Quest of the Spider ds-3

by Kenneth Robeson

  * * *

  LONG TOM and Ham paid no attention to the passage of time. They even took no particular pains to avoid the treacherous vines and slime pools in their, path. As a consequence, they were frequently kicked.

  The resultant pain, they hardly felt. For nothing could be greater than the ache that came from the knowledge that they had lost their friend, the man to whom they owed their lives many times over—Doc Savage.

  They held no hope of ever seeing the mighty bronze man again. The hoo-hoo-hoorooingof swamp owls made a sort of awful dirge to accompany their grief.

  But, as they floundered deeper into the vast swamp, another and scarcely less ominous sound joined the macabre tooting of the owls.

  "Listen!" muttered Ham.

  Faintly, there reached their ears a monotonous drumming note. This rose and fell. One moment it would roll across the vast, foul-quagmire like syncopated thunder. The next it fell to a muted mutter, like fingers softly slapping a sponge.

  It was as though the great swamp were a panting beast.

  Periodically, there lifted over this unending sound a shrill caterwauling, as of a cat with its tail stepped on. Hoarser barks and howls were commingled.

  The noise was altogether hideous.

  "Ugh!" muttered Long Tom. "I can guess what that is!"

  "So can I," Ham replied listlessly. "A voodoo ritual!"

  "Notice how it's affecting our captors!" said Long Tom.

  Subtle excitement was pervading the ugly little swamp men. They clucked to each other in a language so degenerate that Ham and Long Tom could hardly understand it.

  Later, when they came for a moment into a moonlight glade, Long Tom and Ham observed that their captors were doing a sort of revolting muscle dance in time with the throbbing. It was as though the measured beats of the tom-toms inflicted muscular convulsions upon their bodies.

  Even Ham and Long Tom found themselves unpleasantly affected by the barbaric cadence. Indeed, Long Tom, discovering his shoulders jerking to the savage tune, swore violently—something he rarely did.

  "I've heard the music at these rituals has a sort of crazing effect," Ham muttered. "I can believe it after listening to this. It's more than I've ever expected in all my life."

  Long Tom shuddered. "One might expect something like this in a country of savages—but right here in the United States! Ugh!"

  They came soon to a circular hill. It was no more than two score of feet above the swamp. In the center was a bowl-shaped hollow, a natural amphitheater.

  Standing on the rim of this, Long Tom and Ham surveyed such a tableau of barbarism as they had never expected to see within the confines of the United States.

  * * *

  A STRING of small fires burned in the bottom of the hollow. These were greenish, and from the nauseating odor they cast off, evidently were kindled from wood which had been treated with sulphur. No doubt the string of blazes was intended to represent a serpent, for snake deities have a prominent place in most voodoo cults.

  Numerous masked figures were near the fires. Some of them leaped and spun like hideous dervishes. Others merely sat and jerked their muscles in tune with the tom-toms. All wore masks.

  The beaters of the tom-toms sat farther back. From time to time, they emitted a loud howl. They were unmasked.

  It was upon the masks of the men in the center of the hollow that Long Tom and Ham rested their gaze.

  These were of gaudy silk!

  "Remember that flashy silk handkerchief Horace Haas carried in his coat pocket?" Ham inquired.

  "Yes," replied Long Tom. "Why?"

  "I was just thinking," Ham muttered. He didn't elaborate on his thoughts.

  Around the edges of the hollow huddled row after row of the vicious, monkeylike swamp dwellers. Long Tom and Ham were astounded at seeing so many present. Their number must run into the hundreds!

  The whole ceremony had the air of something that would last for many hours, perhaps days. Gourds filled with a greenish liquor that was dipped from a troughlike container made of a hollow log, passed among the assembled voodooists quite often.

  "Some kind of a vile dope the Gray Spider has fixed up for them, I'll bet!" Ham declared. "Brings them under his sway easier!"

  "Yo' keep goin'!" rasped Buck Boontown at their backs. "Yo' don' stop here!"

  Buck Boontown was alone among their captors in seeming not to take much stock in the voodoo ritual. He twitched a time or two in sympathy with the hideous rhythm—but no more often than Long Tom and Ham did the same thing involuntarily.

