Chapter 18

LOTS OF LUCK — ALL BAD

WILLIAM HARPER LITTLEJOHN was sitting on the top step of the secret entrance when he heard men running through the caverns beneath him, coming closer. Johnny was perspiring and pale, absently fingering his monocle magnifier. He was suffering from his injured chest.

He stood erect hastily. An instant later, he knew it was Santini’s men who approached. He grasped some of the anesthetic bulbs, took his time, then threw them into the blackness below.

Startled curses indicated he had downed at least one man. There was a confab. He could not catch the words. Some one tried to shoot him, but had no luck. Johnny returned a blast from his superfirer for effect.

Had there been only the one exit, Johnny might have held Santini and his men prisoners below for an indefinite period — but there were other openings.

A hundred yards distant, a section of stone flew up. Two men popped out with sawed-off shotguns.

Johnny did the only thing possible — he got up and ran. Grasping Dan Thunden’s inert frame, he attempted to carry the whitehaired old-young man along.

In Dan Thunden reposed the secret of Fear Cay, and Johnny wanted mightily to get at the bottom of that mystery.

Santini himself put in an appearance and yelled, “Non! Non! Do not shoot Thunden!”

Johnny tightened his grip on Thunden, realizing that the presence of the white-headed man meant safety. But the burden slowed his pace amazingly. He staggered. Twice he went entirely down.

It dawned on Johnny that he was never going to escape with his prisoner. So, reluctantly, he dropped the form of Thunden, then sprinted into the jungle. He reached the dense growth, plams and gum trees sheltering him from a storm of lead.

Head down, Johnny ran with a long-legged stride. He was headed for the spot where Doc’s plane had landed, and he kept going in that direction. At his back, pursuit was steady, but the enemy did not gain.

Johnny was reeling and nearly out when he came upon Monk and Ham.

The apish Monk was bristling, eager for a fight, his pet pig, Habeas, trailing him. Ham had his sword cane in one hand, his superfirer in the other.

“We heard the shootin’!” Monk grunted. “What’s goin’ on?”

Johnny waved a bony hand to indicate pursuit, then sank down weakly on the most comfortable-looking spot, an expanse of rank green plants. He sat there while Monk and Ham dashed forward.

“Where’s Kel Avery and Da Clima?” he called in a feeble Voice.

“Back at the plane,” Ham called without stopping.

An instant later there was a bawling of machine pistols, the slamming reports of repeating shotguns and the cackle of automatics. Lead made eerie noises in the jungle. Leaves were cut free and drifted with the breeze. Occasional cocoanuts dropped noisily. Frightened birds made a great uproar until they had all fled the scene of hostilities.

For perhaps five minutes, the guerrilla warfare continued intermittently. Then Ham and Monk came creeping back through the jungle. They had resumed their perpetual quarrel.

“If you’d throw that sticker away and learn to shoot, we’d have better luck,” Monk growled, eying Ham’s sword cane.

“How could I find anybody to shoot at when you charged around like an elephant and showed them where we were?” Ham snapped. “Nature had sure run out of brains when she got around to equipping you!”

This was a slight exaggeration, considering Monk’s reputation as one of the greatest of living chemists.

They reached Johnny, and Monk advised, “There was just a lot of lead-throwing and noise. I don’t think anybody was hit. And they beat it. Now, tell us what’s happened.”

Johnny did not reply. He was on all fours, eyes close to the ground, and he did not look up. He seemed in the grip of some spell.

“What’s been going on?” Monk asked Johnny again.

The bony archaeologist and geologist did not lift his eyes. He seemed frozen in his crouching position.

“Hey!” Monk barked anxiously. “What ails you?”

Johnny lifted an arm, beckoned.

“Look at this,” he requested, and indicated one of the plants in the bed of which he had been seated.

Monk came over and stared.

“Just a funny-lookin’ weed,” he snorted.

JOHNNY LOOKED pained, and pointed at the growth of plants.

