The Volcano Ogre

by Lin Carter

  “Now, whaddaya s’pose the chief’s checkin’ out them dang pots for?” murmured Scorchy to himself.

  Apparently satisfying himself as to the harmlessness of the suspended traps, Zarkon next circled the foundations of the hut and ascended the slope of the mountain’s base to the ledge on which Scorchy had been attacked by the ogre. Closely scanning the ground, Zarkon began to ascend the trail, which wound up the side of the volcano, zigzagging back and forth to the top.

  Suddenly Señor Gonzalez jumped to his feet and raced out of the jungle to the edge of the swamp.

  Craning his head about, his grotesque pop-eyes staring up towards the top of the mountain, the little detective seemed very excited about something.

  Scorchy’s curiosity began to get the better of him.

  He came out of cover and trotted up behind the little Hawkshaw.

  “Here, now, what’re you after followin’ the chief for, anyway?” he growled from directly behind the detective.

  The little man squawked, jumped two inches in the air, and came down goggling over his shoulder at Scorchy.

  He gulped, mopped his face with a purple silk handkerchief, looking relieved.

  “Ees eet hyou, Señor Scorchy,” he gasped. “Hai, caramba, but Hi thought eet was the monstair!”

  “I’ll ‘monster’ you, Funny-Lookin’,” bristled the Irishman. “How come you’re tailin’ the chief?”

  Stuttering excitedly, the detective flapped his hands about, calling Scorchy’s attention to the mountain trail.

  Scorchy looked, blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again.

  Although it would have taken the most agile and acrobatic of men several minutes more to reach the peak of Mount Rangatoa, Zarkon was no longer anywhere on the trail.

  “Huh! I don’t get it,” grunted Scorchy unbelievingly.

  Fairly bobbing up and down in his excitement, the little detective waggled his head in violent agreement.

  “While Hi was watcheeng, eet happans!” he burbled in a very ecstasy of agitation.

  “What happened?” demanded Scorchy in rising alarm. “Make some sense, willya?”

  “The Preence! He ees vanisheeng! Right before of my heyes!” yammered Señor Gonzalez.

  “Oh, yeah?” demanded Scorchy excitedly. He grabbed the little Sherlock by one arm. “C’mon, then, Louie. Let’s get up there and have us a look-see. Somethin’ funny’s goin’ on around here. You packin’ a rod?”

  Nodding wildly, Señor Gonzalez plucked from the waistband of his trousers a perfectly enormous blue-steel revolver. This miniature cannon looked big enough to knock down elephants.

  “Good enough,” Scorchy grunted. “Climb, Louie! I got me a hunch this here case is about to break wide open!”

  They clambered up the slope and began scrambling along the ascending trail which Zarkon had followed.

  But it looked as if the Lord of the Unknown had literally vanished into thin air right before their eyes. For not the slightest clue could they find as to where he had gone!

  CHAPTER 16 — Where Angels Fear to Tread

  For a while that morning, Phoenicia Mulligan hung around the native village. She chatted with some of the island women, who knew Spanish well enough, although at unpredictable intervals they would inject a word or phrase in their own lingo, which the attractive blonde did not speak.

  She watched the naked brown children scuttle up palms to dislodge coconuts into nets held stretched out beneath; she amused herself by helping them haul in their fishing nets from the end of one of the long promontories which encircled the lagoon like two outstretched and curving arms. She helped them hoe yams and pick bananas. Eventually, she became a trifle bored.

  And when Fooey Mulligan became bored she also became restless. At such times, she generally tended to alleviate the tedium of the moment by getting into trouble.

  The blond heiress had managed in one way or another to get into — and, luckily, out of — an awful lot of trouble in her time. She still remembered being treed by a pride of hungry lions when on safari in the grasslands of Kenya, because she had obstinately insisted on taking a morning stroll, against all objections by the safari leader that to stray from camp alone could be dangerous.

  He had been right, of course. But then, danger per se had never bothered Fooey Mulligan. In fact, she rather liked getting into trouble.

