His powerful voice pealed across the pirate camp.
"I would speak with all you fella!" he said in beach jargon. "All same come alongside plenty quick!"
Yellow men swarmed over, curious to hear what this giant had to say. They were puzzled about something else, too — the big man's voice had changed. It was no longer shrill, piping, but thunderous with latent power.
* * *
DOC surveyed the assemblage, standing just in front of the matting tent.
"I have made fools out of you!" he boomed in ordinary English, which most of the corsairs could probably understand. "I came here deliberately to persuade you to turn upon Tom Too!"
He went on, telling exactly what had happened. He informed them Tom Too was still alive. He flung out the note he had received, letting them read it, such as could read.
He carefully neglected any reference to his jaunt to the bay at the north end of the island, or his grisly discoveries there.
"Tom Too is holding my five friends!" he continued. "If I kill myself, he will release them. Therefore, I shall pay that price, so my friends may go free."
A remarkable change had swept the pirate horde. They glowered at Doc, muttering, fingering knives. The fact that the big man had stated he was going to kill himself to save his friends, made no good impression upon them. They were a callous lot.
"I shall now shoot myself!" Doc shouted. "You will all see my act. You can tell Tom Too."
The situation struck some of the corsairs as ridiculous, as indeed it was. The giant who had deceived them was crazy. Did he think Tom Too would release his five friends, once he was dead? Tom Too never kept his word, unless it was to his interest to do so.
Suddenly a husky half-caste sprang forward, waving his sword. It was the same fellow with whom Doc had conversed at length. The man's pants pockets bulged with Doc's money.
"Snake-dog!" he shrieked. "You stand in flont of my tent and befoul it! Fol that, I kill youl"
He rushed forward angrily.
Doc turned and dived into the tent, as though in flight. He seemed to stumble just inside the door, and fall fiat.
Fully fifty pirates saw the half-caste's sword strike. The swordsman withdrew a blade that dripped red, and stepped to the tent door.
"My tent is luined!" he howled. "It shall be destloyed with flame!"
Whereupon, he kicked over the gasoline barrel. Fuel sloshed out. The half-caste struck a match and tossed it into the petrol. Flame instantly enveloped the tent.
The half-caste continued to dance around, as though in a great rage.
A close observer might have noticed three Mongols in the pirate crowd who swiftly planted themselves where they could watch all sides of the burning tent.
The flaming matting popped and cracked. Vile yellow smoke poured upward, mingling densely in the boughs of trees which overhung the spot.
The three watching Mongols squatted low, so there would be no chance of any one running away from the blazing tent without being discovered in the act.
The fire raged fully thirty minutes. The tent had been erected upon a foundation of hardwood poles, and these gave off much heat.
* * *
LONG before the fire had burned out, the yellow cutthroats gathered in noisy groups to discuss the fact that Tom Too was still alive, and to ponder on what punishment would be theirs for turning against their master.
The three Mongols, however, took no part in this. They never removed the stares of their slant eyes from the conflagration.
When the remains of the tent had become glowing coals, the trio approached. With long poles, they knocked the embers apart.
They showed satisfaction at the sight of gray-white ash which was unmistakably burned bones. One of them raked out a partially consumed piece of bone and pocketed it.
To make certain, they dug into the earth upon which the tent had stood. There was no tunnel.
Throwing down the sticks, the three strode rapidly away. They did not take particular pains not to be seen. But they made sure none of the other pirates followed them.
The beach sand crunched softly under their bare feet. Birds twittered in the jungle. The clouds had cleared away overhead, and the sun was slamming down a hot glare.
"I did not think the bronze man would actually kill himself, oh brothers," said one Mongol thoughtfully, speaking his native tongue. "But there is no doubt but that he did."
"He did not kill himself," another pointed out. "He was speared by the half-caste."
"And very well speared, too," chuckled the third. "And I have in my pocket a burned piece of the bronze man's bones. Tom Too should think highly of that souvenir."