“Weed!” he sniffed. “Neither of you ever saw flora of that type before.”

“So what?” Monk queried.

“Examine the confines of this area of vegetation,” Johnny invited.

Monk and Ham complied with that request, and the result was a surprising discovery. The plants which had intrigued Johnny grew in even rows, as if cultivated.

“Somebody’s garden patch,” Monk grunted.

“This is very strange,” Johnny murmured.

“Not half as strange as some other things,” Monk said. “For instance, what is it that is making people into skeletons around here? And what is Santini after? C’mon. Let’s go back to the plane.”

Before leaving the spot where he was seated, Johnny carefully plucked a few shoots of the plants which had so intrigued him and tucked the sprigs inside his hat band where they would not be crumpled.

By the time the men had reached the plane, Johnny had completed a rapid outline of what had occurred. Monk and Ham grinned widely over the news that Dan Thunden had been seized, but scowled darkly at word of the final outcome.

They stood on the white coral beach where the sand stung their faces, and looked about. There was no one in sight.

“Thought you said Da Clima and Kel Avery were here,” Johnny suggested.

Monk, his expression suddenly anxious, lifted his voice, ‘“Miss Avery!”

Silence followed.

“Blazes!” Ham muttered, and nervously sheathed and unsheathed his sword cane.

Monk called again. Once more there was no answer.

“Something’s happened!” he rapped. “Da Clima and Kel Avery had orders to stick right here!”

A moment later, Habeas Corpus began squealing and grunting off to one side. The three men dived for the spot, Ham using his sword cane to knock aside the jungle vegetation, Monk and Johnny with their machine pistols ready.

“I’ll be superamalgamated!” Johnny mumbled, and all three stared at what Habeas had found.

BIG DA CLIMA was piled slackly on his stomach in the leafage, his legs crossed in a grotesque fashion, one arm twisted under his chest, the other flung up and over his head as if to protect it.

His head was askew, the face up, and a crimson rivulet had crawled down out of his hair, trickled on down his face and over neck, to redden his shirt collar.

“Look for Kel!” Ham barked, and sank down to see how badly Da Clima was hurt.

Monk dashed about; Johnny tottered. Both waved their rapidfirer pistols, anxious to find a target, and both had rage-tensed faces. But neither found a sign of the enemy.

When they went back, Ham looked up from his task of kneading Da Clima’s wrists, got their disgusted head shakes, then said, “He’s coming out of it. There’s hardly any bump at all on his head.”

Da Clima sat up at last. His manner was remindful of the first time they had seen him. back at the New York airport. He blinked, swayed his read from side to side and looked stupid.

“Where’s Kel Avery?” Ham snapped.

“Da Clima, how he know?” the overmuscled man mumbled.

“What happened to you?”

Da Clima (lid not seem quite positive on the subject.

“For you feller, I stand around and listen, yes,” he said ‘vaguely. “Then all of a sudden the top of my head, she go bane! like the firecracker on the Fourth of July.”

“Then what?”

“How do I know?” Da Clima scowled. “‘The world, she kind of stop for to go around, then.”

“Somebody sneaked up behind and kissed your bean with a gun barrel or something, eh?” Monk growled.

“Maybe,” Da Clima admitted. “I no see the soul, not a soul.”

The big man stood up, glared at his knees which seemed inclined to buckle, then hammered himself upon the chest — weakly at first and erratically, almost missing with his own fist, then more accurately and soundly, so that his great torso gave off hollow boomings.

“Show me the damn feller who is do this to Da Clima!” he roared. “I tear from him the arm and leg, yes!”

“You sure do talk, big boy,” Monk growled. “But in action you ain’t been so hot.”

Da Clima glowered. “What you mean by that? The insult, no?”

Ham put in placatingly, “Don’t mind the missing link, Da Clima. He fell out of the nest when he was little.”

Da Clima laughed harshly and frowned at Monk. “I might have known this feller he born in a nest in the tree, like the monkey.”

