The Pirate of the Pacific

Chapter 16 THE BUCCANEER MUTINY

THAT night, a ceiling of black cloud hung at ten thousand feet. Under this, darkness lurked, thick and damply foul as the breath of some carnivorous monster.

The hour was early. Lights glowed through the open walls of huts. Here and there a torch flared as some native went about night duties.

A mile high, just below the cloud ceiling, a plane boomed through the night. Exhaust stacks of its two big radial motors lipped blue flame occasionally. The tips of the single far-flung wing and the spidery rudder mechanism bore no distinguishing lights. The craft was an amphibian — the landing wheels cranking up into wells on the hull when it was desired to make a landing in water. In a pinch, the craft could carry sixteen passengers.

It carried only six now — Doc Savage and his five friends.

Mindoro had remained behind in Mantilla. He had been unwilling to be the stay-at-home, at first. But Doc had pointed out it was highly important that Mindoro assembled his loyal forces and prepare to resist Tom Too's coup.

Mindoro's first move would be to throw a dependable guard around the president of the Luzon Union, so there would be no poisoning. The doctors who had been bribed by Tom Too's men to proclaim the poison death a case of heart failure, were to be disposed of. Doc hadn't inquired just what the disposal would be. It probably would not be pleasant.

It had been a simple matter for Mindoro to secure the plane for Doc's use.

Renny was navigating the plane. This was not an easy task, since they could not see the heavens, or the contour of the land below. Renny, thanks to his engineering training, was an expert at this sort of thing.

Doc handled the controls. Doc had studied flying just as intensively as he had worked upon other things. He had many thousands of hours of flying time behind him, and it was evidenced in his uncanny skill with the controls.

"No sign of a radio working on Tom Too's boat," Long Torn reported.

The scrawny-looking electrical wizard had hoped to locate Tom Too by radio compass.

"That's too bad," he added. "If we could find him, we'd make short work of him."

Due to the darkness of the night, there was no hope of sighting the craft bearing the pirate chief to such of his followers as were camped on Shark Head Island.

"We're getting near the place!" Renny warned, after studying a group of course figures he had scribbled.

"Any chance the presence of a plane will make them suspicious?" Ham wanted to know.

"The Mantilla to Hong Kong air mail route is not far from here," Doc pointed out. "Probably they're accustomed to hearing planes."

Several minutes passed, the miles dropping behind, two to the minute.

"There we are!" Renny boomed.

SCORES of camp fires had appeared a mile beneath the plane. Distance made them seem small as sparks.

Monk was using binoculars. "That's the layout, all right. I can see some of them."

"Take the controls," Doc directed Renny.

Renny complied. He was an accomplished pilot, as were all of Doc's companions.

"All you fellows understand what you're to do," Doc told them. "Fly on several miles, mounting into the clouds, until you're sure the motor sound has receded from the hearing of those below. Then you are to cut the motors, swing back, and land secretly in the little bay on the north end of the island."

"We got it straight," said Renny. "The pirates are camped on the larger bay at the south end."

"You sure you want us to stay away from them?" Monk grumbled.

"Until you hear from me," Doc replied.

Doc already had a parachute strapped on. As casually as if he were stepping out of the lobby of the New York skyscraper which held his headquarters, he lunged out of the plane. Safely clear, he plucked the ripcord.

With a swish like great wings unfolding, the silken 'chute folds squirted out. The slight shock as it opened completely bothered Doc not at all.

Grasping the shrouds of the 'chute, he pulled them down on one side, skidding the lobe in the direction he wished to take.

Marine charts of the thousands of large and small islands which made up the Luzon Union group had held a detailed map of Shark Head Island. The bit of land was low, swampy, about a mile long and half as wide. Its name' came from the reef-studded bay at the lower end. This was shaped something like the snaggle-toothed head of a shark.

Doc landed on the rim of this bay, perhaps three hundred yards from the pirate camp.

The corsairs were making considerable noise. Tom-toms and wheezy wind instruments made a savage medley of sound. It was Chinese in character.

