Chapter 14

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

SANTINI SHOWED scant interest in doing business with the bronze man’s party, however. The instant Doc started toward him, the mustached man dived a hand for the coat lapel under which his chest ribbon disappeared, and brought out his ornate automatic. Evidently he no longer carried it under the tails of his coat.

The gun whacked. Powder noise and its echoes cackled among the tall palms. The slug kicked up sand, went on a hundred yards and kicked sand again.

Monk unlimbered a superfirer pistol and blasted away at Santini. But Santini had dived to cover.

In the opposite direction, Dan Thunden scampered to shelter, white beard flying.

Doc ran in pursuit of Santini. The three men he had designated to chase Thunder — Johnny, Long Tom and Renny — set out.

“Dang it, Doc, don’t you want some help?” Monk yelled.

“If anything happens to that plane, we might spend the rest of our lives here!” Doc called, not turning. “You stick there!”

Santini did not shoot again. Tracks showed that he had set out directly across the island. The terrain was higher

here, with a growth of crotons, calabash trees, custard apples and even guavas cactus. There was sand and enough grass that Doc could follow Santini’s trail without great difficulty.

They crossed a low stretch where mangroves were a tangle, a festering morass populated by hump-backed spiders and land leeches. Then came high ground again and large gnarled silk cotton trees, and farther on, jungle with lianas and grotesque ae”riai roots entwining.

Santini was following a definite trail, one cleared through the jungle some months ago, judging by the shrubs which had grown up in the path. The swarthy man with the remarkable mustache was evidently running at a headlong pace, for Doc himself was going fast and had not yet sighted Santini.

From the air the island had seemed entirely of coral formation, but it now became apparent, as the terrain lifted sharply, that the central area was of more substantial construction.

The bronze man’s casual glances discerned clay-slates, micaceous and talcose schists as well as crystalline and compact limestones, a formation which his knowledge of geology told him constituted what geologists call the Caribbean series.

Doc paused frequently and listened. He could judge Santini’s progress now by the occasional outcries of tropical birds. These noises, raucous at best, might have sounded no different to an inexperienced ear, but the bronze man could detect those that were alarmed.

Abruptly, Doc turned aside. Santini had stopped.

A metallic phantom, making no appreciable stir in the jungle, Doc circled until he caught sight of Santini. The man had halted to use his eyes and ears. Santini seemed satisfied that he was not followed. The swell and collapse of his chest, as he sighed his relief, was visible.

Santini went on more slowly, breathing deeply to regain his wind, mopping perspiration.

The breeze made soft noise in the foliage. Gulls going past overhead sailed sidewise in the small gale. Thrushes and banana birds flew through the trees when disturbed, rather than above the foliage where the breeze was stronger.

Voices came from ahead. Doc quickened his pace, then halted to peer through a screen of vines.

Santini had met the lawyer, Hallet. The fat barrister seemed to be nervous, his birdlike mannerisms more pronounced. He had stripped to his undershirt and was fanning himself with a dry palm frond. Two heavy blue revolvers were belted about his middle, cowboy style, the belt loops stuffed with cartridges.

The pair consulted in voices so low that the words did not reach Doc. Then they went on, and the bronze man lost sight of them. He followed their trail.

It was not more than four or five minutes later when weird things began to happen.

A loud cry rasped out, guttural with an awful terror. It was Hallet’s Voice. And it ended in uncanny fashion, ended suddenly, as if the man who shrieked had been enveloped completely by the horror which had come upon him.

Macabre silence followed. Then birds flew up, calling harshly from all over the jungle, making a frightened bedlam.

DOC SAVAGE glided forward and soon caught sight of Santini.

The swarthy man with the waxed mustaches was backing across an expanse of rock, eyes fixed with hypnotic steadiness upon the stone a few yards distant.

The rock was smooth except for the undulations and tiny cracks made by the weather. There was nothing to show what fascinated Santini.