Johnny snapped, “Stop it! This is no time for personalities! What are we going to do?”

“Take the plane and try to spot Santini’s men,” Ham suggested. “Maybe we can locate them before they get Kel Avery to their headquarters.”

They ran for the plane, clambered into the cabin, and Monk took the control bucket. He threw starter switches. Nothing happened. They clambered out and investigated.

“Santini’s men took the carburetors off the motors!” Ham groaned.

THEY UNLOADED, held a brief conference, and it was decided to head for the rocky area afoot. Just what they would do when they reached the scene of the underground caverns they were not sure, but each man made a pack of equipment which he thought might be necessary.

Johnny described the location of the expanse of stone, and they concluded the place could be reached more quickly by taking the slightly circuitous route around the beach. They could travel more swiftly, especially Johnny, who was not equal to much more jungle.

“Boy, you’re gonna suffer for that crack about me fallin’ out of the nest,” Monk promised Ham in an undertone as they trotted along the white coral sand.

Ham started some caustic retort, held it back and pointed. “What is that?”

All four men followed his indicating arm. Bits of timber, aged and weather-beaten, projected above the sand close to the jungle.

“An old wreck,” Monk snorted, and would have gone on.

“Wait!” Johnny said sharply.

The skeleton-thin geologist and archaeologist went forward, eyed such of the timbers as were above the sand, then kicked about, uncovering others.

It was the frame of a ship — not a large Vessel. The wood had once been carved in elaborate fashion.

“What’re we killin’ time here for?” Monk demanded impatiently.

Johnny eyed him. “Did you ever see a Roman galley?”

“Blazes, no!” Monk growled. “I’m not two thousand years old.”

“This,” Johnny indicated the wreckage dramatically, “was once a Roman galley. I am sure of it.”

The emphasis which the gaunt scientist put on the declaration was enough to impress the others. They knew from past experience that Johnny was not addicted to excitement without just cause.

“A Roman galley,” Monk said slowly. “But how did it get here on this side of the Atlantic?”

“Drifted, perhaps.”

“Nix. Ocean currents are wrong for that.”

“Then possibly it had sails which were set, and the wind blew it across,”said Johnny. “The thing is not impossible. It could have happened. This island is on the outskirts of the Caribbean, and a craft blown across the Atlantic might conceivably have landed here, or been wrecked, as this one was undoubtedly.”

Monk nodded. “I still don’t see why all the excitement?”

Johnny touched his hat band where the sprigs of weed reposed.

“I have an astounding theory,” he said. “But we will go into it later.”

“Yes,” said Ham. “We’ve got Kel Avery and the rest to worry about now.”

Soon they turned into the jungle. They went as quietly as possible, but banana birds and noisy parakeets were stirred up, while gulls and frigate birds sailed inquiringly overhead.

“Gonna be hard to get close without bein’ heard,” Monk opined.

The expanse of smooth stone opened before their eyes. The sun was nearing the horizon, but still hot, and the rock was like so much molten substance poured out, still white with its own heat.

Crouched behind a gnarled silk-cotton tree at the edge of the stony area, they used their eyes and small pocket telescopes, but discerned no sign of life. More important, there was no trace of the secret entrances. ‘The flinty surface looked one solid mass.

“Can you find any of the trapdoors?” Ham asked Johnny.

Johnny grimaced doubtfully. “I don’t know. I shall try.”

They advanced, weapons ready, pausing frequently to sink down and jam ears to the hot stone to listen for sounds from below. The heat waves danced and all but scorched their skins. They were already red with sunburn, their northern tan being little protection against this tropical inferno. But they heard nothing.

Suddenly Da Clima, off to one side, dropped to all fours and pawed at a crack.

“Me, I find the hole!” he gulped.

DA CLIMA wrenched, pounded with the heel of a hand and so suddenly that they all sprang backward, a lid of stone flew up, exposing a dark gullet that led downward.

Monk extended a hand. “Shake,” he smiled.

