Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

He dived to it a number of times. And when he swam back to shore, he was heavily burdened.

"Holy cow!" Renny exploded when Doc joined them in the valley that had formerly been a bay. "Whatcha got?"

"Our devices for locating metals underground," Doc Savage told him. "Long Tom and Johnny, you can help with this."

The apparatus was sensitive but unimpaired by submersion. Its case had been waterproof. They worked with it for 3 hours. Then Doc Savage went and stood on a particular spot.

"Here," he said.

It was near the beginning rise of the coastal ridge and was in volcanic ash. They dug in using sticks for implements, working as quietly as possible. It was Monk whose stick first hit buried wood. He scraped madly and uncovered a porthole.

"Pirate treasure!" he gulped, excitedly.

Doc Savage held a match close to the porthole to examine it, then said "Look" and pointed at an inscription on the porthole rim.

The inscription read:

Patented June 1, 1908

"Pirates," Doc Savage said, "were put out of business before 1908."

The porthole was large. After they had broken out the glass and worked the rim free, they could get inside by squeezing. Doc posted Renny and Monk as guards. With the others, Doc managed to get inside.

They searched carefully and at length … and found nothing to indicate this was anything but an old tramp steamer. The boat had a metal hull. Most of the bulkheads were of steel. And there were no skeletons about. The hull was mutilated enough to show the ship had been wrecked-probably driven high on the shore in the course of a storm or by a tidal wave.

"This has turned out to be a bust," Long Tom complained. Only the Count registered no disappointment. Observing the bearded man covertly, Doc noted that strangely enough the fellow could not keep from his face a look of feverish triumph.

Shortly after this, the Count approached Doc, complaining that the ropes hurt his wrists and suggesting that he might as well be freed since the only exit from the wreck — the porthole — was guarded by Renny and Monk.

Doc removed the bonds, at the same time remarking, "If you try to escape, the results may not be pleasant."

The Count bowed, narrowing his eyes to hide a gleam of triumph. He moved to one side, and Johnny and Pat promptly assailed Doc with misgivings.

"Why did you do it?" Pat demanded. "He was lying about his wrists hurting him."

Doc's expression was enigmatic. "Pretend not to notice him."

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

Doc Savage himself pretended to be occupied in another part of the wreck. The Count — when he judged himself to he unobserved — slunk from sight, entering a portion of the wrecked hull formerly used as the Captain's Cabin.

The Count found the spot for which his fingers were feeling. His tapering fingers pressed. A small panel slid open. He thrust his hand through the hole, felt behind the bulkhead, and drew his hand out quickly, holding something.

"Give it to me!" Doc ordered and advanced on the bearded man.

The Count snarled, his bearded face contorted in baffled rage. Then quickly, he controlled himself and forced a grim smile.

"Take it," he growled. "But I warn you — it means Death !"

He placed the article in Doc's outstretched hand.

"Outside," Doc ordered, and the Count walked out.

"Tie him up again," Doc directed Johnny.

Only after the Count's arms were again bound did the bronze man allow his attention to be distracted to the object in his hand. It was a mariner's emergency hand compass, studded on the back with 2 superb stones, much like those which had graced the Count's finger rings. An emeraldand a ruby!

Unexpectedly — wafting on the pumice-fogged air — the bronze man's trilling note came, causing Pat and Johnny to flash startled looks. Doc held the compass out for Pat to see.

"What is it?" Pat asked. She frowned, "I don't get it."

"The engraving," Doc suggested.

"It's in Russian," Pat decided. "I'm not so good at Russian."

"It says merely that the compass was presented to the Count Ramadanoff by the Czar of Imperial Russia," Doc told her. "It is the datewhich is important."

"I'll be superamalgamatedl" Johnny exploded. "The date is 1911!"

"Right," Doc said. "The date is 1911."

His words were echoed by a rumbling sound like caged thunder. No wind blew. The noise seemed to press down with the sifting black pumice and at the same time to ooze up through the ground. It was everywhere as though tortured rocks — far below the Earth's surface — were vibrating throughout the Globe.

"What is it?" Pat gasped.

"The volcano," Doc said.

"The exordium of the termination," Johnny remarked.

"I get that one," Pat said tensely. "The beginning of the end."

"We must drop everything," Doc said, "and hurry ahead to rescue those poor devils in the pits."

Doc led off with his aides and Pat trailing after him bringing big, bearded Ramadanoff. Out of the jungle tangle, forging ahead through jagged lava beds, Doc's party was within close view of the squat volcanic cone. The mountain's mouth was wreathed in lurid light. Smoke belched upward in a twisting spiral to mushroom against high clouds and sift its pumice over the entire island.

"It won't be long now!" Ham yelled.

"She's been buildin' for a bust ever since we've been here!" Monk agreed, loudly.

Doc slowed his giant strides to fall back alongside Pat. When no one was observing, he placed the jeweled compass in her hands.

"Keep it where it will be safe," he admonished.

"You must be expecting violent action !" Pat gasped.

Doc said nothing possibly because ahead — from out of gloom created by the black ash — gun flashes stabbed redly like tiny, erupting volcanoes.

"Down!" Doc shouted. Then bullets slammed whining past.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

"Brother Boris again!" Monk squawked.

The volcanic rock afforded innumerable crevices. Concealing themselves, Doc and his aides returned enough fire to keep the enemies at a distance. Of even greater danger than the smashing lead was the brittle volcanic slag which broke into thousands of pieces under impact of bullets, showering the slivered rock around like glassy needles.

Doc issued strict orders against reckless exposure on the part of any of his aides. Then leaving Monk, Ham, and Pat in charge of the prisone, he took the others with him to stage a flanking movement.

Taking advantage of lava gullies and dead, gas craters, Doc's flanking party worked up close. Once they were sighted, and a burst of bullets hunted them. One slug felled a high torch thistle and slapped the frightful plant across Renny's shoulders, which meant Renny would spend weeks picking the barbs from his skin. Bullets splattered volcanic glass and drove splinters.

Doc left them, merging away into the gloom. The volcanic ash was falling thicker now and the squat volcano cone was bathed in a perpetual rose glow. Appearing to ooze from the rock underfoot, that fearful rumble — like caged thunder — came again.

Then came a crashing roar ! A different sound. It sent echoes ricocheting through the lava canyons like a dynamite blast.

"Doc's little capsule grenades!" Renny boomed.

Piercing the ash-laden air on the heels of the explosion echoes stabbed frantic shouts. A ragged burst of gunfire came from Boris Ramadanoff's men. These noises receded until there was only silence and the sifting black snow, and the mountain top gleaming a fiery red.