Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

Letting go of the candelabra, the Man of Bronze swooped through the air above that death stretch— the 30 feet of flooring in front of the door charged with high-amperage electricity. Through the lofty door his body shot, down. He landed easily, taking the shock in a way that showed he had practiced jumping from great heights.

Pat had managed to hang on throughout.

Safely outside that Palace of Death , Doc circled the tower running. And Pat ran with him. It was Doc's intention to reach the tomblike structure in the garden where his aids were imprisoned and effect their release.

But Doc did not reach the prison house. He got close enough that Monk, Ham, and Johnny could see him from the barred window. Ham even shrieked a warning . But it was too late.

A black fury — which had leaped down from a Palace window — landed with crushing weight on Doc's shoulders. Doc went down, a hard fall to the flagstoned yard. And on top of him — riding him down — was the figure of Count Ramadanoff!

The Count's fists thudded on Doc with vicious short-arm jabs delivered with the force of a pile-driver. His white hands that looked so soft were not soft at all. On his short cut through the Palace to intercept Doc, he had slipped his hands into gloves of basket-weave wire as flexible as thin kid and knobbed on the knuckles with jagged slugs of lead.

"With my own hands, I will beat you to death!" the Count raged. "Three of your men at one time my fists have beaten. And now YOU!"

As Doc's head hit the flagstoned surface, the Count's right fist bludgeoned in. There was nothing short-arm about this jab. He had timed the blow. His fist bashed in from far back with all the weight of his massive shoulders behind it. He meant to crush Doc's skull between mailed fist and flagstone.

The fist drove down and struck solidly … but not on Doc's head. Doc jerked clear, timing his movement so that the Count could not pull his punch. The fist swished air in Doc's face and rammed flagstone. Holes had been fashioned in the backs of the leaded gloves so the finger rings could push through and serve as additional punishment factors.

Under the drive of fist against flagstone, the ruby— as big as the end of a man's thumb — crushed into a mound of reddish crystalline powder.

As he jerked clear, Doc drove his own fist upward to the point of the Count's chin. The madman's head rocked back till his bull neck creaked. Doc doubled his knee and kicked himself clear.

Up on their feet, the two crashed in at each other. Doc took one fearful blow on the side of his head. But he rolled with it, thereby avoiding most of its effect and — at the same time — providing an opening for his own fists. He hit 3 times in dazzling succession. It was almost like a single blow — a drilling one-two punch over the heart and an uppercut to the jaw swung from down around his knees. The blow would have dropped a rhinoceros!

It dropped Count Ramadanoff senseless!

He did not awaken until several minutes later. And by that time, his hands were tied. Guided by Pat, Doc had found the generator room and turned the electricity off all over the palace. Also by the use of a tiny vest-pocket grenade, he had broken down the door of the garden prison and freed his 3 aides.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

The Count sat up groggily and Doc ordered, "Inside the Palace! Free my 2 men locked in your dungeon cells."

"And make it fast!" Monk threatened.

With the Count leading and the others following close, they trooped through the great hall and up the winding stairs.

"You have beaten me with your fists," the Count said. "Very well. But there is still the thumb-hole death ."

Before the door to the balcony which surrounded the animal pit, the Count paused … impressively.

"What you will see beyond this door is something the like of which — until today — has never been observed by any living man except myself," he announced, dramatically.

"I know what we'll see," Monk blazed. "The monster !"

"It's not the 'monster' you have in mind," Doc interposed, enigmatically.

The Count's breath rasped. "So you have solved my mystery?"

"Correct," Doc admitted. "The window which looks upon this courtyard from the tower room is, in reality, a powerful magnifying glass. The beast we saw is not as large as it appears."

The Count's lips writhed. "Do not make the mistake of thinking the horror is diminished. It is increased uncounted times."

Pat shuddered. "What could be worse than that … that monster ?"

The Count leered at her. His answer was simple … and devastating.

"Many monsters," he said.

His foot must have touched a hidden lever — actuated mechanically — for the door to the balcony swung open Doc's aides crowded forward and stopped with ludicrous suddenness, staring down into the pit with cold shock.

Monk was the first one to get his voice.

"Not one monster!" he gasped. "But about a hundred of 'em, all nearly 6 feet long!"

The hundred was somewhat of an exaggeration because the iguanas — the most hideous of beasts — were so tightly packed on the dungeon floor that their scaly hides rubbed together and made it impossible for them to swell out their bodies in the loathsome habit they had in moments of excitement.

The mass of scabrous-hided monsters undulated on the flagstoned floor, snorting, armored heads without exception pointing toward the cell wherein Renny and Long Tom were held captive.

"They have been starved to hunger frenzy," the Count's odious voice sounded. "They are waiting for the bars to go up so that they may get inside the cell."

Pat uttered a choked cry of dismay.

The Count's silky voice — thick with expected triumph — continued: " Iguanas inhabiting some of the Galapagos Islands are not particularly savage, I believe. But these are different. Everything on this island is savage . If I did not find it so when I came, then I made it so.

"For one thing, you will observe that these brutes are a full foot longer than the average. The strongest — those fellows which have forged their way to the front and are grinding their teeth against the bars — are half again larger than any other iguana reported on other islands."

"Tryin' to throw a scare into us, huh?" Monk blustered, secure in the realization that the electricity had been cut off and that the Count could no longer control the bars by a touch of a hidden button.

"If anything happens to my men … " Doc began ominously.

"Your warning comes too late, my dear Savage," the Count rasped. "Look!"

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Before their horrified eyes, the iron bars commenced to lift upward out of the floor. There was a gobbling sound — the Count's weird laugh.

"Fools!" he raved. "What matters it if you have temporarily disrupted my electrical system? There are a hundred places on this balcony where I can touch my toe and actuate the bars by mechanical control!"

As the bars lifted upward, the slavery-jawed iguanas surged like a wave inside the cell.

Renny and Long Tom — acting in a way they had planned for just that emergency — leaped upward and caught hold of the rising bars. The bars ceased lifting and the 2 men hung sag-weighted while the scabrous monsters with frenzied grunts and a blood-chilling grate of serrated teeth leaped up at them, falling just short.