"No doubt he will! Verily, this bronze devil has not been one thorn in our sides — he has been a whole thicket of them."
The three Mongols stepped into a small sampan, shoved off and paddled to the largest of the anchored junks.
The interior of this craft proved to be fitted in lavish fashion, with many tapestries, paintings done on silk and featuring dragons, rugs, and elaborately inlaid furniture.
Near the high stern, they entered a room which contained a modern-looking radio installation. One man threw the switch which started the motor generators, then seated himself at the key.
The other two Mongols stood beside him. Apparently they thought nothing of the incongruity of their surroundings, the commingling of the splendor of ancient China and the shiny copper wires, glistening tubes, and black insulation paneling of the radio transmitter.
The Mongol Operator prepared to send.
There was a flash, a loud fizzing of blue flame from the upright instrument board.
The operator leaped up and made an examination. He found a short length of wire. This had short-circuited two important double-pole switches. The man cursed in the Mongol dialect.
"The apparatus is ruined!" he snarled. "It is strange the wire should fall upon the switches! Where did it come from?"
"Where from, indeed?" muttered another. "It is not electrical wire. It looks like a part of a small iron wire cable."
They discussed the mystery profanely for some minutes. "We cannot send our news to Tom Too by radio," one complained. "We must now go to him in person."
They quitted the pirate junk.
Chapter 19
TOM TOO'S LAIR
THE Mongol trio now took considerably more pains to see that none of the pirates had followed them. Plunging into the jungle, they turned northward. Occasionally they swore softly at noisy tropical birds; the feathered songsters insisted on following them with many shrill outcries.
Midway up the island, on the east shore, was a tiny inlet. It was not over a dozen feet wide and fifty deep. Branches interlaced a mat above it; creepers hung down into the water like drinking serpents.
A sampan was concealed in this. The boat was about thirty feet long, rather wide, and fitted with a mast. The matting sail was down and hanging carelessly over the little cabin in the bows.
The sampan had a modern touch in a powerful outboard motor.
The Mongol trio were about to step aboard when a startling development occurred.
A kris, sixteen inches of crooked, razor-sharp steel, came hissing out of the jungle. It missed one of the Mongols by inches, and embedded in a tree.
"Some dog has followed us!" rasped one man.
Drawing their own knives, as well as a spike-snouted pistol apiece, they charged the spot from which the kris had been
thrown. Their stocky bodies crashed noisily in the tangled plant growth. Birds fled with an outburst of noise fit to wake the dead.
The knife thrower could not be found. There was no sign, not even a track.
"We will not waste more time, my sons," said a Mongol.
They entered the sampan. The outboard motor was twisted into life. The sampan went scooting out of the inlet.
The Mongols in their strange craft looked like a trio of innocent fishermen, for the waters of the Luzon Union swarmed with vessels suc
h as this.
The tropical sun slanted down upon the waves with a glittering splendor. Spray tossed from the bows of the flying sampan scintillated like jewel dust. The air was sweet with salt tang. A hideous slate triangle of a shark fin cut across the bows.
Some four or five miles distant was another island, smaller than Shark Head. Tall palms crowned it. Sand of the beach was very white. The whole islet was like a salad of luxurious green set upon a snowy platter. It fascinated the eyes with its beauty. As the sampan swished close, the stench of the overripe vegetation of the island was like the sickening breath of a slaughterhouse.
The sampan curved around the island, made directly for a part of the beach which seemed a solid wall of plant life, hit it — and shot through into a pond of a harbor.
With a belligerent bang or two, the outboard died. Momentum sent the sampan gently aground.
The three Mongols scrambled over the sail piled atop the little bow cabin and leaped ashore.
* * *
MORE flowering plants flourished upon this islet than upon Shark Head. Their blooms were a carnival of color. But the place smelled like a swamp; foul, poisonous.
