Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

Volcanic light gleamed again over the honeycomb pattern of pits on the high plain. The light revealed the 4 guards sitting silently upright, their backs to the stockade … while inside the stockade, a giant bronze man moved, selecting a digging instrument — a wedge-pointed pick.

The light went out … then flared again and revealed a lump that might have been a bronze -hued "rock"on the plateau halfway between the stockade and fringing underbrush. But the next time redlight rippled out, the stone had vanished. Under cover of the thorny bush, Doc Savage was creeping toward the line of pits with the wedge-pointed pick in his hand.

He had silenced the guards by deft pressure exerted on nerve centers at the back of their necks with his cabled fingers. It would be hours, perhaps, before the guards regained consciousness.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Doc passed by the front line of pits in which the chained slaves were digging and — watching his chance — crawled over and dropped inside one of the worked-out cells immediately behind the active front row.

Doc crouched with pick in hand and commenced rapidly digging a hole in the circular walls. The wall separating the cells was thin. In a matter of minutes, Doc had picked a hole large enough to let him look through.

It had been Doc's intention to contact one slave after another in this manner until he came upon one who could furnish information regarding the fate of his aides. As he looked through the fist-sized hole he had dug, his trilling sounded faintly.

The chained slave heard … and stiffened visibly! This slave was an astounding individual with a massive hairy torso and a neck nearly as thick as his broad head and long, gorilla-like arms extending almost to his knees. There was such strength in that hairy body that the man could bite his shovel into the flint-packed volcanic ash without the necessity of loosening it first with the pick.

The gory glow of volcanic light illuminated the man's face briefly, revealing a sprawled nose, a huge gash of mouth, and a forehead almost buried in bristling hair. The man was so incredibly homely that be was rather pleasant to look at — like a genial bull-dog.

He kept digging. But his keen little eyes had detected the hole Doc had gouged in the pit wall. He heaved close, the chain rattling against his leg iron.

His voice was small, childish, and jerky with emotion.

"Blazes, Doc! How'd you get here?"

"Give me the story, Monk," Doc whispered guardedly.

"We're all alive. But we wouldn't be much longer," Monk said, making his small voice smaller.

"The situation seemed desperate from that second radiogram you sent to intercept me at the Canal Zone," Doc said. "Or did you send it, Monk?"

"We only sent one, Doc, to New York," Monk grunted.

"The second message sounded so legitimate that it deflected my attention enough for Count Ramadanoff's agent to get a time-bomb in our plane," Doc said grimly. "Which, of course, was why the radiogram was sent in the first place."

"Did you crash here, Doc?" Monk demanded.

"Offshore. Renny and Long Tom are prisoners. Where are the others?"

"Ham's chained in the pit next to me. And Johnny is in the one beyond that," Monk advised.

Doc breathed, "And Pat?"

"As far as I know, the Count's got her cooped up in his palace. We got to get her out. The Count's got a man-eatin' beast there as big as a mountain. I know it doesn't sound sane. But all of us saw the thing. Whew!"

Doc asked, "You were imprisoned for a time at the palace?"

"Yeah. But when old bush-face saw how tough we were, he sent us here to kill ourselves diggin' instead of feedin' us to his critter," Monk growled. "That man-eatin' thing has even got teeth on its back, Doc! You wouldn't believe a monster like that was in the World!"

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

A guard passed by and looked down, then lashed with his whip. A red welt sprang out on Monk's shoulder.

"Quit mumblin' to yourself," the guard directed in English. "And dig faster!"

After the guard continued on, Monk gritted through the hole to Doc, "You see how it is? Most of the diggers die off quick."

"Why the pits?" Doc queried.

"You've got me," Monk grunted. "We've sure wondered about 'em."

"I'm going to dig through into your pit, Monk," Doc informed. "Stand so your back will hide me as much as possible."

After Doc entered Monk's pit, he dug his way quickly through into Ham's. Monk filled both the holes as best he could. In the adjoining pit with Ham, Doc kept close to the wall so that unless one of the overseers stepped close and looked directly down, he would remain undetected.

Ham stifled his amazement at Doc's appearance. And Doc — reaching out with his pick — gouged an entrance for himself into Johnny's pit.

Almost the instant he arrived alongside Johnny, things began to happen.

"I'll be superamalgamated!" the bony geologist exploded as Doc squirmed into view.

"Say it louder," Doc directed.

"What?" Johnny blurted, startled.

"Say it louder," Doc repeated.

Johnny was so surprised at the whole business that he did not speak out in his accustomed verbose manner.

"It'll bring the guards down on us!" he protested.

"That," Doc said, "is what wewant."

"I'll be superamalgamated!" Johnny blurted his favorite expression again.

"LOUDER!" the bronze man directed.

Johnny gulped, raised his voice with determination.

"I'll be superamalgamated, superalgamated, superalgerated … Aw nuts, Doc. You say it!" For once, that word had gotten him down.

But it was not necessary for Doc to say it. An overseer lunged toward the pit. Doc was back against the side. The overseer did not observe him. The whip cracked down at Johnny. Doc's hands reached out, grasped the slashing rawhides, and gave a downward jerk.

The unexpected tug pulled the overseer off balance before he had time to brace himself or let go the whip. He teetered on the brink of the pit … then fell inward, sprawling. Doc's fist lanced out, smacking against the fellow's jaw while he was still in the air. The man was unconscious before he hit the bottom.

Doc bent, flipped him over, then yanked loose a key dangling from a thong on the lizard-hide collar. He fitted the key to the lock of Johnny's leg iron, twisted briefly … and Johnny stood free.

Doc grabbed up the whip he had wrested from the guard and — swerving — ducked through the hole into Ham's pit.

"Follow me, Johnny," Doc suggested cautiously, and reached to unlock Ham's leg iron.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Suddenly from all along the line of fantastic pits, the groans, babblings, and the whip-cracking … ceased. One note dominated the nightmare scene: the deep, echoing clangor of a brass gong .

One of the overseers had witnessed his fellow plunge mysteriously into the pit and he had sounded the warning gong . While the dread hush spread over the pit, overseers converged, running toward the hole where Johnny had been working.

"We'll never make it, Doc," Johnny snapped. "They kill anybody caught trying to escape!"

A cursing uproar burst out as the first-arriving overseers discovered Johnny's pit to be empty. More of the lizard-collared guards swarmed down. A whip lashed into Ham's pit as one of the overseers discovered the 3 men there.

Bellowed words brought the others crowding to the pit rim. Whips lashed down. As Doc lunged upright from unlocking Ham, the pit became a whistling storm of flesh-cutting rawhide.