Quest of the Spider

Chapter XIV. THE BIG SURPRISE

DAWN had not yet arrived when Renny and Monk were hauled into the presence of Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny, who lay bound hand and foot in the shack in the depths of the great swamp.

Long Tom moaned aloud. "Good night! And you fellows were our last hope!"

Monk caught sight of Ham. The faintest of amused gleams came into Monk's little eyes. If it had not been for his grief over learning of Doc Savage's demise, Monk would have burst into roars of laughter.

Any sort of misfortune Ham met with tickled Monk—although the next instant Monk might risk his very life to rescue Ham. These two had been good-natured enemies since the War.

It was Monk who had framed the ham-stealing charge which had been the cause of Ham getting his nickname. Ham had never been able to prove it, a point that still rankled his lawyer soul.

Too, Monk was one man who could hold his own against Ham's sharp tongue. He had an infallible system of getting Ham's goat. He would merely make some reference to Ham's stealing anything connected with a porker, from pig's knuckles to the pig's way of squealing. This burned Ham up.

There was no laughter or razzing now, though.

It was not their own danger that stilled their tongues. It was the overpowering grief brought by the knowledge that they had lost their friend and benefactor—Doc Savage.

The sinister throbbing of the tom-toms still flung its disquieting influence over the huge morass. The cadence was faster. It tore at their nerves. It seemed to destroy the very regularity of their heartbeats. It beat like invisible waves against their brains.

"That infernal racket is driving us nuts!" Johnny muttered.

"And a big alligator keeps crawling up in front of the door," Long Tom groaned. "The guards chased it away a time or two. But lately, they've been letting it hang around, just because it makes us sweat. Seeing the infernal thing reminds us of— of—"

The electrical wizard shuddered violently, and could not finish. Thought of Doc's fate choked him.

Once more, they sat and listened to the thump din of the voodoo ceremony in the hollow at the top of the hill. The caterwauling yells still came. If anything, they were louder, even more fanatic.

"They're working up to the point where the human sacrifice will be offered!" Johnny said in a thick voice. "I studied their infernal rites enough to be able to tell."

"Use your brain on somethin' useful!" Monk groaned. "Gettin' us out of here, for instance!"

Long Tom suddenly gave voice to a horror-stricken gasp. He shut his eyes tightly. The others looked to see what had affected him.

The giant alligator had returned. It crawled slowly through the steaming moonlight for the door. It was like some hideous thing from Hades.

CHUCKLING loudly, the guards looked inside. The horror the presence of the reptile inflicted upon the prisoners seemed to give them great glee. They clucked at the 'gator, calling "Sic 'em!" and other pleasantries.

One guard departed. A chicken's frightened squawl arose. The man came back with the fowl. Using the live bait, he proceeded to decoy the giant alligator through the door.

The reptile entered like a pet dog.

Playfully, the guard tried to persuade it to take a bite out of Monk's leg. He had no success. Disgusted, he kicked the 'gator in the side.

The big saurian now became quite motionless. It might have been hearing something.

Sure enough—a sound came!

It was by far the most welcome note that ever impinged upon the ears of the five men lying bound and sentenced to death upon the filthy floor.

The sound that meant Doc!

More than ever was the ventriloquist quality evident in the wondrous note. Mellow, trilling, soft, it seemed to waft forth from every part of the ramshackle building. It filtered through the awful throb of the tom-toms; and, tiny, small thing though it was, it reduced the savage rhythm to something unimportant, no longer dangerous.

Courage flowed into the five men. Utter joy washed their bodies like some hot, exquisite bath. Doc was alive!

They didn't know how it could be. But Doc was here somewhere. Furtively, they tried to locate him. It was fruitless. His trilling sound seemed to emanate from the molecules of the air itself.

The guards were puzzled and not a little awed.

"Sacrй!

Vat ees dat noise?"

The swamp man who had kicked the 'gator stepped back. The next instant the reptile gave an expert flounce. The guard sprawled flat on his back. He lost his machine gun from his hands.

The alligator now did what no commonplace saurian ever did. It got up on its rear legs. The repulsive stomach of the thing was closed with, of all things—

A zipper fastener!

With a s-s-wick!of a noise, the zipper came open.

The mighty bronze form of Doc Savage flashed forth.

FOR a moment, the superstitious guards must have thought the big reptile had actually turned into the bronze giant they believed one of its kind had devoured. Astonishment held them paralyzed.

Doc hurled his 'gator masquerade at them. It was but the hide of one of the reptiles, cleverly mounted. It was heavy, though. It flew true. One guard went over backward.

Another guard emitted a howl of alarm. His aircraft-type machine gun cut loose. The recoil of the powerful weapon shook the strange harness about his middle, threatening to tear him to pieces. Empty cartridges chased each other over the floor like brassy mice.

In his haste, the man forgot to exert the proper science in holding his weapon down. It got away from him. The stream of slugs cut through the plank walls like a slasher saw.

The fellow saw the bronze giant whip toward him. He sought to retreat. A terrific blow felled him.

