Kenneth Robeson - The Pirate of the Pacific

The package had contained a bomb.

Tom Too had planned that this man should never lead any one who followed him to the hiding place of the master pirate.

DOC SAVAGE circled the spot where the weazened man had died. He sought the trail left by the one who had placed the bomb. His golden eyes missed nothing, for they had been trained through the years to pick out details such as went unnoticed to an ordinary observer.

A vine which hung unnaturally, a bush which had been carefully bent aside and then replaced, but which had a single leaf wrong side up — these vague signs showed Doc the course taken by the bomb depositor. The fellow had come and gone by the same route.

The trail turned out to be a blank. It terminated at the beach, where a boat had landed the man and taken him away.

Taking to the trees for greater speed, Doc hurried to the bay at the north end of the island. The plane was there, anchored a few yards offshore.

There was no sign of life about, except the jungle birds which twittered and screamed and fluttered the foliage.

Doc stood by a sluggish stream which emptied into the bay a few yards from the plane. He decided to try something.

Moving a little more than a rod down the shore, he suddenly sped into the open, crossed the narrow beach and shot like an arrow into the bay. He had appeared with blinding suddenness, and was in the water almost before an eye could bat.

Hence it was that a watching machine gunner got into action too late. A stream of bullets turned the water into a leaping suds where Doc had disappeared.

The gobble of the rapid firer galloped over the bay surface like satanic mirth. Then the noise stopped.

The gunner ran into the open, the better to see his quarry upon appearance. The man was stocky, broad, with a head like a ball of yellow cheese. He stood, gun ready perhaps a hundred yards from where Doc had entered the water.

Minute after minute, he waited. An evil grin began to wrinkle his moon of a face. He had killed the bronze devil!

He did not see the foliage part silently behind him. Nor did he hear the mighty form of a man who glided up to his back.

Awful agony suddenly paralyzed the fellow's arms. He dropped his machine gun. He groveled, struggled, kicked. He was flung to the sand. There he continued his fighting. But he might as well have tried to get out from under the Empire State Building.

He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the giant who held him was the man he thought he had murdered.

Doc had simply swum under water into the sluggish creek, crawled out and crept silently through the rank undergrowth to the attack.

WITHOUT voicing a word, Doc continued to hold his Victim helpless for the space of some minutes. Doc knew the psychology of fear. The longer the would-be murderer felt the terrible clutch of those metallic hands, the more terrified he would become. And the more frightened he was, the sooner he would tell Doc some things he wanted to know.

"Where is Tom Too?" Doc demanded. He spoke in his normal voice, couching the words in English.

"Me not know!" whined the captive in pidgin.

Doc carried the man into the jungle, found a small clearing, slammed the fellow on his back. The prisoner tried to scream, thinking he was to be slain.

But Doc merely stared steadily into the man's eyes. The gunner began to squirm. Doc's golden eyes had a weird quality; they seemed to burn into the soul of the captive, to reduce his brain to a beaten and helpless thing.

The man tried to shut his eyes to shut out the terrible power of those golden orbs. Doc held the man's eyelids apart.

Hypnotism was another art Doc had studied extensively. He had drained the resources of America on the subject, had studied under a surgeon in Paris who was so accomplished a hypnotist that he used it instead of an anaesthetic when he operated upon patients. A sojourn in mystic India had been added to Doc's perusal of the art. And he had conducted extensive experiments of his own. His knowledge was wide.

The gunner was not long succumbing. He went into sort of a living sleep.

"Where is Tom Too?" Doc repeated his earlier query.

"Me not know."

"Why don't you?"

"Me left at this place, watch canvas sky wagon. Tom Too no tell place him go."

Doc knew the man was telling the truth. The hypnotic spell was seeing to that.

"What about the five white men who were in the plane?" he demanded.

The reply was three words that froze Doc's great body.

"Him all dead."

FOR a long minute and a half, Doc neither moved, spoke, or breathed. The prisoner was not lying, not pulling a trick. The news was a ghastly shock.

"How did it happen?" Doc asked, and his voice was a low moan of a whisper that the gunner hardly heard.

"Tom Too, him use poison gas. Five white men, him sit on canvas sky wagon. Gas come. Five white men fall off, sinkee like log."

"Did you see this happen?"

"Too dalk see. Me hear. Men scleam, make big splash."

Doc was done. He dropped a hand into a pocket, brought it out with the needle-containing metal thimbles affixed to the finger tips. He touched the gunner. The fellow promptly slept.

Doc strode into the water and swam toward the plane. A few yards from it, he suddenly put on a terrific burst of speed. His corded arm shot up, grasped a wing strut. He swung aboard not an instant too soon — a great, slate-colored monster reached unsuccessfully for him, tooth-armored jaws gaping.

A shark! Other triangular fins cut the near-by surface.

Doc showed no perturbation over his narrow escape. But he felt slightly sick. No need to hunt for the bodies of his friends on the bottom of the bay, not with these hideous sea scavengers around.

Doc examined the fuel tanks of the plane, found them half full. He gave brief attention to the feed lines, up near the tanks.

The contents of the plane had not been disturbed. Doc got certain articles which he intended to use. They made a bundle a foot through, nearly four feet long.

He reached shore by the simple expedient of lifting the anchor and letting the breeze drift the amphibian to the beach.

Departing from the spot, he noted several birds lying dead in the jungle. The feathered bodies bore no marks. The gas released by Tom Too had undoubtedly killed them.

Doc did not attempt to search the island. It would have taken many hours to do a thorough job.

He headed for the pirate camp. He made speed, but he was careful of the bundle he carried.

The murderous horde were proceeding with their celebration over the death of Tom Too. They did not yet know he was not dead. The festivities consisted exclusively of drinking, gorging with food, smoking opium, to say nothing of frequent fights arising over disputes about whose bullet had actually slain Tom Too.

Doc singled out a husky half-caste who showed in the way he hogged wine and food that he was of a greedy nature. Several times, this fellow filched a jar of the celebration wine and carried it to his matting tent.

Doc was there to meet him when he arrived with one of the jars. In the seclusion of the tent, a lengthy conversation occurred. Once, when the half-caste learned some surprising news, it seemed certain a fight was imminent.

But a large roll of Luzon Union currency changed hands. After that, the half-caste became all smiles and nods of agreement.

The fellow belted on a big sword and went out to join the celebrants.

For upward of an hour, Doc worked furiously in the matting tent.

Stepping outside, he got a barrel of the gasoline used in the launches riches. This he placed, the bunghole open, near the matting tent.

His powerful voice pealed across the pirate camp.