Doc got out of the 'chute harness and bundled it and the silk mushroom under an arm. Searching through the rank' jungle growth in the direction of the buccaneer camp, his golden eyes discerned figures gliding about with the jittery motion common to action of the Oriental stage. From time to time, these persons made elaborate cutting motions at each other with swords.

They were entertaining themselves with some sort of a play.

Doc moved out to the sandy portion of the beach. He scooped several gallons of sand into the 'chute and tied it there. Then he entered the water, carrying the parachute and its burden.

Doc's bronze skin was still dyed with the brown stain he had applied when masquerading as the Mantilla policeman. The stain would not wash off.

He swam out into the bay. Where the water was deep, he let the 'chute sink. It would never be found here.

His mighty form cleaved forward with a speed that left a swirling wake. Near the middle of the bay, he headed directly for the grouped camp fires. They were near the shore.

A hundred yards from them, Doc lifted his voice in a shout. His voice bad changed so as to be nearly unrecognizable. It was high, squeaky. It was the voice lie intended to use in his new character.

"Hey, you fella!" he shrilled. "Me velly much all in! Bling help alongside!"

He got instant attention. The play acting stopped. Yellow men dived for their arms.

Simulating a man near exhaustion, Doc floundered toward the beach.

A villainous horde bristling with weapons, the pirates surged down to meet him.

Doc hauled himself onto the sand. With fierce cries, a score of men pounced upon him. They brandished knives, a crooked-bladed kris or two, swords, pistols, rifles, even very modern submachine guns.

DOC'S iron nerve control was never more evident than at that instant. He lay like a man so tired as to be incapable of another movement, although it seemed certain death was upon him.

"Allee same bling you fella big news!" he whined in his piping voice. "Gimme dlink. Me one played-out fella."

They hauled Doc roughly to the fires. They surrounded him, row after row, those in front squatting so the men behind could see. There were Malays, Mongols, Japs, Chinese, white men, blacks — as conglomerate a racial collection as it would be possible to imagine. Turbaned Hindus mingled with them.

One thing they all had in common — lust and butchery, disease and filth, greed and treachery was stamped upon every countenance.

Doc's jaws were pried apart. He was fed a revolting concoction of kaoliang cooked with rice. It was a distinct effort to choke the stuff down. A spicy wine followed. Somebody went for more wine. Doc decided it was time to revive.

"Me stalt out in chug-chug boat," Doc explained. Strictly, this wasn't a lie. They had ridden out to the anchored seaplane in Mantilla in a motor boat.

"Him boat stop chug-chug. Me swim. Get this place by-by. Me plenty much play out."

"Do you speak Mandarin, oh friend who comes in the water?" asked a man in Mandarin.

"I do, oh mighty lord," Doc admitted in the same flamboyant lingo.

"How did you pass the tigers who watch at the mouth of the bay, our brothers who are upon guard?"

"I saw no tigers, illustrious one," said Doc. That was no lie. He hadn't seen the guards.

"The guardian tigers shall have their tails twisted!" roared the pirate. He whirled, snarling orders for some of his followers to hurry and relieve the guards.

"What brings you here?" the corsair asked Doc.

"It is said that man differs from sheep in that man knows when he is to be slaughtered," Doc said in long-winded fashion.

"You are one of Tom Too's sons?"

"I was. But no man wishes to be the son of a dog that would bite off its tail that it might walk upon its rear legs and be like a man."

The buccaneer was perplexed. "What is this talk of slaughtered sheep and dogs who wish to be men, oh puzzling one?"

DOC sat up. He did not lift his voice very much, for he was supposed to be a man suffering from exhaustion, a man who had come a long distance with important news. Nevertheless, his low and powerful tones carried far enough that several hundred slant-eyed and pasty-faced fiends heard his words.

"It is of Tom Too whom I speak, my brothers," he proclaimed. "The man who is your leader has told you that your share of his design upon the Luzon Union is to play the part of looters, that he may be the hero for subduing you.

"The real truth is that you will be shot down like wild ducks upon the hunting preserve of a rich merchant. Are you such fools as to believe many of you will not die? Tom Too will not hesitate to sacrifice you. He considers you rabble. You are the dog tail which he will cut off, and being rid of you, set himself up as a king.