A knife glinted in the pale light over the roped forms of the five prisoners. It slashed with the nice precision of a machine. Ropes fell away.

"Yeo-o-ow!" bellowed Monk. He reared to his feet, roaring, snorting.

Outside the shack, a swamp man was creeping along the wall. His wizened figure could be seen through the inch-wide cracks between the up-and-down wall planks.

Monk took two quick steps. His two hundred and sixty pounds of gristle, bone, and stiff red hair sailed upward. Feet first, Monk hit the wall. Planks split, crashed, caved. He went through the wall like a ball from a muzzle-loading cannon.

The swamp man met destruction in the wreckage.

The swamp men possessed an animal-like bravery. Where-as beings with more brains would have fled, they stood and fought—and quickly found their Waterloo.

Renny's big fist took one amidship. All the starch left the fellow. He draped loose as a dirty shirt over the gallon of knuckles which had hit him.

The bronze flash that was Doc Savage in action accounted for the others.

Ham found his sword cane. One of the unlucky guards had been carrying it. Ham unsheathed the razor-sharp, flexible blade. It sang like a big tuning fork in his hand.

"Yeo-o-ow!" bawled Monk. "I ain't even warmed up!"

"You will be!" clipped Ham. "You'll probably be on fire, before this is over! There's only a few hundred of the voodoo devils left!"

BEDLAM had broken out on the hill above the settlement. The greenish snake of fire burning within the hollow cast a lurid glow on the jungle immediately adjacent. The hilltop might have been the gullet of some bloated dragon.

Against the emerald luminance, ugly figures were silhouetted. Barbaric, savage forms, these were—except for the fearsome killing machines many wore harnessed to their bodies.

They had heard the prisoners escaping. They poured down the hill.

"Come!" Doc's single word was low, calm. But it had the effect of an explosive.

He glided away into the night.

His five men followed. They knew Doc had some plan. They couldn't imagine what it was. They were hopelessly outnumbered. Should they take to the swamp, Doc alone stood a chance of escaping. The swamp men, knowing the intricacies of the vast and entangled morass, would overhaul any one of lesser physical ability. Doc would never desert his men. Hence they knew he must have some other scheme for coping with their immediate peril.

Machine guns searched the festering growth with whistling, popping streams of lead. The slugs sickled off branches and leaves. Violent rolls of rapid echoes gamboled over the low hill.

Amid all that discord, Doc and his men could talk without attracting attention.

"How did you do it, Doc?" Ham questioned. "I mean—when the car went into the bayou? I'd have sworn we saw a 'gator making a meal out of you."

"What you saw was merely a trick to make the swamp men think I was done for," Doc replied. "I thrust an arm into the jaws of that stuffed alligator, then pushed the head out of the water and shook it. Naturally, it looked as if one of the huge reptiles had me."

"What I want to know is, where the stuffed 'gator came from?" Long Tom put in.

"What is the best masquerade a man could don to move about in this swamp?" Doc countered.

"That's easy!" Long Tom chuckled. "Pass himself off as an alligator!"

"Exactly," said Doc. "That stuffed 'gator was in the rumble seat of the roadster. It was one of the things I brought along into the swamp, on the chance we might need it. I simply dived and got it, after the car went into the water. The thing could be folded up in a fairly small space, for all its large size. And it looked natural enough to fool the swamp men, especially when seen only by moonlight. In the daytime, they might not have been deceived so easily."

"Maybe," replied Long Tom. "But the way it was, it sure ran a whizzer on everybody concerned."

A note of regret now came into Doc's powerful, expressive voice.

"I am sorry I had to deceive you along with the swamp men," he said, "but it could not be helped. And there was also nothing else to do but let you fall into the hands of the Gray Spider's men. To have attempted to spirit you away under water would only have meant you would be drowned."

Doc and his five men were working around the hill as they conversed.

"Where we goin'?" Monk inquired.

"Wet your finger and hold it up," Doc suggested.

Monk complied. "Huh—you mean that now we're gettin' the wind at our backs?"

"That's the idea. As you may have noticed, I did some scouting around in the course of the night. In fact, I'll venture to assure you, brothers, that there is scarcely a square yard of this hill over which Doc 'Alligator' Savage did not crawl. Among other things, I made a find which, unless I'm far mistaken, will be our salvation."

Ham thought of something. "Say—there was a real alligator, wasn't there? I saw that half-wit kid playing with one like it was a dog."

"There was," Doc agreed. "I have both the boy and his unusual pet tied up in the near-by swamp. Neither have been harmed—nor will they be. Unknowingly, they did us a good turn. Things would not have been nearly so simple, had the swamp men not been accustomed to seeing this alligator around."

Loud yells denoted the voodoo men were taking the trail of Doc and his friends. Pine-knot torches flamed. They cast fitful, dancing shadows. The hot white rods of modern flashlights mingled with them.

Random bursts were loosened frequently from machine guns. These never did anything more annoying than shower Doc and his five men with bark, twigs, and leaves.

