Читать книгу Meteor Menace: A Doc Savage Adventure - Lester Bernard Dent - Страница 5

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Saturday Loo never did quite comprehend what happened next. He remembered a weird trilling sound which he first heard at that instant, however. He remembered that to the last minute of his life.

It was uncanny, that sound. It defied description, except that it might have been the song of some fantastic jungle bird, or the sound of a wind filtering among the ice pinnacles of a polar waste. Most incredible of all, though, was the way the note seemed to come from everywhere, and yet nowhere.

More than one Aymaran Indian onlooker discussed what next occurred over his camp fire of yareta when he returned to his Andean retreat.

A few imaginative souls maintained that a great condor dropped from the sky and hit the earth with a terrific explosion, and that it magically became the figure of a giant man of bronze. But the Aymarans are a race addicted to concocting myths.

They were right about the coming of the mighty man of bronze, but he did not drop from the sky. He came from the crowd with a swiftness which almost defied the eye.

The weird trilling which had sounded was part of Doc Savage, a small, unconscious thing which he did in moments of stress. Sometimes the note came before a stroke of action, and often it meant that he was puzzled. Always it signified the presence of the giant man of bronze.

Doc Savage’s hands had tendons nearly as thick as an ordinary man’s fingers. One of these hands clamped upon Saturday Loo’s gun wrist.

Pain caused Saturday Loo to fire the revolver. Its ear-splitting roar was what led the Aymarans to think an explosion had materialized the bronze man from a condor.

Saturday Loo dropped the revolver and clawed out his Very signal pistol. But he did not fire it. He seemed to remember the horror which it would summon—the mysterious “blue meteor.” He let the signal gun fall, not wishing to bring the blue meteor while he was himself present.

Then Saturday Loo saw the bronze man’s eyes. He tried to recoil, for there was something about the orbs that made his hair want to stand on end. The eyes bore a resemblance to pools of flake gold being swirled by tiny, unending whirlwinds.

The other Tibetans leaped to the aid of their chief. One struck down, with a pistol barrel, the policeman whose life Doc had saved. The others sprang at Doc.

What occurred now was something else of which Aymaran Indians talked around Andean camp fires. They told of the fabulous giant of bronze who overpowered with his bare hands almost a dozen heavily armed men. They discussed how the great man of metal shifted here and there so swiftly that he could hardly be seen, striking great blows with his fists.

Saturday Loo was among the first to go down.

Pretty Rae Stanley managed to twist her arms out of the poorly tied ropes which held them. She landed an uppercut on a Tibetan’s jaw. Her punch was potent.

The man staggered, hands pawing foolishly at the air.

Another brown man swung his gun muzzle toward the young woman. There was not the slightest doubt but that he intended to shoot her.

Doc Savage’s weird golden eyes apparently kept track of everything. Even in the heated combat, he saw the Tibetan’s intention to kill the girl. The bronze man veered over, and his fist, drifting out with an eye-defying speed, seemed to caress the chin of the Tibetan. There was a distinctly audible crunch—and the man’s jaw slewed around almost under an ear. He dropped.

Doc grasped the girl’s arm and turned her away from the fight.

“Get clear!” he said, and shoved her into the crowd.

The bronze man’s voice was as amazing as his appearance, a tone of vitality and controlled power.

A cyclonic Nemesis, Doc descended upon such Tibetans as were still on their feet. Swarthy sons of the Himalayas dropped in succession until not one remained erect.

Doc, towering head and shoulders above the crowd, searched for the girl and located her mahogany-tressed head a hundred feet distant.

For the time being, she was safe.

Doc Savage now waded into the crowd. He presented a striking figure as he made a path for himself.

The crowd thickened ahead of Doc. An excited milling started.

Doc swung sharply to the left. He reached one of the posts which supported one of the loud-speakers of the public-address system. He climbed to the top of this.

Doc Savage had seen the other group of Tibetans seize his two men, Monk and Ham. He had been watching proceedings from an upper window of the partially finished hospital when this excitement started.

Doc had been sincere in his intention not to show himself at the hospital dedication, for it was true that the one thing he disliked was playing the public hero. He had sent Ham to make apologies. Doc had come, to remain in the background, because he wanted to be present when the hospital construction got its final impetus. That hospital would save the lives of many people in the course of its existence, and such projects were close to Doc’s heart.

Because the young woman’s captors had been handiest, Doc had employed his hand first against them.

Very little time had elapsed. Monk and Ham could hardly yet have been carried away. From the top of the loud-speaker support, Doc soon discovered them. The Tibetans were carrying Monk, Ham, and their own senseless comrades toward rows of parked cars.

The crowd was between Doc and the gang. To work through that pond of humanity would take time, even for Doc’s prodigious strength.

Conductors of the public-address system were telephone wire. Probably originally intended for use in the Andes, where storms are terrific and snowfall great, the wire was of a heavy gauge.

The metal strands would hold Doc’s weight. He glided outward over the throng.

Most tight-wire artists use long balancing poles. Only a few, highly expert, maintain equilibrium by manipulating their arms. Doc Savage, however, used his arms hardly at all, which showed remarkable skill.

The throng ceased its milling. In a few seconds, almost all eyes were upon the bronze giant who moved so easily upon the wires overhead.

Doc reached the edge of the crowd. The distance to the ground was a drop which most men would have balked at taking. Doc took it easily, enormous leg sinews absorbing the jar.

He ran for the parked cars, doubling low and traveling swiftly. He could hear the cursing of the captors of Monk and Ham. Doc understood their language. The Tibetans were hunting a car which was not locked.

Doc had a plan. He kept moving at tremendous speed, endeavoring to get ahead of his quarry. Car thieves operated in Antofagasta just as they did in Kansas City or Denver. The majority of these parked cars were probably locked. The Tibetans would have trouble finding a conveyance.

Doc angled to the left and, due to his great speed, got ahead of the gang. His eyes roved and soon found the type of car which he wanted—one with an extremely large trunk on the rear. It was an open phæton—most machines in these tropic lands were of the open variety.

Doc made a mental note of the license number. In case the car met destruction in the plan which was contemplated, he intended to reimburse the owner for its full value.

The bronze man went to the trunk. It was locked. He caught the fastener, tugged, and there was a snapping sound as it broke.

The trunk held dried llama hides, old ponchos, fishing tackle, and a tent. Doc lifted the stuff and dumped it in the handiest adjacent car. Then he ran around in front.

The phæton was secured with a lock which controlled not only the ignition, but the gear shift as well.

Doc went to work upon it with a semiflexible bit of steel hardly larger than a needle, which he took from a seam in his vest. Doc was a wizard with locks, as with countless other things.

Within a few moments, he had the motor running.

He whipped around to the rear of the car, inserted himself in the trunk, lowered the lid, and waited.