The Pirate of the Pacific

Chapter 14 HUNTED MEN

MONK, big and furry, clothes practically torn off, crouched in the how of a near-by lifeboat. He was shackled with heavy chains and metal bands.

The pale electrical wizard, Long Torn, and the bony, archaeologist, Johnny, were seated on a thwart in front of Monk. They were braceleted with ordinary handcuffs.

Other lifeboats and some launches swarmed the vicinity. Yellow men gorged them to the gunwales. Gun barrels bristIed over the boats like naked brush.

Every slant eye was fixed on the spot where the Malay Queen had gone down. The sea still boiled there. Wreckage drifted in confusion, deck chairs, some lounge furniture, a hatch or two, and lesser objects such as shuffleboard cues and ping-pong balls. A pall of steam from the blown boilers hung above Mantilla Bay.

Doc sank and stroked toward the small craft which held his three friends.

He was hardly under the surface when a terrific explosion occurred in the water near by. It smashed the sea against his body with terrific force.

Swiftly he let all the air out of his diving hood. He scooted into the depths.

He knew what had happened. Some of the corsairs had glimpsed him and hurled a grenade.

Doc swam with grim, machinelike speed. Rifle bullets wouldn't reach him below the surface. But the grenades, detonating like depth bombs, were a grisly menace. He'd have to give up the rescue of his three men. He had no way of getting them ashore.

Chun-n-g!

Then a second grenade loosened. It couldn't have been many feet away. The goggles of Doc's (living hood were crushed inward. Gigantic fists seemed to smash every inch of his bronze frame.

Not missing a stroke in his swimming, Doc shook the glass goggle fragments out of his eyes. No serious damage had been done. He would merely have to keep the mouthpiece-nose-clip contrivance of the "lung" between his lips as long as he was beneath the surface.

His remarkable ability to maintain a sense of direction under all circumstances enabled him to find the three he had left beneath the waters.

Grenades were still exploding beneath the surface. But the blasts were so distant now as to be harmless.

Leaning far over against the water, the four men strode shoreward. Coming to a clear patch of sand, Doc halted, and, with a finger tip, wrote one word.

"Sharks!"

Doc had seen a pilot fish of a shark-following species. After that warning they kept alert eyes roving the surrounding depths. Fortunately, however, they were not molested.

The bottom slanted upward; the water became translucent with sunlight. They were nearing shore. A roaring commotion passed over their heads, evidently a speed boat.

Upright wooden columns appeared suddenly, thick as a forest, shaggy with barnacles — the piling of a wharf.

Doc led his men into the forest. They rose cautiously to the top.

NO one observed them in the shadowy thicket of piling.

Out on the bay, boats scurried every\where. Some were motor driven, some propelled by stringy yellow oarsmen.

Doc removed his diving hood. The other three followed his example.

"I know a spot ashore where we will be safe," Mindoro declared. "It is one of the rendezvous used by my secret political society."

"Let's go," said Doc.

Shoving themselves from pile to pile, they reached a hawser end which chanced to be dangling. Doc, tugging it, found the upper terminus solid.

He mounted with simian speed and ease. The wharf was piled with hemp bales. Near by yawned a narrow street.

Now the others climbed up. They sprinted for the street and stopped.

A squad of Mantilla police stood there. They held drawn guns.

"Bueno!" exploded Mindoro in Spanish. "We are safe!"

Ham and Renny scowled doubtfully. The police did not look friendly to them. Their doubts were justified an instant later.

"Fire!" shrieked the officer in command of the squad. "Kill the dogs!"

Police pistols flung up — targeted on the vital organs of Doc and his three companions.

Ham, Renny, Mindoro — all three suddenly found themselves scooped zip and swept to one side by Doc's bronze right arm.

Simultaneously a small cylinder in Doc's left hand spouted a monster wad of black smoke. The cylinder, of metal, had come from the bundle Doc was carrying. The smoke pall spread with astonishing speed.

Police guns clapped thunderously in the black smudge. Bullets caromed off cobbles, off the building walls. The treacherous officers dashed about t, searching savagely. Some had presence of mind to run up and down the street until clear of the umbrageous vapor. They waited there for the bronze giant and his companions to appear.

But they did not put in an appearance.

Not until the smoke was dissipated by a breeze, fully ten minutes later, did the would-be killers find an open door in one of the buildings walling the street. By that time Doc, Ham, Renny and Mindoro were many blocks away.

MINDORO was white with rage. From time to time he shook his fists in expressive Latin fashion.

"That group of police was composed of Tom Too's men!" he hissed wrathfully. "That explains their action. The devil must have enough of his followers, or men whom he has bribed, on the police force to take over the department when he decides to strike."

Doc replied nothing.

Ham and Renny exchanged doubtful glances. It looked as if they had stepped from the frying pan into the fire. Tom Too's plot was tremendous in scope. If the police were under the domination of the buccaneers, Doc would be in for some tough sailing.

They entered thickly crowded streets. The excitement in the bay seemed to be attracting virtually every inhabitant of Mantilla. Many, curious, were making for the bay at a dead run.

A tight group, Doc and his men breasted this tide of humanity. They avoided such of the Mantilla constabulary as they saw.

Mindoro soon led them into a small shop. The proprietor, a benign-looking Chinese gentleman, smiled widely at Mindoro. They exchanged words in Mandarin.

"To have you back is like seeing the sun rise after a long and dark and horrible night," murmured the Celestial. "This lowly person presumes you wish to use the secret way."

"Right," Mindoro told him.

In a rear room a large brass gong hung. It was shaped like a gigantic cymbal, such as drummers hammer. This was moved aside, a section of the wall behind opened, and Doc and his companions entered a concealed stairway.

