by Guy d'Armen
The Troglodytes of Mount Everest
*
The Giants of Black Lake
by
Guy d’Armen
adapted and retold in English by
Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier
A Black Coat Press Book
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
THE TROGLODYTES OF MOUNT EVEREST
THE GIANTS OF BLACK LAKE
THE RELUCTANT PRINCESS
French Mysteries Collection
Introduction
The Troglodytes of Mount Everest (Les Troglodytes du Mont Everest) was originally serialized in the magazine L’Intrépide in Nos. 961-985 from January to July 1929. The Giants of Black Lake (Les Géants du Lac Noir) was serialized in the same magazine in Nos. 1066-1089 from January to July 1931. By comparison, our previous volume, The City of Gold and Lepers (La Cité de l’Or et de la Lèpre), appeared in Sciences & Voyages, Nos. 453-479 from May to November 1928.
None of these novels were ever collected in book form and may have been consigned to utter oblivion, if not for the dedicated efforts of scholars Jacques Van Herp and Gérard Klein, who reprinted City in a 1973 anthology devoted to French proto-SF.
Sadly, we don’t know who Guy d’Armen really was, except that it was obviously a nom-de-plume, and not even the only one used by the same writer. There is some evidence that he might have also used the pseudonyms of “Francis Annemary,” “Corentin Goulphar,” “Jacques Diamant” and possibly “Guy d’Antin.” Records for the period being scarce, we will never know for sure. Whoever “Guy d’Armen” was, however, unlike so many of his colleagues, he wasn’t very prolific. There were only eight serialized novels and eleven short stories published under that name between 1926 and 1938, before he disappeared from the literary scene; “Francis Annemary” is credited with three serialized novels and one short story; Corentin Goulphar with two novels; and “Jacques Diamant” with one novel. Even taking it all together, it is not much of an oeuvre.
Perhaps the answer to his “disappearance” lies with the fourth pseudonym. When the adventures of Doc Savage were first published in France in the late 1930s, the name of the hero was altered to Franck Sauvage, and the house-name of Kenneth Robeson was changed to “Guy d’Antin.” Is it possible that whoever hid under the pseudonym of “Guy d’Armen” thought that there was easier money to be made in translating Doc Savage stories than creating his own? Again, we will never know for sure.
In any event, Guy d’Armen’s works dwell in that rich literary crossroads that exists between Jules Verne, Talbot Mundy and Kenneth Robeson. For that reason alone, they deserve to be brought back in print. Mysterious secret cities hidden deep in the heart of Asia, eccentric mad scientists, new, terrifying weapons, were not entirely new concepts by the late 1920s and early 1930s. Verne’s Blackland and Captain Nemo had already been there; Mundy’s JimGrim (1931) and Robeson’s Doc Savage (1933) were just around the corner. Many more were to come, but Guy d’Armen was amongst the first writers to plow that wonderful field, and that fact ought to be acknowledged.
When translating and adapting these two novels, we have chosen, in the tradition of Philip José Farmer, to make some minor changes—so very slight, in fact, that it is a testimony to the synchronicity of these works with those of its literary successors—in order to pretend that young Francis Ardan, fresh out of med school, embarking on the career of an intrepid explorer, is but an alias of young Clark Savage, Jr., before his first “American” adventure.
The two novels presented in this book take place in the Summer, Fall and Winter of 1926, a year before The City of Gold and Lepers which occurs in mid-to-late 1927. The Troglodytes of Mount Everest (which really should have been entitled The Pirates of Mount Everest, as it does not feature any cave-dwellers) begins in the summer of 1926, after young Francis Ardan has completed his medical studies, thus earning the title of “doctor.” The Giants of Black Lake (which we were sorely tempted to rename The Monsters of Black Lake, as a nod to Doc Savage’s 14th installment, The Monsters, which proceeds along a somewhat similar, but less ambitious, concept), follows a few months later. Then, the hero went on to City of Gold and Lepers, and after that segued into the events of The Man of Bronze.
The reader is, of course, entirely free to discard that inference which, for the most part, has very little to do with the actual plots of the novels, which remain as fresh as ever.
The accompanying illustrations are those of the original stories published in L’Intrépide.
Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier
THE TROGLODYTES OF MOUNT EVEREST
CHAPTER I
An Interrupted Cruise
Father’s idea of coming to the Bay of Merbat was top notch, thought Francis Ardan, Fils, as he rowed his dinghy. It’s a beautiful place!
Several hundred meters to the south, the yacht Isolde floated gently on the waves of the Arabian Sea. The young man could just see his father, Francis Ardan, Père, a billionaire explorer, standing on the deck.
They were making a round the world cruise on a yacht that was said to be the most advanced in the world. This was Francis Jr.’s graduation gift for receiving degrees in medicine from medical schools in both the United States and France. The young man had a taste for adventure; having been trained both physically and mentally almost from birth. He had almost superhuman endurance and strength and was already a master of the martial arts.
Francis Jr. had recently celebrated his 24th birthday. He had also successfully passed his aviator’s pilot license, even breaking the French record for high altitude flying.
