Quest of the Spider - Robeson Kenneth. Страница 9

The monkey man showed his teeth in a weasellike snarl. He did not like the razzing that Lefty was handing him. However, he knew there was no time to argue about it.

"Yo' stow the sass!" he growled. "Yo' stay here. Beeg bronze man ees come back. Get heem. Me—I leeve four my boys so yo' have plenty men fo' job."

"Take your four men along!" Lefty snorted. "Me and Bugs don't need any help to croak one man!"

The leader of the monkey men leered knowingly. He had seen Doc Savage. And he was not too ignorant to know a Hercules of a fighting man when he saw one. He had an idea it would be the finish of Lefty and Bugs if they jumped the bronze giant without re-enforcements.

The monkey man rather fancied the thought of Lefty and Bugs meeting disaster. But should he fail to leave some of his men, he feared the wrath of the Gray Spider. And that wrath was a terrible thing.

"Me—I leeve my four boys, anyhow," he grumbled.

"Sure," chuckled Lefty. "They can stand around and watch two good men work!"

The insult was carefully ignored. Ham, Big Eric, and Edna were picked up bodily.

The corpses of the dead men were callously left lying inside the mansion. The mouth of one gaped open widely—showing the hideous moccasin tatooed inside.

After all but four of the monkey men had departed with the prisoners, Lefty and Bugs took up a position in the shrubbery beside the house. The unsavory pair fell to whispering.

"As long as these four swamp snipes are here, why take any risk ourselves?" Lefty inquired. "Let's let 'em grab the bronze guy. If they should get hurt, it ain't no skin off us."

"An idea, pal!" chuckled Bugs. "We'll do just that!"

They proceeded to maneuver the four monkey men inside the house, where they would be in a position to drive blowgun darts at Doc Savage about the same moment he discovered the bodies.

Lefty and Bugs waited outside.

The single shot which had come during Big Eric's valiant fight had evidently passed as an automobile backfire, for it had attracted no attention. Edna's scream had escaped notice, too, probably because the Big Eric Danielsen mansion was set in elaborately landscaped grounds that were as large as a city park.

BEFORE long, a car halted in front of the estate. It did not enter the grounds. After loitering a moment, as though to permit a passenger to alight, it drove on.

"Here he comes, I'll bet!" breathed Lefty.

They waited. There was no sound. They held their breath, but they still could hear nothing. No feet slapped the walk. No leaves or branches stirred.

It was as if the car had paused only to let a ghost enter the estate. Lefty and Bugs were puzzled.

Then their hair stood on end.

A mighty bronze man had appeared in the room that held the bodies.

His coming had been silent, as though suddenly projected there by an invisible motion-picture machine.

His golden eyes surveyed the scene. The slick-haired man and the pilot of the gas plane lay beside their chairs. They had fallen there after being stabbed, and had not moved since. The one monkey man Big Eric had slain in his fight also reposed on the floor.

The latter's jaws were agape. The tatooed serpent was visible on his mouth roof.

Even Lefty and Bugs, crouched outside, could see the strange flickerings in the golden eyes of the bronze giant. Those weird gleamings conveyed something terrible to the two villains. Just looking at them seemed to suck the courage out of their stocky bodies.

They were so awed that they hardly dared breathe.

A blowgun tube was projecting from a keyhole. Lefty and Bugs could see it. They were glad it was behind the bronze man. If he just wouldn't turn! And he was giving no sign of wheeling.

One second—two—and death would strike at Doc Savage's back.

But Doc suddenly went to the pilot of the gas plane, moving out of range of the blowgun. He bent over the man.

He had noticed the fellow breathing! The knife stroke had not been fatal!

Swiftly, Doc administered some of the compound which annulled the effects of the weird drug which the pilot had been given.

Outside the window, Bugs and Lefty were on the horns of a dilemma. They didn't want to shoot the bronze man, for fear the shot, fired outdoors, might attract attention. Too, they were downright afraid to start trouble. So they waited for the blowgun to do its grisly work.

Lefty and Bugs knew there was a poison dart in the blowgun now. It would bring instant death!

THE pilot of the gas plane stirred feebly. Control of his faculties had returned.

"The devils!" gritted the pilot. "The dirty, double-crossing swamp snipes!"

The fellow could remember all that had happened while he was helpless! He knew his own gang had tried to murder him. And it might be that they would succeed. The pilot was very far gone from his stab wound.

"Where is Big Eric, Edna, and Ham?" Doc's compelling voice filled all the room. The power of it made Lefty and Bugs shiver outside the window.

A fit of coughing seized the pilot as he tried to reply. Crimson frothed his lips.

Working rapidly, Doc gave the man some relief from his wound. He did this by sinking his fingers into certain nerve centers, massaging them so as to produce a paralysis that deadened pain somewhat. It was in the realm of surgery that Doc Savage was most proficient, and osteopathy, chiropractic, and other similar fields were a part of his training.

When Doc finished, the pilot could speak.

"Look out!" he choked. "Behind the door across the room! They're hiding there with a blowgun!"

He had warned Doc!

The big bronze man spoke softly. No one but the dying pilot—Doc knew now that the fellow could not live—heard the words.

"I knew they were there!" Doc said.

The pilot couldn't understand it. "But how—"

"They're in need of a bath," Doc replied. "I could smell them. I also saw their blowgun project from a keyhole. I am out of range here."

But Doc did not know the two devils, Lefty and Bugs, lurked outside with revolvers in hand and a mixture of fear and murder in their hearts!

The pilot had not been able to note any unusual odors in the room. It was incredible to him that the bronze giant could not only detect a foreign smell, but locate its source—all without seeming to.

But the pilot had no way of knowing Doc exercised his olefactory senses intensively each day through his life. He knew nothing of the two-hour routine of high-pressure exercises which this bronze man put himself through each morning. An exercise routine which had made him the superman he was!

"The Cult of the Moccasin got the others," breathed the pilot. "The devils also left me for dead!"

"Do you know where they took the prisoners?" Doc inquired swiftly.

Outside the window, Lefty and Bugs were shivering in their excitement. Why didn't the monkey men go into action? They began to raise their own pistols.

"Yes," gulped the dying pilot. "I know where the captives were to be taken. It is a spot at which they will be held for a time. Then other members of the Cult of the Moccasin will come and take them to the Castle of the Moccasin. Only the Gray Spider and a few others know where the Castle of the Moccasin is."

"Where can I find them?" Doc interrupted. "You can tell me the rest later!"

The pilot drew in breath to answer. But the answer did not come.

The monkey men leaped out of the adjoining room. They rushed to the attack. One lifted the blowgun to his lips. He discharged it.