Лестер Дент - Death in Silver

A silver man in the crow's nest yelled and shot at them. The bullet dug splinters out of the boat! The second lookout had quitted his post to assist in fighting the fire, no doubt.

Doc directed a single shot from his gun at the crow's nest.

The man screamed and dropped his weapon, then tried to get both hands down in the crow's nest bucket to squeeze the pain out of the leg which Doc's bullet had drilled.

It was one of the few times the bronze man had used a gun. But the shot was so accurate that he might have been practicing with the weapon all of his life.

They ran the rope through the falls a bit more swiftly than was sane but with alert eyes and husky muscles. Doc and Monk managed to keep the craft level. Ham had the engine going as they hit the water. It was perfect teamwork.

The shots on deck had spread an alarm. Men leaped to the rail.

"Get down!" Doc rapped.

The boat sides were thick enough to break the force of a revolver bullet and — flattened below the water level — it was unlikely that they would be hit at all.

The boat heaved its nose up, dug its stern down in a mass of propeller-stirred foam, and scudded away from the tramp.

Lead smacked the hall, chewed a thwart, and clanged off the engine. One slug opened a pair of holes in the gas tank. Crawling back, Monk calmly planted a hairy finger over each aperture.

A few minutes put them out of bullet range.

Smokewas climbing from hatches and portholes of the tramp. It was very black oil smoke, and it indicated the silver men had not been successful in extinguishing the oil fire. That the flames were spreading rapidly was evident when men began diving overside. They fought each other to get over the rail.

"Trying to get in their sub," Monk grunted, lifting his bead from his job of stoppering the gas tank.

"They'll have a job!" Ham said grimly. "The sub won't hold a fifth of them."

Some of the silver men undoubtedly reached the submarine. Perhaps they entered through the airlock. But it did them no good.

The tanker suddenly blew up! Possibly it was the fuel tanks. In later discussion, Doc tended toward the theory that explosives were stored aboard and these had let loose.

There was a great geyser of debris, smoke, and flame! The ship came apart in the middle, separating, the two ends turning half around while men spilled off the decks, their bodies hardly distinguishable amid the flying wreckage.

A boiling inferno of oilpoured out of the rent craft and spread, flaming on the sea, engulfing those men who were in the water, burning them to death or forcing them down until their lungs took in water convulsively.

At that, the swimmers were no more unlucky than those in the submarine. The blast undoubtedly crushed the submersible so that those within perished.

Doc said slowly, "It is too bad that they tried to fight the fire so long and then wasted time in seeking to get into the submarine. They could have gotten off in the lifeboats. We did not take them all."

Ham offered. "Probably afraid they would get picked up in the boats and turned over to the police."

"Poor guy," Monk put in.

"Who?" Ham demanded.

"Hugh McCoy," said Monk. "We did not rescue him. That's tough."

Rapid Pace had been sitting as if in a stupor. Now he started and eyed Monk.

"It's not 'tough'!" he snapped. "No, sir! It's not!"

Monk scowled. "Listen, that ain't no way to talk about a dead guy even if you were all the time going to lick him."

"I did lick him!" Pace exclaimed triumphantly. "I finally did! I don't understand how I had it in me."

" When ?" Monk grunted. "When did this happen?"

"Just before we got off the boat," said Pace.

The significance of the words dawned on Monk.

"Listen!" he exploded. "Say that again, will you?"

" Hugh McCoy was the brains behind all of this!" Pace said grimly. "It was him that I fought in the corridor."

Monk swiveled on Doc. "Is that right?"

"McCoy was the Chief of the Silver Death's-Heads ," Doc said slowly. "That was finally evident when the silver men attacked our submarine when they could have used a depth bomb and destroyed us. Their chief was aboard. They did not want to kill him."

Monk waved hairy arms, the gas-tank leak forgotten. "But what about Gardner? Bedford Burgess Gardner?"

"The same person,"Doc said.

"What?" Monk all but choked on the exclamation.

"Remember the black beard which Gardner wore?" Doc questioned. "You did not see him. But Face and myself did, and I told you about it."

"Sure," Monk admitted.

Doc produced the packet which he had taken from the unconscious chief of the silver men. He tossed it over. Monk opened it.

The packet held the black theatrical beard.

Monk slowly put his thumbs back over the holes in the gas tank.

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

There was not much more they could do. The sea about the spot where the tramp had gone down was a flaming mass of oil. In it, no creature could live. But they cruised as near as possible, hoping to pick up any survivors.

Lorna Zane gave way and sobbed a little and seemed quite willing for Pace — the efficiency expert who had improved his nerve so remarkably — to comfort her. Pace was radiant.

Pat looked wan, a little exhausted by the whole grisly episode.

But Doc and his party were satisfied that the menace of the silver men was ended and were unconcerned over the future. They cruised with the launch until there was no possible chance of survivors being found.

Then they turned toward the Jersey coast. There was sufficient fuel to make it. The sea was not too rough for the launch.

In the stern, Rapid Pace had an arm around Lorna Zane's shoulders.

"You know, I've stopped getting scared," be told her. "I can't understand it. No, sir!"

- — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

King John's ghost was stalking The Wash — a vast marshy area in England — terrorizing and maiming the inhabitants. Then the mighty Man of Bronze investigated … and discovered the impossible.

The Wash was producing real gold… from nowhere!

read "The Sea Magician (#21)"