Doc Savage remained where he was, ears straining, and abruptly he caught a horrible moaning cry, muffled until he could not tell from where it came.

The cry affected Santini in grisly fashion, for he sprang backward as if the sound was that of some voracious beast, invisible in the scalding sunlight, but which was menacing

him.

Santini veered to the left abruptly and ran across the expanse of weather-cracked stone. He vanished over a small ridge of rock.

Doc ran forward, swinging so as to pass near where Santini had been when he evidenced such terror. Nothing out of the ordinary came to the attention of the bronze man’s eyes.

What had happened to Hallet was a profound mystery. Doc topped the rocky ridge. He halted so suddenly that his feet skidded a little.

Santini had vanished!

Doc went forward a few yards, flake-gold eyes probing and alert. Then he circled, warily, lest there be a trap. It was too much to believe that Santini had sprinted far enough to get into the jungle beyond the rocky space.

Doc went completely around the rocky area, and nowhere did be find tracks left by the swarthy man who affected the waxed mustache and the scarlet chest ribbon.

Going back to the starting point, the bronze man began a painstaking process of following Santini’s trail over the smooth, hard stone. To do this, he employed a small, powerful magnifying glass.

Santini had plunged through a small water puddle at one point, deposited by a recent rain. For the next few yards the trail was clear, wetly defined.

Doc ran ahead, following it. Suddenly, there was a low, dull clanking noise. Down went the slab of rock on which Doc stood!

There was no time to pitch clear. Doc plummeted downward. Eight or ten feet he judged his fall to be. Great muscles enabled him to land lightly on hard rock.

Scufflings and scratchings came from one side. A terrific blow smashed down on his head. He sank as if struck by a gigantic hammer.

DOC SAVAGE was twisting aside instinctively as the blow landed, and the movement absorbed much of the violence. His head remained clear. On all fours he scuttled to the left, encountered a rough stone wall and stood erect.

Silence fell. Stone grated softly above, probably the stone trapdoor closing more tightly. It must have been made with diabolic exactness, for Doc’s sharp gaze had failed to detect it. True, part of his failure to notice the trap could be blamed on Santini’s wet tracks, for they had progressed boldly across the slab which had tilted.

The blackness was almost eye-hurting. Doc felt in a pocket, found a coin and tossed it. His opponent failed to fall for the trick. The metallic tinkle echoed and reechoed, indicating a large cavern with many passages.

Doc wore his vest of many padded pockets containing the mechanical devices which he used frequently. They were gems of scientific skill, these gadgets. They had saved his life on many occasions.

A tiny tubular container, hardly as large as a talcum can, came out of the vest. Doc opened it noiselessly, then made several passes through the air. A cloud of fine powder, quite invisible in the intense murk, was wafted in the direction in which he knew his foe to be.

Doc replaced the container, and more slowly, deliberately waiting for the powder to settle, he produced what an observer, had there been one who could see in the dark, would have mistaken for a flashlight. But this had a lens that was so purple as to be almost black.

Doc thumbed the button. The flashlight device was a tiny, powerful projector of ultra-violet rays, the light which is commonly called “black” because the retina of the human eye is not sensitive to them, the beams which cause certain substances, such as ordinary vaseline, to glow with weird colors.

A startling thing happened. The figure of Doc’s foe stood out in the darkness, an eerie blue apparition. The floor on which he stood and the contour of a stone wall behind him, was also Visible. This was due to the fact that the powder which the bronze man had thrown was one which glowed when exposed to the ultra-violet beams.

The enemy could not see his bronze quarry. He never knew Doc was close to him until metallic fingers closed about his throat, stifling an outcry.

Clutching, Doc got hold of a short rifle with which the man had clubbed that first blow. He wrenched and got the weapon. Then he crushed the fellow down to the floor.

The man struggled and kicked, tried to cry out, but his muscles might have been denuded of life for all the good it did him. Against the bronze giant who held him, the attacker was helpless.

