  "Here’s the strange part, Doc," he declared. "That crater is a monster. It must be twenty miles across. And it is always filled with steam. Great clouds of vapor hang over it. I talked to an airplane pilot who had flown over it some years ago. He gave me an excellent description."

  "That’s fine." Doc smiled.

  "He says there’s another island, a coral atoll, about fifty miles from Thunder Island," Johnny continued. "This is inhabited by a tribe of half-savage natives. He recommended that for our headquarters."

  "Not a bad idea," agreed Doc.

  Oliver Wording Bittman had been away in search of the native New Zealanders who had taken Jerome Coffern and Kar to Thunder Island months ago. He returned shaking his head.

  "A ghastly thing!" he said hollowly. "Every man who accompanied Jerome Coffern and Kar has mysteriously disappeared in recent months."

  Doc Savage’s golden eyes gave off diamond-hard lights. He saw Kar’s hand here, again. The man was a devil incarnate! He had callously murdered every one who might connect him with Thunder Island. His only slip had been when his two hired killers slew Jerome Coffern almost in the presence of Doc Savage!

  "I hope I get my hooks on that guy!" Renny said grimly. His great hands — hands that could squeeze the very sap from blocks of green timber — opened and shut slowly.

  "We’ll do our best to get you that wish." Determination was uppermost in Doc’s powerful voice. "We’re hopping off for Thunder Island at once!"

  * * *

  * * *

  * * *

  Chapter 15. THE FLYING DEVIL

  THUNDER ISLAND!

  The great cone projected high enough above the southern seas that they sighted it while still more than a hundred miles distant. The air was clear; the sun flamed with a scintillant revelry. Yet above the giant crater, and obviously crawling out of its interior, lurked masses of cloud.

  "The dope I got from that pilot was right!" Johnny declared, quickly removing his glasses with the magnifying lens to the left side so he could peer through high-magnification binoculars. "Note the steam which always
forms a blanket above the crater."

  "Strange lookin’ place!" Monk muttered, his little eyes taking in Thunder Island.

  "Not so strange!" Johnny corrected. "Steam-filled volcanic craters are not so uncommon in this part of the world. It is a region of active craters. There is, for instance, Ngauruhoe, a cone in New Zealand which emits steam and vapor incessantly. And for further example of unusual earth activity, take the great region of geysers, strange lakes of boiling mud and hot springs, which is also in New Zealand. Like the phenomena in the Yellowstone Park, in the United States, this region — "

  "You can serve that geology lecture with our supper," snorted Monk. "What I meant was the shape of that cone. Notice how steep it gets toward the top? Man alive! It’s a thousand feet straight up and down in more than one spot!"

  "The cone rim is inaccessible," said Johnny, peevishly.

  "You mean nobody has ever climbed up there and looked over?"

  "I believe that is what inaccessible means!"

  "You’re gettin’ touchy as Ham!" Monk snorted. "Hey, fellows! There’s the little atoll that is inhabited! We make our base there, don’t we?"

  The atoll in question was much smaller than Thunder Island. Of coral formation, it was like a starved green doughnut with a piece of mirror in the center. This mirror was, of course, the lagoon.

  Doc banked the plane for the atoll.

  As they neared the green ring, they saw the vegetation was of the type usual to tropical isles. There was noni enata, a diminutive bush bearing crimson pears, ironwood, umbrella ferns which grew in profusion, candlenut trees, and the paper mulberry with yellow blossoms and cottony, round leaves. Hibiscus and pandanus spread their green and glossy flowers, and there were many petavii, a kind of banana, the fronds of which arched high.

  "It’s inhabited, all right!" announced Monk. "There’s the native devil-devil house on top of the highest ground!"

  Johnny used his superpower binoculars on the structure of pagan worship, then gasped, "The inhabitants must be near savages! The devil-devil house is surrounded by human skulls mounted on poles!"

  "Not an uncommon practice," began Johnny. "Formerly — "