  It was usually more fun getting into trouble than it was getting out of it, she had found. But the alluring aura of peril that clung about the getting-into part she always found breathlessly exciting. If the getting-out-of portion of the experience was usually scary, often heart-stoppingly so, well: that was the price you had to pay for the thrill of the thing, that was all.

  Life in the island village of Tarapaho was happy, tranquil, and dreadfully repetitious, she soon discovered, after a dull but pleasurable morning of strolling about.

  Fooey decided to get into some trouble, if only to break the monotony. At times like this she hungered for a little action. A bit of hell-raising never hurt, she thought confidently to herself. And where better to flirt with peril than up on the haunted mountain itself, near the smoking crater where the ogre seemed to lurk?

  The fire that had destroyed Zarkon’s gear had also ruined her expectations for a deliciously exciting morning. For Phoenicia had firmly intended joining in on the expedition down into the lava-filled crater.

  Now that the trip was off, it occurred to the blond girl that it would be fun trying it on her own. She had gone spelunking many a time, exploring dark and dangerous caves — and how much worse could a descent into the smoking crater of an active volcano be, after all? Outside of the blistering heat, the suffocating fumes, the risk of falling into a lake of molten lava, it ought to be as much fun as venturing into a subterranean cavern.

  And the possibility of catching a glimpse of the weird marauding monster on the prowl, well, that only added a little spice to the fare.

  Now, Phoenicia Mulligan was no fool. Although she had a headstrong tendency to go galloping into places where any self-respecting angel might fear to tread, she also did it with the decided intention of coming out again more-or-less unscathed.

  Hence, when getting into tight spots, Fooey was sensible enough to take a few reasonable precautions.

  For a little poking around inside the crater of Mount Rangatoa, Fooey Mulligan decided she needed an assist from an able-bodied type. So she went looking for one of the Omega men, fully confident of her ability to coax, tease, shame or bully one of them into accompanying her on the adventure.

  She was rather hoping to find Ace Harrigan, for the frank, guileless, and good-looking young aviator had made a decided impression on her. Without wasting time considering it, she knew better than to try to persuade Prince Zarkon into the scheme. The Man of Mysteries, she knew, would be too staid, too sober, too sensible, to encourage her in such an extravagance. She didn’t for a moment doubt that Zarkon would dope her, tie her up, or hypnotize her, or something, to keep her out of trouble.

  Not finding Ace anywhere about, the blond girl went hunting for Scorchy. The fiery-thatched bantamweight had a disrespect for caution, an eye for trouble, and a thirst for danger equal to her own, she knew. If ever there was a perfect henchman for her shenanigans, it was Aloysius Murphy Muldoon, he of the flying fists, the runaway temper, and the susceptibility where curvaceous blondes were concerned.

  Of course, at about this same time, Scorchy Muldoon was well on his way to getting into trouble all by himself. The feisty little boxer was at that very moment sneaking through the jungle, hot on the tracks of Chicago Louie Gonzalez, whose suspicious actions had roused his curiosity. But Phoenicia, of course, could not have known anything of this.

  What she eventually found, as things turned out, was Nick Naldini.

  The long-legged vaudevillian with the Mephisto beard was lazily stretched out under a palm tree, surrounded by a giggling bevy of brown-skinned young beauties whom he was amusing by some minor tricks of stage magic.
He plucked flowers from the girls’ ears, coins from their hair, lighted cigarettes from their noses, juggled these, made them multiply, made them vanish, made them reappear, and so on. The girls were loving it, and Nick began to feel that he was getting to first base, at least, with more than a few of the dark-eyed, sarong-clad charmers.

  Hence, when Miss Phoenicia Mulligan popped into view, imperiously summoning his aid, the former magician was not exactly thrilled to pieces. The island girls were snuggling near, the weather was balmy, and Nick felt lazy. He was, in fact, disinclined to lend comfort and assistance to a mission he knew his chief would disapprove of.

  But Phoenicia Mulligan had not reached the ripe age of twenty-whatever-it-was without having long since mastered the fine feminine arts of making men do what she wanted them to do. As any number of Park Avenue playboys, Southampton sportsmen, and members of the horsey set in San Francisco, Honolulu, and Palm Beach could have attested, once Fooey Mulligan set her mind to go on an outing, all males in the immediate vicinity are automatically helpless to resist her blandishments.