The Mongols gained higher ground. Here stood a house. It was built of hardwood, with the sides of shutterlike panels which could be opened to furnish relief from the heat.
Some half dozen evil-looking men sat in the main room of the house. A strange tension was noticeable in their attitude. They hardly moved a muscle. And when they did stir, it was done slowly and carefully, as if they were afraid of breaking something. They were like men in mortal fear of an impending fate.
The Mongols dashed in upon this solemn assemblage with loudly boisterous cries of elation.
"Where is Tom Too, oh brothers?" they demanded. "We have news for the master. Great news!"
In their excitement, the trio failed to note the air of terror about those in the room.
"Tom Too is not here," said one of the frightened men shrilly.
"Where did he go?"
"He did not say. He merely go."
The three Mongols could not hold back their news.
"The bronze devil is dead," one chortled. "The man did not have great wisdom, as we had thought. He was a fool. He thought he was saving his five friends. He did not know that the five were dead from the gas we released. So he got up before the dogs who would turn against Tom Too and made a speech, telling them who he was, and saying he was going to shoot himself. But one of the dogs cut off his head with a sword and burned his body in a tent. We watched flames consume the body. And I carry in my pocket a bit of the bronze man's bones, which was not consumed. Tom Too will want that souvenir. Where is the master?"
"He go away!" insisted one of the listeners shrilly.
The three Mongols suddenly perceived the tension in the room. They were surprised.
"What is wrong with you, oh trembling ones?"
The reply to that came from a totally unexpected source.
"They're afraid of gettin' pasted with lead!" boomed a slangy Yank voice.
A curtain across the end of the room suddenly snapped down. Five men lounged there. Each held a terrible little implement of death, a compact machine gun that looked like an overgrown automatic.
The five were Doc's friends — Monk, Renny, Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny.
* * *
THE three Mongols had been reared amid violence and death. They knew these five men, knew them for mortal enemies of their kind. They tried to make a fight of it.
Yellow hands sped for knives and pistols.
The half dozen others, who had been sitting so fearfully because they were covered by the guns of Doc's men, decided to aid the Mongols. They had been disarmed, but they dived for anything handy. Three got chairs. Two tore legs off a rickety table. Another seized a wine bottle, broke it, and rushed with the jagged end held like a dagger.
The room went into pandemonium. Knives flashed. Fists swung. Shillelahs whacked at heads. Guns bawled thunder.
The five white men concentrated on the three armed Mongols. Two dropped before the bull-fiddle roars of the frightsome little machine guns. Monk closed with the third. A slap of his hairy hand sent the gun flying from the man's hand.
The Mongol struck with his knife. Monk evaded the blade with an ease astounding for one of his bulk, then pasted the yellow man with a hirsute fist. So terrific was the blow that. the Mongol dropped his knife and staggered like a drunk, then fell.
Ham closed with a slant-eyed man who wielded a table leg. He fenced briskly, warding off terrific blows with deft parries of his bared sword cane. An instant later the yellow man sprang back, the ligaments in his wrist severed. Squawling for mercy, he shrank into a corner.
Renny pulped a nose with one of his monster fists. Long Tom and Johnny closed with respective opponents. They did not use their guns again. Bare-handed, they were more than a match for the pirates.
The fray ended as suddenly as it had started. The corsairs lost their nerve, shoved their arms in the air, and joined Ham's victim in screeching for quarter.
"A fine gang of yallerhammers!" Monk complained. "Can't even fight enough to get a man warmed up!"
He picked up the Mongol he had struck. The fellow was the only one of the three messengers now alive.
"So you thought the gas got us, eh?" Monk growled. "Well, it didn't! You turned the stuff loose in the jungle so the wind would blow it toward us. We heard birds dropping dead. That warned us. So we dived overboard. It was dark enough so that we didn't have no trouble gettin' away! Then we hung around listenin' to you guys talk."
The Mongol only rolled his slitty eyes.