  Around the edge of the natural theater, they were herded. They were led down to the group of masked men about the string of greenish fires.

  It dawned on Ham and Long Tom that these men were the inner circle of the Cult of the Moccasin.

  Before one of the masked men, they were halted.

  This man wore, in addition to the brilliant silk handkerchief that hid his face, a long and gaudy gown embroidered with countless coiled serpents, probably intended to represent the deadly water moccasin. It concealed him from head to foot. Nothing could be told of his looks, except that he was a white man.

  "I am the Gray Spider!" he informed Ham and Long Tom in a voice that sounded like it was coming out of a tomb. Obviously, the tone was disguised.

  He held one clawlike hand before them. The veins on the back of the talon looked revolting as purple worms. Slowly, dramatically, the hand opened.

  A hideous gray spider of a thing crawled about in the repulsive palm. A tarantula! Somehow, the ordinarily poisonous thing had been changed to a gray hue and its venomous quality eliminated. At least, it made no effort to injure the hand that held it.

  The bit of dramatics was highly impressive.

  But it was on the hand that the eyes of Ham and Long Tom rested. The vile skin bore smears of red ink!

  Ham and Long Tom both recalled the red ink smeared over old Silas Bunnywell's office in the Danielsen & Haas building. They remembered the ink-well that had been employed to beat down some one, about the time Horace Haas and Silas Bunnywell vanished.

  * * *

  SUDDENLY both Ham and Long Tom made a concerted lunge at the master devil. They hoped to take their guards by surprise. But they failed.

  Buck Boontown was alert. He whipped out a pistol. With lighteninglike blows, he knocked Ham and Long Tom backward. They were seized anew.

  Buck Boontown now told his master of the outcome of the bridge ambush. As he was informed that his men had seen with their own eyes an alligator devouring Doc Savage's mighty bronze form, a fiendish cackle of delight rattled back of the silken mask.

  "Take these two prisoners to the usual place!" he commanded. "I have told you earlier what you are to do with them. Do you understand fully? It is very important that my little experiment works out properly!"

  "I savvy," mumbled Buck Boontown.

  Ham and Long Tom were bustled from the natural bowl, and down the opposite side of the hill. Buck Boontown's settlement appeared unexpectedly.

  They were hurled into an open shed of a building. Ropes were added to their ankles, and their wrists tied afresh. Armed guards took up a position near.

  The two prisoners were absolutely helpless. Through a gaping hole that passed for a door, they could see a tall, overly thin swamp man. He was but a boy, hardly eighteen. His only garment was a meal sack with holes cut in it for his legs.

  This was Sill Boontown, the son of Buck Boontown—the boy who had been feeble-minded since a blow on the head a few years ago.

  Ham and Long Tom were sickened to discover Sill Boontown was leading a monster alligator around with a rope. The half-wit lad was playing with the tame reptile as though it were a dog.

  This 'gator was the same one which had given Johnny such a start on his arrival at this sinister spot.

  Sight of the 'gator brought to Ham and Long Tom a morbid rush of memory; the ghastly glimpse they had caught of a monster reptile worrying a bronze human arm in its hideous jaws!
<
br />   Their own dire peril was submerged in their grief. Not only had they lost the friend and benefactor they admired above all else in life, but the world had lost one of its greatest forces for right, as well as prolific source of things humanitarian.

  They were indeed glad when Sill Boontown disappeared into the moonlighted jungle with his pet 'gator.

  About a quarter of an hour ticked away. Then a man came into their prison shack.

  * * *

  THE newcomer was lanky, scrawny-looking, yellowish-brown. He had thick lips and a nose that some one might have jumped on years ago. Several scars gave his eyes a mean cast.

  Crouching over them, this unsavory individual began to make meaningless hocus-pocus gestures and mumble meaningless incantations.

  "Ugh!" snarled Long Tom. "Ain't he the meanest-looking bat you ever saw!"

  "And how he stinks!" Ham growled.