  Thus, rather dazedly, Nick Naldini found himself some ten minutes later clambering gingerly up the slopes of the volcano, lending a hand to a pretty blonde in white slacks named Phoenicia. With only the haziest notion of what he was doing there, or why, or how he had been bamboozled into backing her up on this crazy jaunt. They reached the peak of the mountain and paused for a breather. Nick, a trifle winded, sagged into a sitting position on a conveniently-placed boulder and began swabbing his brow while confusedly striving to remember what variety of female sorcery the determined heiress had worked upon him to get him out of that cozy cluster of island cuties and into this nutty, harebrained venture.

  Whatever the nature of her wiles, he thought to himself, they were efficient. Fooey Mulligan’s talents at wheedling men and at getting her way with them worked like magic. Heaven help the masculine half of the voting citizenry, thought Nick to himself, if the blond girl ever decided to go into politics. With her abilities to boondoggle anything in long pants, she’d be redecorating the White House in no time!

  “C’mon, lazy-bones,” the girl chided. “Only a little further to the top.”

  “Whoof,” he commented. “Only a little further to the oxygen-tent, you mean! Give a fellow a break, can’t you? This dang mountain’ll still he here ten minutes from now.”

  “Can’t take it, eh?” She grinned. “Gonna let a mere slip of a girl beat ya to the top?”

  “Mere slip, nothing,” he groaned with a theatrical grimace. “You got enough get-up-and-go for both of us, Fooey, you phony! Me, I’m sittin’ right here till my breath catches up with me. You wanta break the local speed records, go ahead ...”

  Phoenicia made a little face, stuck out her tongue at him saucily, and flounced off to finish the climb. Nick stubbornly sat where he was, confident that the devil-may-care girl couldn’t get into trouble for a couple minutes, at least. When it came to mountain-climbing, the girl had the agility of the proverbial mountain-goat.

  Phoenicia was too restless to stick around, waiting for Nick to get over being winded. The girl found the fresh air, sparkling sunlight, and excitement of the climb exhilarating. She tackled the remainder of the slope with zest, energetically clambering from rock to rock, determined to scale the topmost peak and be seated there, lazily admiring the view, by the time the long-legged vaudevillian came groaning, grumbling, and grouching up to the top himself.

  Things turned out otherwise, however. As things usually did whenever Miss Fooey Mulligan decided to go off in search of an adventure all by her lonesome.

  Here at the peak of the volcanic mountain, white vapor blew blindingly, tossed about by the winds that whistled strongly about the height.

  A dense plume of white steam, smelling strongly of sulfur and blistering-hot lava, seethed up from the mouth of the crater. It streamed from the wide-lipped bowl of rock and was whipped about and torn to flying tatters in the gusting sea breeze.

  Suddenly a huge, lumbering shape loomed black and monstrous through the flying mists. It was so unexpected, somehow, and it happened so fast, that Phoenicia was taken by surprise. The monstrous silhouette seemed to materialize out of thin air, like an apparition conjured into existence in a single eye-blink by the wand of a magician.

  The volcano ogre was on the prowl —

  And Phoenicia Mulligan was directly in its path!

  CHAPTER 17 — The Hidden Cave

  The blond girl froze, her heart pounding like a triphammer. She was suffocated by the suddenness with which the monstrous apparition had appeared. And for a moment she could hardly catch a breath, so stifling was the thundering of her pulse.

  A split-second later, the girl recovered her poise and also her pluck. The monster had not seen her yet. That was obvious, because otherwise the thing would probably have come at her, steaming paws outreaching, to burn and maim and kill.

  Fooey Mulligan blinked, a grin forming mischievously. The blond adventuress could hardly believe her luck — now that she realized the monster had not glimpsed her and was not going to attack.

  She hadn’t really expected to stumble on the monster. All she had in mind was a little hell-raising to relieve the tedium of a rather dull and boring morning when nothing much seemed to be going on in Rangatoa. But here she was, actually within eyeshot of the murder monster!

