Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

The Count continued his gobbling laugh.

"It is always the same!" he gloated. "The victims hang onto the bars until the weight of their bodies loosens their grip. Then the monsters have their fun. Observe how the iguanas crowd from behind. The 2 men will not be enough to appease them. So you, my dear Savage — with your 3 other aides and your charming cousin — will form a second coursefor my pets, I confidently predict."

Doc's gold-flecked eyes were lancing around the torture chamber. He could not reach his aides by means of the circular balcony. A sheer dividing wall cut off the way. And by the time he could circle through the palace forcing doors, it would be too late. Long Tom and Renny — their bodies grown leaden — would have lost their grips and fallen prey to rending jaws and claws.

There was but one way to the cell. That way led directly through the pit where the monsters crowded together.

Doc looked at Johnny. "Hold your knife at the Count's neck. If he makes a move … Monk, you and Ham stand by."

Swerving, Doc gripped the balcony railing and vaulted down into the pit' along with the swarming, hunger-crazed monsters.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

"Doc!" Ham shouted in horror.

Ham's voice was lost in the beastly chorus of grunts echoing up as the iguanas discovered the human in their midst.

Pat suddenly hid her eyes. Had she watched, she would have seen some interesting footwork. Doc landed on the scaled backs of one of the creatures. As it lurched, he leaped onto the back of another. 4 opened mouths rushed him. He leaped clear, in rapid succession stepping from back-to-back of the close-pressed animals much in the manner of a white-water lumberjack running over a log jam.

By virtue of expert eye-to-muscle coordination — never remaining more than a split-second in any one spot — Doc reached the middle of that nightmarish arena. From then on, progress was easier. The animals were too closely packed to attack him successfully so long as he kept on his feet and moving.

Doc reached the cell. Leaping from the back of the enraged iguanas to grip the iron bars, he pulled himself up to a safe height. Then bracing his feet against one bar and hands gripping another, he exerted all his tremendous strength in an effort to pry them apart.

Under the unbelievable force of his muscular pressure, the loose ends of the bars shuddered … then bent.

"Can you squeeze through now?" he demanded.

Long Tom did not have to answer. His beanpole body had already writhed through. Holding to the bars, he added his own strength to that of Doc's. The bars bent enough more to permit Renny also to squirm through. Hand-over-hand, the three climbed the bars and pulled themselves over the railing to the balcony floor.

Looking back across that frightful pit of frustrated monsters, Doc called to his aides, "Wait till we come to you!"

Doc used a vest-pocket bomb. Tiny things, they were no bigger than medicinal capsules but loaded with a powerful explosive. They blew down a door which separated the balcony from the rest of the palace. Where necessary, he used more of the capsule bombs to force other doors and finally reached his aides.

United now for the first time since the Devil's Honeycomb mystery had flung malignant shadows across them, Doc, his 5 aides, and Pat — with Ramadanoff their prisoner — went on a quick, triumphant tour of the Palace.

They found the Palace empty, the slaves having decamped into the jungle at the first opportunity.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

"We're all together at last!" Pat said joyfully.

"Yeah … all but Habeas Corpus," Monk amended, a dour look on his homely face.

"I favor leaving the island quickly," Ham snapped, "before that hog finds us."

"You shyster!" Monk growled. "Habeas Corpus is a good hog."'

"Good to eat, maybe. But even that I doubt!"

After providing themselves with firearms, Doc's aides donned some of the Count's clothes. The Count wore nothing apparently but black. Long Tom pointed at Renny's long, puritanical face protruding from a black waistcoat.

Doubling with laughter, Long Tom said, "You look like Frankenstein!"

"Anyhow, they fit," Renny growled. "And I don't look like a scarecrow in a garden patch like you."

Monk and Ham made acrid comments on each other's appearance.

"Holy cow!" Renny rumbled. "It's sure swell to hear you 2 guys scrappin' again. This lug that calls himself a 'Count' fixed up some skeletons with some of your clothes hangin' bloody on 'em. We thought you had all been killed."

As they were all in the act of leaving the palace, Ham pounced upon the blade of his sword cane where it had been concealed beneath the sea-otter robes on the piano. He examined the tip, found it still coated with the sleep-producing chemical, and shifted the blade back into the malacca cane handle.

Monk sighed. "'Now absolutely everything is found but Habeas."

"And he won't be found." Ham said, hopefully. "Didn't you hear the Count say the island is infected by fierce things?"

Monk insisted, "Habeas'll never be devoured by anything on account of he'll do the devourin' himself, if any!"

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Volcanic smoke hung over the island in a black pall, dimming the equatorial Sun as Pat, Doc, his aides, and their prisoner hurried from the palace courtyard.

"Now what?" Long Tom muttered.

Doc Savage studied the volcano for a time. Its glowseemed to have acquired additional brilliance .

"That volcano is not behaving in a manner calculated to inspire peace-of-mind," Doc said. "However, there are 2 things requiring our immediate attention."

"One is to rescue those poor devils digging those honeycomb pits," Ham offered.

"Right," Doc admitted.

"And the other," Johnny said tensely, for once using small words, "is to find out what this 'Devil's Honeycomb' business is all about."

"Right again," Doc agreed.

As the party plunged into a grove of mangroves, Doc and the scholarly Johnny conversed in lowered tones.

"No doubt, you have already reached the conclusions that I am going to outline," Johnny said. "First, Ramadanoff insisted you could locate this Devil's Honeycomb — whatever it is — with instruments. That implies that it is composed of substance different from the island and volcanic ash."

"Exactly," Doc Savage agreed. "And the fact that those pits are being dug close together indicates that the Devil's Honeycomb or whatever is not large. If it was a large object, they would have dug the pits farther apart."

"I had not thought of that, but it bears out my theory," Johnny declared. "Now have you noticed the geologic structure of this island? That coastal plateau is really a ridge along the shore. That is where they are digging. I am positive the plateau was thrown up as a deposit of volcanic ash. This occurred not many years ago, judging from the lack of vegetation. Beyond the plateau inland is a small swamp section heavily jungled."

Doc Savage put in, "There are indications that the swamp was originally the seashore."

Johnny chuckled. "I see you have reached the same conclusions as myself. Are we going to look the place over?"

"We are," Doc Savage told him. "We are going to examine that swamp quite thoroughly."

Monk dropped back to grumble, "I wish somebody'd tell me what all of those honeycomb pits are for."

"Did the overseers examine the volcanic ash you excavated from the pits?" Doc Savage queried.