  "Probably he's come to cut our throats," muttered Long Tom.

  "I oughta cut your throats after a crack like that!" chuckled the sinister-looking voodoo man.

  Ham and Long Tom started violently.

  "Johnny!" Ham gulped, finally penetrating the clever disguise.

  "Not so loud!" hissed Johnny.

  "But how—"

  "I've been hanging around here," Johnny explained. "I've pulled a lot of voodoo junk, but it don't seem to get me anywhere. At least, I haven't seen the real Gray Spider yet. The fellow I sent to you wasn't the master mind, was he? Buck Boontown told me, quite a bit later that he was only a minor member of the gang who liked to pretend he amounted to something."

  "It was one of the two crooked lumber police," Ham explained. "We got him, though. His name is Lefty."

  "How are we gonna get out of here?" Long Tom put in.

  Johnny glanced at their guards, saw they were looking in another direction, and produced a knife.

  "It's the best I can do," he whispered. "I was surprised when they invited me in here to put a voodoo spell over you two guys. I looked for my gun, but it had disappeared. I can't understand that, either."

  "We'll make a break for it, all together!" breathed Ham.

  "O.K. I'll grab a machine gun from one of the guards if I can. We might as well try it right now."

  Johnny advanced on the door.

  Instantly, one of the guards emitted a loud cry. In answer to the signal, scores of monkeylike swamp men poured out of the surrounding jungle. They attacked Doc's men.

  Johnny went down fighting under an avalanche of the yellowish-brown fiends. He was tied securely.

  The knife had done Ham and Long Tom no good. Ham did get free, only to be pinned quickly.

  They were all tied securely.

  Soon there approached a figure attired in a long, brilliant gown which was embroidered with countless snake designs. A hideous gray tarantula clung to one of the fellow's hands.

  The Gray Spider still wore his silken mask.

  "I have been suspicious of you," he told Johnny. "I let you talk to these men as a test. You were observed closely all the time. We saw you pass them a knife."

  Johnny replied nothing.

  "You are one of the bronze devil's helpers!" snarled the Gray Spider. "The bronze man is dead. You three men shall die also. I will watch my swamp friends offer you in a voodoo sacrifice. In a few hours, they will be worked up to the proper pitch for the human offering!"

  He fell silent. Into the ramshackle hut throbbed and boomed the disquieting note of the tom-toms. It seemed to set the very brain cells of the listeners vibrating in sympathy to its barbaric cadence.

  "In a few hours—they will be ready!" repeated the Gray Spider.

  He wheeled away.

  * * *

  Chapter XIII. A KIDNAPING GONE WRONG

  THE Gray Spider shuffled back up the hill, the hollowed-out top of which was the scene of the voodoo ritual. He stepped along swiftly, as though he had important work to do. He seated himself in the middle of his sinister inner circle.

  Machine gunners were much in evidence.

  "Bring in the two new recruits," he ordered.

  There was a commotion in the jungle near by. Two men came out.

  One was built like a gorilla. He looked big enough and tough enough to even whip one in a fight. His face was scarred and unbelievably homely. His hide was covered with coarse red bristles.

  The second man was so huge as to seem like a small hill in motion. His face was long, somber. His lips were pinched together as though he had just finished a disapproving, "tsk, tsk!" The outstanding thing about the giant, though, was his hands—for each was composed of about a gallon of knuckles that looked like rusted iron.

  Monk and Renny in person!

  Without seeming to, Monk and Renny noted the number of machine guns in evidence.

  "The first time we've seen the Gray Spider!" Renny growled. "And we don't dare make a funny move because of those machine guns!"

  "I got a notion to tackle 'im, anyway!" rasped Monk.

  Monk was nothing if not reckless. The bigger the odds, the bigger the fight, Monk seemed to reason. And he did love a fight. Several times during the World War, he had started out single-handed to mop up on the enemy army. From the results, a suspicion was harbored that he might have succeeded had the opposition not been scattered from the Channel to Switzerland. They had too much room to dodge in.

  "Lay off, you missing link!" Renny grunted. "You ain't got no brains! Lemme do the thinkin'!"