Gifted with unlimited energy and boundless enthusiasm, he was also fascinated by all the most recent scientific discoveries. His father had equipped him with a top of the line laboratory in their residence outside Paris. More than once, he had found his son still busy with experiments at sunrise, not having slept all night.
Young Ardan’s scientific knowledge was second to none, and getting medical degrees from both Johns Hopkins and the Faculté de Médecine de Paris had been child’s play for him. That was why his father had decided that the young man needed a long vacation in the form of a cruise.
Ardan Sr. could easily continue to supervise his many businesses from the yacht, sending and receiving coded messages through the onboard radio. Besides, the trip would also provide many opportunities for exploring, revisiting old friends, and creating new business ventures for the family’s stake in the Dormyn Island Trading Co.
The businessman had hired an old Breton named LeMarec to captain the yacht. The sailor had navigated the seven seas, had a cynical view of the world and was skeptical about the entire voyage.
“Really, LeMarec,” said Ardan Sr., “The boy needs to get a taste of the real world outside of books and microscopes.”
“Perhaps you’re right, Monsieur, but you should be wary that he doesn’t get bitten by the bug of Adventure, something that, these days, seems to threaten every young man that’s chockfull of energy, like your son.”
“You’ve read too many dime novels, my good LeMarec,” said Ardan Sr., laughing out loud. “Today, there isn’t a single corner of the globe that’s not civilized, without its Thos. Cook agency or a radio station.”
“So you think that running into Chinese pirates who take ships for ransom off of Amoy and even Hong Kong, despite the British Navy, is something to be laughed at?” the Captain retorted, between two puffs on his briar pipe.
“They’re nothing my son can’t handle if need be. Besides, they’re just petty thieves, like our Parisian apaches. Have you ever heard of anyone being taken captive and not being released? The pirates have been on
ly too happy to take what they can get, release their prisoners and run off. And with the precautions we’ve taken here, we can surely hold our own. That’s why I had a revolving canon installed; there are criminals everywhere. But in today’s world, pirates like the Radik brothers, who terrorized the Pacific for months, can no longer thrive. A simple wireless SOS would alert the entire planet instantly and they would soon have entire fleets of gunships on their heels.”
Captain LeMarec held his tongue. After all, the boss had the right to his own opinion on seafaring adventures or anything else; all he was interested in was handling the magnificent vessel, Isolde, which did his bidding in the blink of an eye.
Meanwhile, young Ardan felt himself at peace as he rowed in the dinghy and took in the beauty laid out before him. The sands of Hadrammaout spread out as far as the eye could see, and looked golden in the rays of the sun as it set behind the great dunes. They were surrounded by a silence that was only occasionally disturbed by the sound of a fish breaking the surface of the waves.
Slowly, darkness fell over the azure blue waters that were so clear during daylight that the colors of the rock fish were as visible as if they were in an aquarium.
“It’s so beautiful,” repeated Ardan.
The yacht was becoming a distant spot of darkness. The young man’s dinghy was angling for the coast so gently that its single passenger seemed not to notice. In the distance, his father was unconcerned, as he approved of solitary, nocturnal outings and could never have dreamed that his son was in any danger.
Soon, the starless, black night was pierced only by the fore and aft lights of the Isolde. Even the yacht’s white hull was invisible in the darkness. From three and a half miles out, it was impossible for those on board the ship to see the coast.
Intoxicated by the gentle, perfumed breeze, the young sailor began to sing. His voice was a perfect baritone, and he had taken singing lessons from a retired opera star. He was lost in his own world and paid little attention to anything beyond the inside of his skiff and his music.
Suddenly, a light shock caused him to turn his head.
A dark hull was blocking his small boat; and from what he could see, it was part of a huge vessel.
Is LeMarec playing games? he wondered. The old seadog would do something like that just to scare me. Maybe he thought they’d gone too far from land and came in as far as Isolde could go without hitting bottom...
“Ahoy!” he called loudly.
But there was no response. He called out again, still with no reply.
“Blast! I’d better try to see what’s what and why everyone on board this boat seems to be asleep.”
Ardan noticed a metal ladder on the side of the mysterious boat just a few meters away. He tied his skiff to the bottom and cautiously climbed up.
When he arrived on deck, he saw that all was in darkness. He decided that it must be an abandoned vessel, but wondered what strange events had caused that to occur. A “ghost” ship was something that gave pause to even the least superstitious sailor. Ardan felt an unpleasant shiver run up his spine. He shook it off quickly.
“OK! Time to take a look at the bridge. That’s where I’ll find any clues as to what happened here.”
The bridge was on the same level as the deck, which was unusual for most ships. In a corner, leaning against a rail, a sailor had his back turned towards the young man and appeared to be sleeping.
That must be why the boat is just floating this way, thought Ardan. So, the watch is sleeping, but where’s the officer in charge?
“That’s a good way to get hijacked,” he said, out loud this time. “So, tell me, are you paid to sleep on duty so you can ram innocent sailors?”
He was answered by total silence. The man must have been dead drunk to sleep so soundly.