Doc sought and found a certain spot on the back of the fellow’s head, low down near its juncture with the top cervical, the chain of small bones which comprised the neck. He exerted pressure in a fashion taught him by his fabulous knowledge of surgery.

The Victim promptly became rigid, paralyzed. He would remain helpless and speechless until Doc, or some one with equal skill and knowledge, worked on his neck again, after which he would have nothing more than a bad headache and a stiff neck to show for his experience.

Doc used a conventional flashlight.

The man was one of Santini’s thugs. The fellow had been a member of the party which had endeavored to kill Doc and his companions in the car outside the office of Fountain of Youth, Inc., in New York City.

Roving his flash beam, Doc discerned a passage which led to the left and downward. The floor was sandy and showed numerous tracks. The bronze man advanced, following the tracks.

A TWIST at the head of the flashlight caused the beam to narrow until it was no larger than a cigarette, a long white string which roved ceaselessly. The flash was one which operated from a spring generator rather than a battery which might exhaust itself. The generator ran soundlessly.

Details of the cavern became apparent. The underground labyrinth was not the work of human hands, but of the elements. Softer stratas of stone had been worn or dissolved by subterranean waters. At spots there were chambers of considerable size. Again, it was necessary to stoop and even crawl.

But nature had received assistance at some points. On three different occasions Doc’s light picked up spots where the passages had been widened by human hands to permit comfortable passage.

A strange odor, not exactly pleasant, soaked the stale air. Doc sampled the tang several times, once stopping for several moments to give his nostrils a chance. The smell was not animal, nor was it of putrefaction. It was vague, baffling.

Discovery of a light ahead caused Doc to forget the aroma for the time being. He doused his own illumination, then glided forward.

The other lights came from electric lanterns — several of them. Doc heard the thump of hammers on stone, and the scraping of shovels.

Santini and a number of his men were gathered in a long, low chamber. Evidently they had not heard Doc’s encounter with their fellow at the entrance.

“Stop making noise!” Santini snarled. “Fermate! Stop!”

Men who had been tapping the stone walls and shoveling in the sand floor, ceased their efforts.

Santini took a long breath, shuddered and wiped his forehead with a silk handkerchief.

“Che vergogna!” he muttered. “What a shame! Our good friend Hallet has met with misfortune.”

“Hell!” said a thick-necked fellow, and dropped his shovel. “You mean that Doc Savage got ‘im?”

“Worse than that,” replied Santini.

“Whatcha mean, worse?”

“There was a trapdoor in the rock of which we knew nothing,” explained Santini. “Hallet walked in advance and fell through. He screamed, and I saw what happened to him before the trapdoor closed again.” Santini paused to shudder. “Si signors, I saw. It was ghastly! And after the trap closed, I could bear him moan!”

The man with the shovel cursed, then asked, “It was — “

“He is a skeleton by now,” affirmed Santini.

DOC SAVAGE advanced a few paces more and stood well within the chamber, but to one side in another passage which led off to the north, or so it felt from the current of air against his neck. The air was strong with the unexplained odor.

The men with the lights and the tools were silent for a time. Evidently they all understood what had happened to Hallet, and were thinking it over. Several looked uneasy.

“It’s that damned old Dan Thunden’s work!” grated a man.

“Yeah,” another agreed. “The old rip! He’s sure caused us hell. It mighta been better if we hadn’t tried to doublecross ‘im in the first place. Givin’ him his half split in the racket would’ve been better than goin’ through what we’re goin’ through.”

Santini sighed. “It is spilled milk. How were we to know that old Thunden would steal that package, containing all of the product that we had, and mail it to this relative of his, Kel Avery.”

“Kel Avery,” a third man grunted. “Damn it! I’m still wonderin’ if the girl we’ve got is really Kel Avery, or that Doc Savage’s cousin.”

“We shall know the answer to that before long, I promise you,” Santini declared.