  The girl excitedly complimented herself on her extraordinary luck. When she had decided to climb the mountain and poke around the top of it, hunting for clues, she hadn’t really thought it likely she would catch another glimpse of the famous fire-devil. The elusive and mysterious troll seemed to pop up at the most unexpected of times. But, by golly, luck or no luck, she had done her mountain-climbing at just the right time to catch the weird creature lumbering about its uncanny business. There was no doubt about it — there it was, all right!

  The girl ducked down behind the rock on which she had been sitting, just in case the burning ogre should turn around and happen to notice her. Lips parted, breathless with excitement, April-colored eyes glistening with the pure thrill of it, she peered over the rock to see what the ogre was doing now.

  The huge creature seemed to be lifting one ponderous leg over the lip of the crater, as if intending to jump into the lava-lake below!

  In the next instant, flying white fog blotted out the scene. Fooey bit her lip and cussed to herself with a most unladylike oath.

  The next moment, however, the whipping wind tore a hole through the mist and she could see that the ogre was climbing over the edge of the crater and seemed to be feeling around for a foothold on the inner wall.

  Then the huge shape ducked below the lip of the crater and vanished.

  This, obviously, was her golden opportunity!

  If she was lucky, thought Phoenicia to herself, she might be able to see where it was that the volcano monster hid itself when it vanished mysteriously, as it had so often done after one of its marauding expeditions.

  Her blue eyes sparkled with excitement. If she could find a clue to the secret of the ogre’s hiding-place — or, better yet, if she could actually discover the whereabouts of its hidden lair — wow!

  Not only would she have stolen a big march on Prince Zarkon — but she would have a darn good chance to crack the mystery wide open, all by herself!

  The chance was too mouth-wateringly tempting to pass up. She couldn’t just crouch here and let this priceless opportunity slip through her fingers.

  Of course, the commonsensical thing to do would be to wait until Nick Naldini caught up to her. Then the two of them could follow the brute; after all, the stage magician probably packed a gun.

  But Fooey Mulligan simply would not have been Fooey Mulligan if she had chosen the safer course of action, or had done the thing that common sense recommended. And besides (thought she to herself), why should she give Nick Naldini a share in the credit for busting the mystery? This was her discovery, and hers alone.

  Cautiously she pe
eped out of her hiding-place again. The monster had obviously descended into the crater by now. Since it was below the crater’s lip, there was no longer any danger that the creature might chance to look around and spot her watching its movements. Now was her chance!

  Phoenicia left her place of concealment behind the big boulder and darted up the few yards of slope which led to the edge of the crater.

  At the lip of the bowl-like depression she paused and carefully looked over the edge, careful lest the monster see her from below. It was hard to see anything at first, her eyes watering at the sting of the hot, sulfur-smelling steam. Blinking to clear her vision, for a moment she could see nothing but tear-blur and flying vapor. Then a sudden gust of wind parted the vapor like a curtain, and she got a clear look down at the inside of the crater-wall.

  The monster was descending by a zigzag ledge a foot or so wide. Due to the perspective, and the blowing vapor, and the ruddy light beating up from the crater floor, this narrow ledge would have been virtually impossible to see and would have gone unnoticed, had it not been for the dark, thick shape of the huge creature inching its way along it.

  Suddenly the volcano ogre ducked underneath an overhanging rock, and did not emerge again into view.

  “By golly, there must be a crevice down there — a cave or something,” the girl muttered to herself excitedly. “You can’t see the opening because that rock hides it from view up above. Wow!”

  The transcendent importance of her discovery went to the blond girl’s head. The smart thing to do, the judicious thing, the sensible thing, would be to go back down the mountain, find Zarkon, and announce that she had found the ogre’s den.

  At the very least, she should have waited for Nick Naldini to catch up with her.

  But Phoenicia would not have been Phoenicia had she been quite that methodical, calm, or level-headed. Adventure beckoned just beyond the crater’s rim; mystery sang its siren-song in her ears. And Fooey Mulligan, being Fooey Mulligan, succumbed to its irresistible allure.