Лестер Дент - The Fantastic Island

"Follow me," be directed Pat … and was suddenly gone. Pat tagged after him as best she could. She was just about exhausted. It seemed days since she had eaten, slept, had a peaceful moment, or drawn a breath of air that was fit to breathe.

A shout came from ahead. Shots! She heard the Count scream . Then Pat came on the scene.

It was at the edge of the little cove where the water was comparatively calm. Doc Savage was standing on the cove's edge, sheltered by a high boulder.

Fully 200 yards away, the Count was retreating warily along the beach with revolver in hand. He shot at Pat. She got undercover, crawled forward, and joined Doc.

She looked at the bay.

A seaplane floated there — a high-winged, twin-motored amphibian, each motor being equipped with a 3-bladed propeller. This ship was moored close to the shore. On its fuselage a painted legend could be read:

COCOS ISLAND TREASURE HUNTERS, INC.

"You headed the Count away from the plane!" Pat gasped, suddenly understanding why Doc wanted their quarry to know he was being followed. It had kept the fellow frightened and had made him flee toward the plane. And it had worked.

"Right." Doc Savage waved at the plane. "That explains how the other brother got here. The must have been a treasure-hunting expedition on Cocos Island. There usually is, as a matter-of-fact. This plane was probably stolen from them."

Upon later investigation, this theory proved to be true.

They waded out to the plane and climbed aboard.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

The big plane had a stout fuselage, one made for heavy work. That was fortunate because the landing on the other side of the island — although Doc Savage made it expertly — was not easy on the hull. No plane could land easily in that chopping riptide.

Howling their delight, Monk, Ham, and the others met the ship on the beach, waded out, and seized the hull to keep it from being damaged on the rocky shore.

"We can't clear outta here too soon for me!" Monk yelled. "I gotta find Habeas Corpus! He's somewhere on the other side of the island."

"Probably with that herd of wild hogs still after him," Ham offered.

Doc Savage issued abrupt directions. "Monk and the rest of you, use this plane to ferry these poor prisoners of the Count's to safety. Better take them out to the reef — not to the island. The reefs are not submerged even at high tide. They would be safe there."

"What about you, Doc?" Monk demanded.

"The Devil's Honeycomb is here on this plateau," Doc Savage advised.

Pat had been apparently thinking. Now, she said sharply, "Doc! That compass! There must have been a mapin it or something!"

"Undoubtedly," Doc Savage assured her.

"But the Count took it away from me!" Pat gasped. "We haven't got it."

For answer, the bronze man brought from within his clothing the jeweled compass.

"It left the Count's person when he took part in the struggle attending my capture. I picked his pocket."

Pat elected to stay. So did Renny. The others, being armed, felt able to take care of the prisoners. They carried them to one of the reefs near where the fake channel lights had decoyed ships to disaster.

There was light about them now. Burning jungle ignited by lava and lurid flashes from the cone took care of that. Doc Savage worked at the compass, got the glass out, and lifted the card off its jeweled bearing. Beneath — tied to the bearing pin with silken cord — was a bit of parchment. Doc unwrapped this.

It was a simple chart, showing landmarks and paced distances.

They were lucky. The principal landmark, it developed, was a boulder of extraordinary size which reposed near one end of the plateau. They ran to this, pausing only to gather digging implements from some of the honeycomb pits. Doc Savage paced off the distances.

They began to dig. Doc Savage and Renny were in the hole and Pat kept the slag tossed back. They hit the leaden lid of a small chest some six feet down. Prying the chest out, they could tell that there were many other similar chests below.

"Let's have a look at the inside," Renny rumbled and struck with his shovel. The lead was soft; it split. Huge globules of green and redglittered before their sweat-smarted eyes.

"Holy cow!" Renny breathed.

The contents of the lead box was an affair of gold, probably a part of an ancient breastplate of armor. In this were set the jewels. The design of the mounting was orderly and laid out in such a fashion that it somewhat resembled a honeycomb.

There were diamonds, rubies, emeralds … every one a stone that looked valuable!

"I can see why they called it the Devil's Honeycomb ," Renny boomed.

"What about getting the rest out?" Pat demanded.

They began to dig for the additional chests. The sides of the bole promptly caved in, delaying them somewhat. A moment later, there was another misfortune which entirely overshadowed this minor one.

There came a crashing detonation. The very Earth itself seemed to convulse, leap upward, then shake as if trying to split itself wide open.A great thump — queerly hollow — followed that. It was such a sound as characterizes the detonation of an extremely powerful explosive.

Pat looked appalled. "The Count's nitro charge!"she gasped.

- — — — — — — — — — — — —

They looked toward the high volcanic cone and saw a sight that was probably the most spectacular — and at the same time the most menacing — they had ever witnessed. A rumble had started and was growing and growing. But that was almost unnoticed. It was the thing happening to the top of the cone that held their eyes. Niagara Falls seemed to have become molten fire and was flowing upside down out of the great cone.

"Holy cow!" Renny rumbled. "That's what I call a Fourth-of-July celebration!"

Doc Savage straightened and glanced about rapidly. He was calculating the size of the eruption and appraising their distance from the beach.

"Run for it!"the bronze man said abruptly.

Renny protested, "But these lead boxes … "

"Nothing like that is worth dying for," Doc Savage said, grimly. "If you stay to dig them out, you will not have a chance to get away."

Renny did not have to think it over long.

"You're right!" he thumped.

They ran for it, Renny pausing only to scoop up the cluster of mounted jewels which so strangely resembled honeycomb — a honeycomb the cells capped not with wax but with scintillating brilliance .

The plane picked them up without much more difficulty than they had expected. They got away none too soon. As the ship lifted from the water and circled toward the more peaceful end of the island, they studied the scene.

Under a sky hell-red to the far horizon, the cone was spitting lava, boulders — some of the latter as huge as small buildings. A few of these great chunks fell into the sea or rolled there and sent up unbelievable quantities of billowing steam.

With the roarin their ears of a World coming to an end and the light of an inferno before their eyes, Doc himself took the controls of the plane and landed it on the comparatively calm water inside the little cove. They did not beach the ship but kept it off with the motors running, ready for a quick take-off should an earthquake start. The latter was a possibility.

Ignoring all arguments. Monk went ashore. He wanted his hog Habeas. Strangely enough, the dapper Ham — not at all "dapper" now — accompanied the homely chemist.