Da Clima glared at the hairy paw. “What for?”

“I’ll take it all back,” Monk informed him. “You have finally performed a useful service.”

“Ahr-r-r,” growled Da Clima, and scrambled down into the black cavity which he had uncovered.

The others unlimbered flashlights which they had brought from the plane, and followed the overmuscled Da Clima. Roughly hewn rock enclosed them so closely that Monk’s massive shoulders rubbed and at times he had difficulty in passing. Da Clima’s bulk was only slightly less.

The way widened for a time, then narrowed again. They passed a side tunnel. A stout hardwood log, which they tested carefully, bridged a crack that cleft beneath them.

Monk dropped a tiny pebble, counted almost to twenty before it hit water.

“Nice place, this,” Monk whispered.

“Pipe down,” Ham suggested.

Monk picked up Habeas, who was following them, and carried the big-eared pig tucked under an arm. Habeas was making no sound now. Not for nothing had Monk spent innumerable hours in training the shoat.

Da Clima, first into the depths, was still in the lead, and as they came to a point where it was necessary to get down on all fours and crawl, he went ahead.

“Ugh!” Da Clima exploded unexpectedly.

The next instant, his gun emitted a blast that all but ruptured their eardrums. Then the muscular giant scuttled forward, reached a sizable chamber, and reared erect. He plunged on.

“A man, he see me!” he howled. “That guy Santini, I think it was I — “

Men shouted ahead. They caught Santini’s foreign accent. A gun lashed red flame. They fired back. Their shots were not answered.

“Gonna be tough from now on,” Monk growled.

They stood there in darkness, their flashlights extinguished.

“I,” said Ham, “have an idea.”

THE DAPPER lawyer could be heard fumbling at the pack which held the stuff they had brought from the plane.

“What is this idea?” Monk whispered.

“We’ll use the light-spot cartridges on those birds,” Ham said grimly. “That should give them something to think about.”

“Boy, you are bright,” Monk admitted, and dug into his own pack.

Light-spot cartridges was the designation given by Doc Savage’s men to a special shell which the bronze man had designed for the superfirer. Doc had created many unusual bullet types for the remarkable guns, from tracers and mercy slugs to explosives of such power that a single one could knock down a small house.

The light-spot pellets were among the most unique. They were charged with a mixture of thermite and magnesium, the exact ingredients known only to the bronze man, and burned with a brilliant white light wherever they struck.

Certain of the amino drums were charged alternately with five light-spot slugs and five mercy bullets, an effective combination. The new drums were fitted and the guns latched into single-fire position.

“Let’s go!” Monk growled.

They charged forward. One of Santini’s men fired at them.

“Let ‘em have the spots!” Monk rapped.

A volley of metallic clicks followed. Utter silence ensued.

“Blazes!” groaned Monk.

“Something’s wrong!” Ham grated. “These ammo drums are duds!”

Monk snarled unintelligibly. “I know! When those birds got to the plane, they doctored the bullets!”

He got no further. Santini must have heard their Voices.

“Rush them!” he howled.

Feet slammed. A gun glared red lightning. Monk thumbed on his flashlight, then tossed it to the floor where it would furnish illumination for the fight.

The next instant, Santini’s men were upon them. There was no shooting now. The Santini gang seemed confident. They swung clubbed guns, fists, kicked and clawed.

A dozen seconds of desperate conflict told Monk and the others that they were outnumbered. They tried to retreat.

Da Clima got the retreat idea first. He popped into the cramped tunnel through which they had just crawled. In some fashion, he seemed to stick there. He began to bawl in terror.

Monk pinched Da Clima, shoved him, but the big fellow did not budge, although Monk’s pinches must have been very painful.

“Danged if this mess of meat ain’t a jinx!” Monk roared, and gave Da Clima another terrific pinch.

Three Santini followers sprang upon Monk, and three guns bludgeoned together for his head. For Monk, it seemed as if all of the lights went out suddenly and his surroundings became very still.