"We heard enough talk to learn Tom Too was gonna hole up here!" Monk continued fiercely. "So we made a raft out of two logs and paddled over. We been holdin' your pals here, hopin' Tom Too would turn up."
Ham swung over, sword cane poised ominously.
"This is the bird who bragged he was carrying a piece of Doc's burned skeleton!" he said grimly. "Let's see it!"
Monk searched the prisoner and soon brought the charred bit of bone to light.
Johnny, the gaunt archaeologist, took one look at it — and laughed loudly as he turned the bone in his hand.
"That's a hunk of ordinary soup bone — off the leg of a cow!"
Knowing bones was part of Johnny's business. He could look at a skeleton from a prehistoric ruin and tell some remarkable things about the ancient to whom it originally belonged.
"Then Doc ain't dead, after all!" Monk grinned.
"That's fair guesswork," said Doc Savage from the doorway.
* * *
A ROAR of pleasure greeted Doc's appearance.
"How'd you work it?" Monk wanted to know.
"Used the old magician's stunt with mirrors to make it seem that I had been stabbed," Doc told him. "One of the pirates was in on the trick and swung the sword. I paid him plenty. The sword blade ran through a wad of cloth soaked with red ink instead of my body."
"Hey!" Monk interrupted. "How'd you get out of the tent?"
"The tent was set on fire. I had sprinkled chemicals on it so there would be a great deal of smoke. Overhead was a large tree branch. I had previously rigged a silk cord, small enough not to be noticeable, over the limb so a stout wire could be drawn up. I climbed that, concealed by the smoke, taking my mirrors along. It was not hard to get to other trees and away."
Doc nodded at the survivor of the Mongol trio. "This chap and his two companions went to a junk and prepared to communicate with Tom Too by radio. I broke off a bit of the wire cable with which I had climbed the tree limb, tossed it onto a couple of switches without being noticed, and put the apparatus out of commission. I figured they'd go to Toni Too in person.
"It was necessary to throw a knife at them to decoy them away from their sampan long enough for me to get aboard and find a place to hide under the sail."
Doc fell silent and let his eyes rove over the room. It was not often that he went into such detail in d
escribing his methods. But finding his five friends alive had made him a bit talkative.
Long Tom whipped aside the curtain behind which he and the others had been concealed for a time. This disclosed an army type portable radio transmitter and receiver.
"This is undoubtedly the set the Mongols intended to communicate with from the junk," he declared. "But where's Tom Too?"
"Did he have a chance to dodge you?" Doc asked.
Ham tapped his sword cane thoughtfully. "He might have. We met two of the pirates on the bay shore, had a little fight, and the others came to see what it was about. Tom Too might have remained behind, seen we had cleaned up on his gang, then skipped out."
"He hasn't had a chance to leave the island!" Monk grunted. "We searched the shore line. There wasn't a boat around. And one man couldn't navigate by himself the log raft we came over on."
Countless times Doc's ability to observe any movement about him, however slight, had proved invaluable. It served again now.
His mighty form whipped aside and down, flaky golden eyes fixed on the door.
Lead shrieked through the space he had vacated. A pistol, firing from the jungle, made stuttering clamor.
"Tom Too!" Renny boomed.
Chapter 20
THE TIGHTENING NET
THE shot echoes were still bumping around over the island when Doc's five men turned loose with the little machine guns. The weapons poured bullet streams that were like rods of living metal. The slugs razored off leaves, twigs, branches the thickness of Monk's furry wrist.
After one volley they ceased firing.
Loud crashings reached their ears over the caterwauling of disturbed birds.
"He's beating it!" Renny shouted.
Doc and his men dived out of the room, leaving the cowering prisoners to their own devices. They weren't important game, anyway.
"Did you get a look at Tom Too's face, Doc?" Ham demanded.
"No. Only his gun shoving out through the leaves. I didn't even get the color of his skin. He was wearing gloves."
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