This twisted and angled, became a passage even more crooked, and finally turned into another stair flight.

They stepped into a windowless room. The air was perfumed faintly with incense. Tapestries draped the walls; thick rugs matted the floor; comfortably upholstered furniture stood about. There was a cabinet laden with canned and preserved foods. A well-stocked bookcase stood against one wall.

A very modern radio set, equipped for long and shortwave reception, completed the fittings.

"This is one of several hidden retreats established by my secret society," Mindoro explained.

Ham had carried his sword cane throughout the excitement. He used it to punch the soft upholstery of a chair, as if estimating its comfort.

"How did you come to organize your political society in secrecy?" he asked. "That has been puzzling me all along. Did you expect a thing like this Tom Too menace to turn up?"

"Not exactly," replied Mindoro. "Secrecy is the way of the Orient. We do not come out in the open and settle things in a knock-down-and-drag-out fashion, as you Americans do. Of course, the secrecy was incorporated for our protection. The first move in seizing power is naturally to wipe out those who are running things. In the Orient, secret societies are not regarded as the insidious thing you Yanks consider them."

"Our first move is to find how things stand here," Doc put in.

"I shall secure that information," Mindoro declared. "I intend to depart at once."

"Can you move about in safety?"

"In perfect security. I will not go far — only to dispatch messengers to my associates."

Before departing, Mindoro showed Doc and the others three hidden exits from the room for use in emergency.

"These walls are impervious to sound," Mindoro explained. "You can play the radio. We have more than one broadcasting station here in Mantilla."

One of the concealed passages swallowed him.

DOC clicked on the radio. It was powerful. He picked up broadcasts from Australia, from China, from Japan, as he

ran down the dial. He stopped on one of the local Mantilla stations. An announcer was speaking in English.

"We interrupt our musical program to read a news bulletin issued by the chief of police concerning the sinking of the liner Malay Queen in the Mantilla harbor not many minutes ago," said the radio announcer. "It seems that a group of four desperate criminals were trapped aboard the liner. They resisted arrest. Although many of the liner's passengers joined in the attempt to capture them, the four criminals took refuge in the hold. There they exploded a bomb which sank the vessel."

"Holy Cow!" Renny burst forth. "They've explained the whole thing with a slick bunch of lies!"

"This Tom Too is smooth!" clipped Ham, with the grudging admiration of one quick thinker for another. Ham himself was probably as mentally agile a lawyer as ever swayed a jury.

"Due to the foresight of brave Captain Hickman of the Malay Queen, the passengers were all taken ashore in safety before the four desperadoes exploded the bomb which sank the liner," continued the voice from the radio. "Several Mongols and half-castes among the passengers, who sought courageously to aid in subduing the four bad men, were slain."

"They're even making Tom Too's gang out as heroes!" Renny groaned.

"Flash!" suddenly exclaimed the radio announcer. "We have just been asked to broadcast a warning that the four killers reached shore from the sinking Malay Queen! They are now somewhere in Mantilla. Their names are not known, but their descriptions follow."

Next came an accurate delineation of how Doc, Ham, Renny, and Mindoro looked.

"These men are desperate characters," finished the radio announcer. "The police have orders to shoot them on sight. And Captain Hickman, skipper of the ill-fated Malay Queen, is offering a reward of ten thousand dollars for the capture of each of these men, dead or alive, preferably dead."

Music now came from the radio. Doc turned over to the short wave side and soon picked up the station of the MantilIa police. Mantilla seemed to have a very modern police department. The station was repeating descriptions of Doc and the others, with orders that they be shot on sight.

"It looks kinda tough," Renny suggested dryly.

"Tough!" snorted Ham. "It's the dangedest jam we were ever in!"

MINDORO was long-faced with worry when he returned.

"The situation is indeed serious," he informed them. "My associates succeeded in trapping one of Tom Too's Mongols. They scared the fellow into talking. The information they secured was most ominous. Tom Too is ready to seize power!"

"Exactly how is it to be managed!" Doc ('questioned.

"The physicians who attend the president have been bribed," Mindoro explained. "The president will be poisoned, and the physicians will say he died of heart failure. The moment this news gets out, rioting will start. The rioters will be Tom Too's men, working under his orders.

"Tom Too will step in and take charge of the police, many of whom are his men, or in his service because of bribes They will put down the rioting with an iron hand — a simple matter since the rioting will be staged deliberately. Tom Too will be touted in newspapers and over the radio as the iron man who took charge in the crisis. He will ride into power on a wave of public good will."

"That is the sort of plan which will work in this day and age!" Ham declared savagely.

"It doesn't sound like pirate methods!" Renny grunted.

"Tom Too is a modern edition of a pirate," Doc pointed out dryly. "If he should sail into port with his warships, as buccaneers did in the old days, he wouldn't get to first base. For one thing, the Luzon Union army and navy would probably whip him. If they didn't, a few dozen foreign warships would arrive, and that would be his finish."

A messenger, a husky patrolman on the Mantilla police force, whom Mindoro trusted, arrived bearing a change of garments for all four of the refugees.

Doc studied the patrolman with interest. The officer's uniform consisted of khaki shorts which terminated above the knees, blouse and tunic of the same hue, and a white sun helmet. The man's brown feet and legs were bare of covering.

"Have Tom Too's men sought to bribe you?" Doc asked.

"All same many time," admitted the officer in beach English. "Me no likee. Me say so."

"They tell you who to see in case you changed your mind?"

"They give me name fella come alongside if I want some Tom Too's dolla'," was the reply.

"They told you who to see if you wanted on Toni Too's pay roll, eh?" Doc murmured.

"Lightee."

Doc's golden eyes roved over his fellows.

"Brothers," he said softly, "I have an idea!"