The Pirate of the Pacific

Chapter 18 PAYMENT IN SUICIDE

DOC SAVAGE circled the spot where the weazened man had died. He sought the trail left by the one who had placed the bomb. His golden eyes missed nothing, for they had been trained through the years to pick out details such as went unnoticed to an ordinary observer.

A vine which hung unnaturally, a bush which had been carefully bent aside and then replaced, but which had a single leaf wrong side up — these vague signs showed Doc the course taken by the bomb depositor. The fellow had come and gone by the same route.

The trail turned out to be a blank. It terminated at the beach, where a boat had landed the man and taken him away.

Taking to the trees for greater speed, Doc hurried to the bay at the north end of the island. The plane was there, anchored a few yards offshore.

There was no sign of life about, except the jungle birds which twittered and screamed and fluttered the foliage.

Doc stood by a sluggish stream which emptied into the bay a few yards from the plane. He decided to try something.

Moving a little more than a rod down the shore, he suddenly sped into the open, crossed the narrow beach and shot like an arrow into the bay. He had appeared with blinding suddenness, and was in the water almost before an eye could bat.

Hence it was that a watching machine gunner got into action too late. A stream of bullets turned the water into a leaping suds where Doc had disappeared.

The gobble of the rapid firer galloped over the bay surface like satanic mirth. Then the noise stopped.

The gunner ran into the open, the better to see his quarry upon appearance. The man was stocky, broad, with a head like a ball of yellow cheese. He stood, gun ready perhaps a hundred yards from where Doc had entered the water.

Minute after minute, he waited. An evil grin began to wrinkle his moon of a face. He had killed the bronze devil!

He did not see the foliage part silently behind him. Nor did he hear the mighty form of a man who glided up to his back.

Awful agony suddenly paralyzed the fellow's arms. He dropped his machine gun. He groveled, struggled, kicked. He was flung to the sand. There he continued his fighting. But he might as well have tried to get out from under the Empire State Building.

He could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the giant who held him was the man he thought he had murdered.

Doc had simply swum under water into the sluggish creek, crawled out and crept silently through the rank undergrowth to the attack.

WITHOUT voicing a word, Doc continued to hold his Victim helpless for the space of some minutes. Doc knew the psychology of fear. The longer the would-be murderer felt the terrible clutch of those metallic hands, the more terrified he would become. And the more frightened he was, the sooner he would tell Doc some things he wanted to know.

"Where is Tom Too?" Doc demanded. He spoke in his normal voice, couching the words in English.

"Me not know!" whined the captive in pidgin.

Doc carried the man into the jungle, found a small clearing, slammed the fellow on his back. The prisoner tried to scream, thinking he was to be slain.

But Doc merely stared steadily into the man's eyes. The gunner began to squirm. Doc's golden eyes had a weird quality; they seemed to burn into the soul of the captive, to reduce his brain to a beaten and helpless thing.

The man tried to shut his eyes to shut out the terrible power of those golden orbs. Doc held the man's eyelids apart.

Hypnotism was another art Doc had studied extensively. He had drained the resources of America on the subject, had studied under a surgeon in Paris who was so accomplished a hypnotist that he used it instead of an anaesthetic when he operated upon patients. A sojourn in mystic India had been added to Doc's perusal of the art. And he had conducted extensive experiments of his own. His knowledge was wide.

The gunner was not long succumbing. He went into sort of a living sleep.

"Where is Tom Too?" Doc repeated his earlier query.

"Me not know."

"Why don't you?"

"Me left at this place, watch canvas sky wagon. Tom Too no tell place him go."

Doc knew the man was telling the truth. The hypnotic spell was seeing to that.

"What about the five white men who were in the plane?" he demanded.

The reply was three words that froze Doc's great body.

"Him all dead."

FOR a long minute and a half, Doc neither moved, spoke, or breathed. The prisoner was not lying, not pulling a trick. The news was a ghastly shock.