There weren’t any set rules on how to approach someone on the high seas who was so negligent as to run into other vessels, so Ardan decided that his only option was a solid slap to the other man’s shoulder.
“Hey, buddy, are you drunk?” he shouted.
The man turned violently and his fist slammed into the young man’s face, knocking him to the deck.
“Son of a bitch!” yelled Ardan as he tried to stand back up. “You’ll be sorry you did that!”
But he felt as if the deck was slipping beneath his feet. And, indeed, he was sliding at a dizzying speed as if he was on an escalator. Suddenly, he seemed to stop sliding and instead fell straight through a trap door that had opened beneath his feet! His fall was broken by a pile of cushions, but it took the young man a few seconds to catch his breath.
I’ll be damned if I understand what’s happened, he thought. What kind of set-up is this; trapping visitors and dropping them into the hold? Lucky I always keep my revolver with me. If they’re pirates, they’ll regret their little trick. Say, that sounds like their infernal machine is starting up again.
And, with a small click, the trap door closed above Ardan’s head.
He found himself enclosed in a padded basket, which seemed to be slowly moving towards an unknown destination.
Bewildered, he cried out. But the stony silence he had come to expect on the mysterious vessel continued. He noticed that he appeared to be sliding down a gentle incline, but that the speed was far less than that of his previous fall.
The young man thought that his father must be getting worried, despite the fact that he often returned late when the Isolde was at anchor. But even so, by now the elder Ardan would be concerned.
And Francis Jr. wasn’t wrong. His father had asked LeMarec to turn on a signal beam. But something odd had occurred; it was impossible to light it, even though everything seemed to be properly wired. They would need a miracle to set things right.
Captain LeMarec told the irritated billionaire:
“Even with the wireless, there are still mysterious things that can happen at sea.”
If Ardan Sr. could have seen the mess his son was in, his confidence in the young man’s ability to save himself from any situation would have been shaken. The box in which he was held prisoner had just emerged from another trap door and a deep voice spoke:
“Doctor Francis Ardan, I’m going to release you, but I warn you that I have a pistol in each hand. If you make the least unexpected movement, I’ll shoot. And don’t think that I need a free hand to let you out; I have a button that I only need to press with my foot and you’ll be rocketed into the air like a jack-in-the-box! Don’t try to flip over in the air like a cat. You’ll be on a well calculated trajectory, and I already know where you will land.”
Mute with terror, the young man thought, I’m doomed! I’m in the hands of a raving lunatic!
He heard a quick click and felt himself thrown into the air. He did a somersault and landed on his backside in front of a strange character who was pointing the barrels of two pistols straight at his head.
CHAPTER II
Captain Mendax
With a sinister laugh, the man said:
“You are the prisoner of Captain Mendax!”
Francis Ardan was in such terror that he just sat in stunned silence. He looked at the odd man in front of him and thought that he should be in a lunatic asylum rather than captaining any kind of vessel. However, he was wrong, because Captain Mendax was not insane, but he was one of the most dangerous criminals the world had ever seen.
Completely dressed in a khaki uniform, he was a tall, strongly-built man with rough, brutish features. He sported a full mustache and a black beard. His eyes were as black as ink beneath thick eyebrows, and burned with a strange, inner fire.
The diabolical captain carefully frisked his captive and easily found his revolver.
“Why don’t I put your little toy in a safe place?” he asked contemptuously, as he opened a drawer and threw the weapon inside it.
“Now, let’s talk. Of course, I know all about you: Francis Ardan, Jr., son of the billionaire explorer and industrialist, Francis Ardan, Sr., who owes his fortune to inherit
ing a Mayan gold mine. Your little sea voyage is to celebrate your newly-minted medical degrees.”
He paused to manipulate a lever hidden behind a red silk curtain, while he kept watch on his young passenger.
“Hey! We’re sinking!” said the startled Ardan, when he noticed the deck tilting beneath his feet.
“Don’t worry about it,” growled Mendax. “I’ll tell you what’s happening later. Right now, I want to tell you why I brought you here.
“You boarded the Astaroth—named after the Devil, of course. It’s a silent vessel that I operate alone. Did you come across a sailor above deck?”
“Yes,” answered Ardan, rubbing his face at the memory.
“Then you should know that I am the only living person here!”
“But what about that sailor?”
Mendax laughed maniacally, sending a shiver up Ardan’s spine.
“That sailor is nothing but a simple automaton. You touched him, a natural action to awaken a sleeping man. That set off the mechanism that was especially programmed to slap you in the face. That caused you to fall and the weight of your body released a lever that, in its turn, set off the motorized carpet that inevitably brought you here. It’s all synchronized in the finest detail.”
“You thug!” yelled Ardan, as he tried to attack his captor.
But he didn’t even have time to stand up; Mendax had pressed his heel on one of the slats of the wooden floor and a strange thing happened. Two, flexible arms made of multiple strips of articulated steel appeared from above and below and the man found himself held like a fly in a spider’s web.
“I would suggest that you keep still, unless you want my steel spider to get upset,” said the evil captain, calmly. “Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll warn you that the least effort to escape will cause it to tighten its grip mercilessly.”