"Kinda reminds me of the big scrap in France!" Monk's mild voice was more than ever a surprising contrast. It hardly seemed possible the boisterous, animallike bellowings he emitted while in action could come from the same source as the sleepy, soft words.

"Well, the wind is at our backs!" Renny announced. "So what?"

"So this!" Doc pointed.

Before them reared the white, ghostly stub of a dead tree. Lightning had apparently shattered it long ago. The bark was gone. Cracks gaped in the pale wood. Patches of foul green fungus spotted it.

Doc quickly wrenched away a section of the lifeless trunk. A cavity was revealed. The trunk was hollow.

The cache held a number of boxes about the size of apple crates. One of these had been opened.

"I investigated," Doc explained. "Two of those boxes hold ordinary hand grenades. The others contain a supply of poison-gas grenades. It's the same kind of deadly gas the Gray Spider has twice sought to use on us. The wind will carry it over our foes."

"Glory be!" enthused Monk. "And that ain't the half of it! There's gas masks along with the stuff!"

The masks were swiftly hauled out. Monk, Renny, Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny donned them. But Doc Savage delayed.

"We will use the gas only as a last resort," he pointed out "After all, the fiendishness of these swamp men is largely due to one man—the Gray Spider. If we can get the master devil and the group of his important lieutenants, which he calls the inner circle of his Cult of the Moccasin, it will be unnecessary to do any wholesale killing. The other swamp men, freed from the Gray Spider's sinister influence, can be reformed."

Doc now advanced a few yards. He carried a hand grenade—one which did not contain gas. He plucked out the firing pin and lobbed the metal egg into the morass.

It exploded with an ear-splitting roar.

The blast caused silence to seize momentarily upon the low hill. The voodoo men were surprised, uneasy.

Into the void of quiet rolled Doc Savage's words. Now, more than ever, was the amazing quality of penetration apparent in the bronze man's voice. It seemed to gather some of the elusive nature of Doc's strange trilling sound, for, without being in the least loud or blaring, it filtered to every part of the hill.

"We have the gas and the masks!" Doc told the voodoo men. "To attack us will mean death for you! The wind will sweep the gas to you!"

AT this threatening declaration, the silence deepened. It became an uneasy pall.

Suddenly, an order crashed among the voodoo men.

"He's right! We can't rush them. Draw back into the swamp! We'll get them if they try to leave the hill!"

It was the Gray Spider speaking.

Doc's men exchanged puzzled looks.

"Glory be!" gulped Monk. "Did you notice—"

In giving the command to his voodoo followers, the Gray Spider had been forced to lift his tone to a yell.

He had forgotten to disguise his voice!

"I’ll say I noticed it!" Renny snapped. "That voice is familiar! I've heard it somewhere!"

"So have I!" Monk said mildly. "But I can't place it."

Renny offered: "Maybe Doc can!"

With a start, Renny bit off his words.

Doc had vanished! There had been no sound. They had noticed no stir in the pale moonlight that splattered through the canopy of swamp vegetation. Yet the mighty bronze form was no longer in their midst; he had slipped away as if on a moonbeam.

"Doc has gone after the Gray Spider alone!" Ham clipped.

Ham had made a good guess. At the precise moment he spoke, Doc was two-score yards away. The russet metal hue of his skin, the dark color of his garments, rendered him nearly invisible, even when he crossed patches of moonlight.

At the foot of the hill, the swamp tangle reared like a wall. A great leap sent the bronze man upward. His case-hardened fingers found a limb. The branch bent some under his great weight, but made little noise.

A voodoo man near by saw the foliage sway. He got the most fleeting glimpse of a figure that might have been a metallic bat. There had been no noise. The swamp man blinked, thinking a dark, night-flying moth was before his eyes. When he looked again, the strange vision was gone.

He galloped off, muttering of voodoo curses and evil spirits. He couldn't understand what he had seen.

Nor would he have believed his eyes, had he observed the flashing speed with which a Herculean bronze man traversed the aлrial lanes of the interlaced swamp vegetation. No squirrel or anthropoid jungle dweller could have shown more uncanny ability.

Sometimes creepers draped in tree-tops parted under the weight of the bronze giant. But he never fell far before his sure fingers found fresh grip. Nor did these breath-taking drops seem to bother him in the least.

Deep in the morass, the voodoo man had stopped to catch his breath.

Suddenly a voice came out of the murk beside him.

"Sacrй

— vare ees de Gray Spider?" it asked. "Me—I got plentee important message fo' heem."

The voodoo man thought it was one of his fellows. "Dunno vare Gray Spider ees! Him go away—not tell anybody vare to!"

The silence of a tomb followed. The voodoo man got curious. He investigated. He found no trace of whoever had spoken.

Several other swamp men had almost identical experiences. No one discovered who had addressed them in the debased jargon of their kind. Not one dreamed it was the mighty bronze man they feared.

For Doc Savage was seeking the Gray Spider—seeking with all his great resource of muscle and brain—and seeking in vain!