"How did it happen?" Doc asked, and his voice was a low moan of a whisper that the gunner hardly heard.

"Tom Too, him use poison gas. Five white men, him sit on canvas sky wagon. Gas come. Five white men fall off, sinkee like log."

"Did you see this happen?"

"Too dalk see. Me hear. Men scleam, make big splash."

Doc was done. He dropped a hand into a pocket, brought it out with the needle-containing metal thimbles affixed to the finger tips. He touched the gunner. The fellow promptly slept.

Doc strode into the water and swam toward the plane. A few yards from it, he suddenly put on a terrific burst of speed. His corded arm shot up, grasped a wing strut. He swung aboard not an instant too soon — a great, slate-colored monster reached unsuccessfully for him, tooth-armored jaws gaping.

A shark! Other triangular fins cut the near-by surface.

Doc showed no perturbation over his narrow escape. But he felt slightly sick. No need to hunt for the bodies of his friends on the bottom of the bay, not with these hideous sea scavengers around.

Doc examined the fuel tanks of the plane, found them half full. He gave brief attention to the feed lines, up near the tanks.

The contents of the plane had not been disturbed. Doc got certain articles which he intended to use. They made a bundle a foot through, nearly four feet long.

He reached shore by the simple expedient of lifting the anchor and letting the breeze drift the amphibian to the beach.

Departing from the spot, he noted several birds lying dead in the jungle. The feathered bodies bore no marks. The gas released by Tom Too had undoubtedly killed them.

Doc did not attempt to search the island. It would have taken many hours to do a thorough job.

He headed for the pirate camp. He made speed, but he was careful of the bundle he carried.

The murderous horde were proceeding with their celebration over the death of Tom Too. They did not yet know he was not dead. The festivities consisted exclusively of drinking, gorging with food, smoking opium, to say nothing of frequent fights arising over disputes about whose bullet had actually slain Tom Too.

Doc singled out a husky half-caste who showed in the way he hogged wine and food that he was of a greedy nature. Several times, this fellow filched a jar of the celebration wine and carried it to his matting tent.

Doc was there to meet him when he arrived with one of the jars. In the seclusion of the tent, a lengthy conversation occurred. Once, when the half-caste learned some surprising news, it seemed certain a fight was imminent.

But a large roll of Luzon Union currency changed hands. After that, the half-caste became all smiles and nods of agreement.

The fellow belted on a big sword and went out to join the celebrants.

For upward of an hour, Doc worked furiously in the matting tent.

Stepping outside, he got a barrel of the gasoline used in the launches riches. This he placed, the bunghole open, near the matting tent.

His powerful voice pealed across the pirate camp.

"I would speak with all you fella!" he said in beach jargon. "All same come alongside plenty quick!"

Yellow men swarmed over, curious to hear what this giant had to say. They were puzzled about something else, too — the big man's voice had changed. It was no longer shrill, piping, but thunderous with latent power.

DOC surveyed the assemblage, standing just in front of the matting tent.

"I have made fools out of you!" he boomed in ordinary English, which most of the corsairs could probably understand. "I came here deliberately to persuade you to turn upon Tom Too!"

He went on, telling exactly what had happened. He informed them Tom Too was still alive. He flung out the note he had received, letting them read it, such as could read.

He carefully neglected any reference to his jaunt to the bay at the north end of the island, or his grisly discoveries there.

"Tom Too is holding my five friends!" he continued. "If I kill myself, he will release them. Therefore, I shall pay that price, so my friends may go free."

A remarkable change had swept the pirate horde. They glowered at Doc, muttering, fingering knives. The fact that the big man had stated he was going to kill himself to save his friends, made no good impression upon them. They were a callous lot.

"I shall now shoot myself!" Doc shouted. "You will all see my act. You can tell Tom Too."

The situation struck some of the corsairs as ridiculous, as indeed it was. The giant who had deceived them was crazy. Did he think Tom Too would release his five friends, once he was dead? Tom Too never kept his word, unless it was to his interest to do so.