  This was not strictly the truth. Monk was rated one of the half dozen greatest chemists ever to live.

  They confronted the Gray Spider. Naturally, both tried to penetrate the puzzle of the serpent-embroidered gown and the brightly colored silk mask. They had no success.

  Again they cocked an eye on the array of machine guns near by, and saw a hostile move would be unwise. Indeed, it would be suicide.

  "I have been told of you men," said the Gray Spider.

  Monk and Renny were disappointed when they failed to recognize the voice. It was thoroughly disguised. It had an unreal note. They made no answer because none seemed needed.

  "One of you is a chemist experienced in poison gas," continued the cavernous tones of the Gray Spider. "That man fled to this swamp to evade agents of the country he turned traitor to. The other man is not averse to making a dollar or two on the side."

  An impressive pause now followed. "Neither of you men had met before you were introduced by my aids."

  "Nope. We never saw each other before." Monk chuckled and opened and closed his furry paws. "But we're what you'd call a natural! He knocks 'em down, an' I tear 'em apart!"

  Monk was not bad as an actor. His attitude was fierce and bloodthirsty—to say nothing of his looks.

  "You wish to join my organization, I understand," said the Gray Spider.

  Renny watched the hideous gray tarantula crawl around on the master fiend's hand, and stifled an impulse to lean over and swat the repulsive thing with one huge paw.

  "You got it right," he rumbled.

  * * *

  IN the wait which followed, Monk and Renny noted a minor incident up on the side of the saucerlike depression.

  An enormous alligator appeared. It crawled around the edge of the hollow.

  "Shoot dat 'gator!" somebody called over the monotonous throbbing of the tom-toms.

  "Eet ees Sill Boontown's pet!" some one else objected. "No wild 'gator would go crawlin' around dis crowd!"

  "T'row a stick at heem!" directed the first speaker. "Eef hees don' go away, shoot heem! Sacrй!We no want to be bothered weeth durn 'gator!"

  A stick whacked the crawling alligator soundly. The reptile straightaway slithered out of sight into the night-blackened jungle. It displayed an intelligence that seemed human.

  The Gray Spider resumed—his words coming as from a tomb, the repulsive tarantula never still on his hand.

  "I have decided to take you into my organization," he told Monk and Renny. "Your first job will be assigned you immediately.
It is to be done tonight. It will pay ten thousand dollars—five thousand for each of you."

  "That's a lot of jack," Renny growled. "What's the job?"

  "You are a forest ranger—you should know by sight the famous lumberman, Big Eric Danielsen. Perhaps you even know his daughter?"

  Renny made the only answer he could. "Yeah. I know 'em."

  "Good!" hissed the Gray Spider. "Tonight, you are to kidnap them!"

  Renny covered his surprise with a loud snort. "You don't want much, do you?"

  "What do you expect to do for ten thousand dollars?"

  "Yeah—that's the other way of lookin' at it," Renny admitted. "You got it planned how we're to get them?"

  "Again—what do you expect for ten thousand!" intoned the Gray Spider. "You are to make your own plans. You will find Big Eric Danielsen and his daughter at their home. They are heavily armed and equipped with gas masks. The grounds are brilliantly lighted. You will get them—"

  "It oughta be simple!" Monk said sarcastically.

  "—you will get them," continued the Gray Spider, as though there had been no interruption. "You will bring them to me."

  He now gave an address on Claiborne Avenue in New Orleans.

  "I will meet you personally at that spot. I will be there all night, or at least, from the moment I arrive in town. And I shall leave soon after you do. You, of course, will depart immediately. That is—if you want to try the job."

  Monk and Renny swapped glances. They saw their chance to trap the Gray Spider away from his guard of machine gunners. They could get hold of Doc, tell him where the Gray Spider would be waiting and it would be all over but the shooting.

  Or so they reasoned. For they had no way of knowing of the awful incident at the bayou levee, when Long Tom and Ham had seen the alligator floundering in the water with a bronze arm between its jaws.

  Nor did they dream Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny were prisoners in Buck Boontown's settlement not a quarter of a mile away.