"Are you without sense, that you think he will divide so rich a prize as you would the money box from a looted junk?"

"Such money as Tom Too draws from the Luzon Union must be taken slowly, as a tapeworm sucks nourishment from the stomach of a fat money changer. There will not be great sums at one time. Do you think he will make you rich men, my brothers? If you do, you are but ostriches with your heads in the sand!"

"You have heard this is what Tom Too intends to do?" asked the spokesman of the pirate men, speaking furiously. "Does he intend to slay us while he is making himself a hero?"

"Why do you think I came here?"

"Truly, that puzzles me."

"I do not wish to see hundreds of our brotherhood meet death," Doc replied gravely. "I have warned you."

Doc had been speaking with all the firmness he could put into his powerful voice. This had the desired results. The pirates were virtually convinced Tom Too intended to double-cross them. No doubt they had harbored such suspicions before, as evidenced by the dissention which was bringing Tom Too here to-night.

"Even now, Tom Too comes to speak honeyed words into your ears," Doc added loudly. "If you are but flies, you will flock to the sweetness of his speech. If you are men, you will mount Tom Too's head upon a tall pole in your camp, that the buzzards may look closely at one of their kind."

This was a bold speech. It would either sway the pirates from their leader, or cause them to turn upon Doc.

"We have indeed considered the head on the pole," smirked the leader of the murderous horde, "and the thought finds favor."

Doc knew his propaganda had done its work.

"Tom Too will arrive by boat," he declared. "Then is the time to act — the instant he arrives."

"Wise words, oh brother," was the reply.

Excitement was mounting in the corsair encampment. Doc had spoken throughout in Mandarin, the principal tongue in China, and the one which most of the men understood. But now such of them as did not understand Mandarin, were getting a secondhand version of Doc's speech.

Doc listened, cold lights of humor in his golden eyes. The talk was making Tom Too out as the blackest of villains — which he certainly was.

"WHEN, oh one who brought important news, will Tom Too arrive?" a slant-eyed devil asked.

"Near the hour when the sun smiles over the eastern horizon," was Doc's wordy reply.

It speedily developed that there would be no sleep in the

buccaneer encampment that night. From a score of matting tents and thatched huts came the steely rasp of swords and knives on whetstones.

The variety of weapons possessed by the cutthroats was astounding. Spears that were nothing but sharpened sticks were being prepared by having the points charred into hardness in the fires.

One yellow man with a face half removed by some sword slash in the past was carefully refurbishing a gun consisting of a bamboo tube mounted on a rough stock. This was charged with the crudest kind of black powder and a small fistful of round pebbles, and fired by applying a bit of glowing punk to a touchhole. It was such a gun as had been used by the Chinese thousands of years ago.

Contrasting greatly with these were a dozen or so late model Maxims which could spew five hundred bullets a minute.

As their rage increased, the pirates snarled at each other like mongrel dogs. One man struck down another with a sword at some slight. The corpse was ignored, as though it were so much discarded meat.

Even Doc was appalled at the bloody savagery of these outcasts of the Orient.

Seven speedy launches were made ready. Doc gathered these were the only fast craft in the pirate flotilla, the other vessels being junks and sampans and a few old schooners and weatherbeaten sloops.

The corsair fleet was anchored in the bay. Due to the darkness, Doc had not yet seen the vessels. They would probably be a sight to remember.

The hours dragged. Doc mingled with the horde of butcherers, adding a judicious word here and there.

If he could get these human scourges to wipe out their leader, the rest would be simple. Mindoro could assemble a force able to deal with them, even should a large proportion of the Luzon Union army and navy be under Tom Too's domination.

Doc wondered briefly about his five men. He had not heard their plane land. That was a good sign. The pirates had been making a good deal of noise, enough to cover the silent arrival of the plane at the tiny bay which the map showed at the other end of Shark Head Island.

Dawn came up like a red fever in the east. It flushed the clouds which still lowered overhead. It set the jungle birds fluttering and whistling and screaming.

The yell of a lookout pealed, couched in pidgin English.

"Tom Too! Him boat come!"