Suddenly a husky half-caste sprang forward, waving his sword. It was the same fellow with whom Doc had conversed at length. The man's pants pockets bulged with Doc's money.

"Snake-dog!" he shrieked. "You stand in flont of my tent and befoul it! Fol that, I kill youl"

He rushed forward angrily.

Doc turned and dived into the tent, as though in flight. He seemed to stumble just inside the door, and fall fiat.

Fully fifty pirates saw the half-caste's sword strike. The swordsman withdrew a blade that dripped red, and stepped to the tent door.

"My tent is luined!" he howled. "It shall be destloyed with flame!"

Whereupon, he kicked over the gasoline barrel. Fuel sloshed out. The half-caste struck a match and tossed it into the petrol. Flame instantly enveloped the tent.

The half-caste continued to dance around, as though in a great rage.

A close observer might have noticed three Mongols in the pirate crowd who swiftly planted themselves where they could watch all sides of the burning tent.

The flaming matting popped and cracked. Vile yellow smoke poured upward, mingling densely in the boughs of trees which overhung the spot.

The three watching Mongols squatted low, so there would be no chance of any one running away from the blazing tent without being discovered in the act.

The fire raged fully thirty minutes. The tent had been erected upon a foundation of hardwood poles, and these gave off much heat.

LONG before the fire had burned out, the yellow cutthroats gathered in noisy groups to discuss the fact that Tom Too was still alive, and to ponder on what punishment would be theirs for turning against their master.

The three Mongols, however, took no part in this. They never removed the stares of their slant eyes from the conflagration.

When the remains of the tent had become glowing coals, the trio approached. With long poles, they knocked the embers apart.

They showed satisfaction at the sight of gray-white ash which was unmistakably burned bones. One of them raked out a partially consumed piece of bone and pocketed it.

To make certain, they dug into the earth upon which the tent had stood. There was no tunnel.

Throwing down the sticks, the three strode rapidly away. They did not take particular pains not to be seen. But they made sure none of the other pirates followed them.

The beach sand crunched softly under their bare feet. Birds twittered in the jungle. The clouds had cleared away overhead, and the sun was slamming down a hot glare.

"I did not think the bronze man would actually kill himself, oh brothers," said one Mongol thoughtfully, speaking his native tongue. "But there is no doubt but that he did."

"He did not kill himself," another pointed out. "He was speared by the half-caste."

"And very well speared, too," chuckled the third. "And I have in my pocket a burned piece of the bronze man's bones. Tom Too should think highly of that souvenir."

"No doubt he will! Verily, this bronze devil has not been one thorn in our sides — he has been a whole thicket of them."

The three Mongols stepped into a small sampan, shoved off and paddled to the largest of the anchored junks.

The interior of this craft proved to be fitted in lavish fashion, with many tapestries, paintings done on silk and featuring dragons, rugs, and elaborately inlaid furniture.

Near the high stern, they entered a room which contained a modern-looking radio installation. One man threw the switch which started the motor generators, then seated himself at the key.

The other two Mongols stood beside him. Apparently they thought nothing of the incongruity of their surroundings, the commingling of the splendor of ancient China and the shiny copper wires, glistening tubes, and black insulation paneling of the radio transmitter.

The Mongol Operator prepared to send.

There was a flash, a loud fizzing of blue flame from the upright instrument board.

The operator leaped up and made an examination. He found a short length of wire. This had short-circuited two important double-pole switches. The man cursed in the Mongol dialect.

"The apparatus is ruined!" he snarled. "It is strange the wire should fall upon the switches! Where did it come from?"

"Where from, indeed?" muttered another. "It is not electrical wire. It looks like a part of a small iron wire cable."

They discussed the mystery profanely for some minutes. "We cannot send our news to Tom Too by radio," one complained. "We must now go to him in person."

They quitted the pirate junk.