The men stood in silence, as if not knowing what to do. Doc occupied the interval with thinking over what he had heard. Dan Thunden had once been a partner of Santini’s, it seemed, and they had split after a quarrel over Thunden’s receiving half the proceeds of whatever nefarious scheme they had underfoot.

“Why did old Thunden send the girl the package in the first place?” a man pondered aloud.

“It was undoubtedly his first step in an effort to persuade her to furnish financial backing for his project,” said Santini.

“You mean that old white-whiskers intended marketing the stuff himself?”

“Si,” Santini nodded. “That is my guess.”

“Did you destroy Savage’s plane?”

Santini swore round oaths of south Europe. “Non! The bomb was in the plane — but Dan Thunden was watching, unknown to me. He jumped out and yelled a warning, and they got the bomb out in time.”

The man with the shovel dug savagely into the sand. “But why’d Thunden do that? Is he workin’ with Savage now?”

“Non.” Santini shook his head. “His is the game of a mastermind. He hopes for Savage and his men to vanquish us. Then he will step in and eliminate Savage.”

“Give old Thunden credit,” some one muttered. “He’s got a brain.”

“He oughta have,” said another. “He’s been around a hundred and thirty-one years. A guy that old oughta have some gray matter.”

Again the conversation gave signs of getting nowhere, and Doc Savage decided to try an expedient which he had used on other occasions. The bronze man was a master of mimicry, of voice imitation.

The last man to speak had been on the outskirts of the group, in comparative darkness. Doc set himself to attempt a difficult feat, that of using his skill as a mimic and as a ventriloquist to make it seem that the man had asked a question. Doc wanted to find out just what had happened

to Hallet.

Santini interrupted at the wrong instant, saying, “You had best resume the search. We must find Dan Thunden’s supply of the material. The old devil has hidden it well.”

“You think it’s in this mess of caves?” asked some one. “I’m not certain, but it is likely,” Santini replied. “It was in these caves that Dan Thunden dwelled for the ninety-one years since his ship was wrecked here in 1843, and only he alone of the crew reached shore. It is reasonable to think that he would store it here.”

“Right at that,” somebody agreed.

Doc decided to try his ventriloquism trick.

“What gets me is just how those bodies are turned into skeletons so quickly,” he said, assuming the voice of the man on the outskirts of the crowd. “Just how is it done?”

The bronze man got a bad break. From the direction of the entrance, feet pounded. Leaking appeared, a-drip with perspiration, excited.

“Doc Savage is in here!” he howled.

THE INSTANT he heard that, Doc Savage moved silently along the wall, intending to get past Leaking unobserved, if he could.

“How do you know Savage is in here?” Santini roared.

“The guard at the door was laid out!” Leaking barked. “He’s paralyzed, or somethin’. Only that bronze guy could’ve done it!”

Flashlights and electric lanterns which had not been in use by Santini’s party, were now turned on. Their glow flooded the confines of the cavern and outlined Doc’s great bronze frame.

Leaking saw Doc. The fellow’s pores seemed literally to squirt water as terror struck him.

“There he is!” he squawled.

Guns roared. Lead spaded at the hard stone, knocking off fragments, leaving metallic smears.

Only one avenue of flight was open. Doc took it. Back into the side passage he whipped.

Behind him weapons continued to thunder, the rap of pistols intermingling with the whoop of repeating shotguns. A machine gun let loose a staccato bedlam. Bullets squawled and ricocheted and seemed to pursue Doc like invisible bees.

Doc used his flashlight, for haste was more desirable than concealment. He rounded an angle in the underground channel, vaulted over a slab of stone which had fallen from the roof and slid down a steep slope.

Next came a large room, and beyond that a narrow passage again. Doc scuttled along this for a hundred feet. Then a door barred his way.

The door was of timbers, very solid, and nowhere could be discerned a fastener. Doc threw a shoulder against it. The panel held like Gibraltar, did not as much as squeak under his hammering bulk. He stood still, his flashlight roving the timbers.

A shouting, shooting tumult, the pursuit came closer. It looked very much as if Doc were trapped.