Doc Savage - 047 - Land Of Long Ju Ju, page 14
Carrier boys suddenly laid down their goat skins of water. Some slashed the skins with their knives and permitted the fluid to run out on the ground.
"Logo, what do you think they're doin'?" yelled Monk.
The loyal black Logo shook his head sadly.
"They have been told the life blood of King Udu is ebbing," he stated. "If King Udu dies, all of the army will turn back. They will take it as an omen of disaster."
Monk loped back and forth through the jungle. A dozen feathered chiefs sat down stubbornly, waiting. They shook their heads when Monk attempted to get the army moving again.
Monk at last was forced to appeal to Ham.
"Listen, shyster, you've been a general," said Monk. "An' what does a general do when his army sits down on him?"
Ham grinned ironically. He forgot even the pain of his scratched feet.
"A good general stays behind an' gives his army a kick in the pants," he advised with a long face. "I don't know what a general does when his army isn't wearin' any pants."
Abruptly there came a change in the note of the drums. The beat was more rapid. The strokes set millions of brilliant birds chattering and squawking in the trees.
"Ho-hee! Ho-hee!" shouted the nearest tribal chiefs.
They leaped to their feet, chanting. They swung their great oxhide shields over their arms. Their long spears waved commands to their own people.
"Ho-hee! Ho-hee! Ho-hee!"
The cry became a steady chant around the mountain. It passed through the hundreds of the army. Once more the primitive horde of King Udu swept toward the mountain pass where modern weapons might soon annihilate them as easily as if they were so many flies.
DOC SAVAGE sat beside old King Udu in the royal chamber--at the time the army moved again.
The access of strength which had brought King Udu before his advisors and his people was swiftly fading. It had been this new appearance immediately after Doc Savage's return that had started the drums beating the glad news; that had sent the primitive, barefooted army of tribesmen on toward the mountain pass.
The man of bronze had resorted to the most powerful stimulant. But King Udu was nearly one hundred years old. His great, fat body was already breaking up. Only the spirit that had hoped to save his people and his kingdom had kept King Udu living until this time.
When Doc emerged from the royal chamber, he held up his hand for silence. Selan's keen, black eyes glowed in his wrinkled face. The ancient medicine man was not to be greatly fooled.
Doc realized Selan and the other advisors would quickly turn to a rule of the Long Juju, where their supposed witchcraft would give them power. The man of bronze was worried over the captivity of Renny and Pat Savage, of Count Cardoti and Señorita Moncarid.
Upon the wrong move now would hang their lives.
The weird, fantastic army led by Monk and Ham and Logo, must remain at the mountain pass. Moreover, its primitive weapons must be made to prevail against the most efficient death-dealing machinery.
"The time has come to have the advice of great wisdom," said Doc solemnly. "Selan, it is with your eyes we must see the army which lies beyond the mountain. Their birds of death have been destroyed. You will come with me in the Wing that flies."
Selan, the man of great medicine, was susceptible to flattery. No doubt he realized the greatness of Doc Savage. Yet in his conceit, he forgot that his own belief in himself might be used against him.
"I will gladly accompany the great one, Doc Savage," bowed Selan, as if conferring a real favor. "I would have the experience of flying in the Wing."
Doc was using a radio transmitter. He contacted the short wave in the Wing. Johnny replied.
"Bring the Wing at once to the village of King Udu," directed Doc. "The wise one, Selan, who has great medicine, will observe with us the army of the invading devils."
Doc Savage knew this ruse must succeed. For on his royal couch of skins, King Udu was more than sleeping.
The king of Kokoland was dead. The army, his people must not know.
Chapter XVI. THE BURNING "WING"
MONK was informed of Doc Savage's summoning of the Wing to King Udu's village. Tropical darkness had struck across Mount Kibo. Scouts of the invading adventurers no doubt had reported the motley, barefooted army--a veritable primitive horde.
Commanding officers of the foot soldiers, the tanks and the light artillery, were preparing to move. Dazed, recovering airmen of the sky division were disbelieved.
It was difficult for officers of this great legion to accept such a story. That a disreputable old Spad of the World War period, flown by a lone lunatic, had wiped out a pursuit and bombing squadron.
Officers and fliers of the squadron found themselves disgraced. Orders were rapped out. Communication had been established with allied cohorts in the jungles. The Masai and Swahili, commanded by The Shimba, were ready to join in a quick invasion.
It was fantastic that the aërial squadron could not be sent ahead to bomb King Udu's kingdom and pave the way for the army.
But the army must move.
At this time, it might have been expected that King Udu's skin-clad, barefooted army would be mustering the few modern guns it had. Yet, except for the odd-looking superfiring pistols possessed by Monk and Ham, and one in the hands of Logo, no modern weapons were being prepared.
Any smart war correspondent would have been convinced Doc's companions were crazy. Judged by appearances, Monk and Ham would have been candidates for an asylum.
Monk's furry, red-haired body was crudely daubed with red and white ochre. Red-dyed ostrich plumes waving over his low forehead, gave him the appearance of some gorilla looking through a bush.
"If I can only live to remember what you looked like when they made you a general," grinned Ham. "We don't need any guns, ape. All you've gotta do is show yourself to the attacking army."
Monk, for once, was amiable. Ham himself was also striped with red and white ochre. One long ostrich feather drooped over his thin nose.
"If I can take your picture back to Park Avenue, that's all I ask," said Monk. "Especially when you were kickin' them boys around at the last waterhole."
"Confound your baboon brain, you didn't take any pictures, did you?" rapped Ham.
"It'll be a sensation, all right," grunted Monk.
HUNDREDS of tribesmen were lurking in the crevices and gullies of the Mount Kibo pass. Warriors shivered in fireless caverns in the volcanic walls of the mountain gorge. The song of the stonechat birds and the crickety chattering of mountain rats did not warm their nearly naked bodies.
With great reluctance, the chiefs had given orders to lay aside their spears, their bows and arrows. They would have preferred putting on a few war dances with blazing wood. Thus, they would have laid themselves open to massacre before the modern guns of the army they were soon to face.
And in preparation for this modern army, Monk, Ham, Logo and some of the more intelligent chiefs were working fiercely. Their occupation was too fantastic for belief.
Against war tanks, machine guns and repeating rifles, perhaps bombs of poison gas, the natives were loading thousands of the blowpipes. Other weapons had been laid aside.
Monk, Ham and Logo were preparing the small darts. As fast as loaded, the blowpipes were passed along both sides of the mountain gorge. It now seemed as if Doc Savage, in this extremity, had abandoned all thought of sparing lives.
For the blowpipes, of all weapons, were the most deadly at short range. The poison used by the natives on the barbs instantly paralyzed the hearts of those who were struck.
In the midst of the occupation, a tribal runner came breathlessly into the cavern where Monk and Ham were directing the defense.
"The foreign devils are moving," he announced, falling on his face. "The elephants without heads trumpet before them."
"He means the war tanks," stated Logo. "Have all the chiefs been placed?"
The report was interrupted by a sudden hissing. What appeared to be a great, triangular system of neon lights arose over the pass. Tribesmen fell on their faces. This was the first view they had been given of Doc Savage's flying Wing.
Monk and Ham had been informed by radio of part of what had taken place in King Udu's village. But the man of bronze had not trusted the truth to the air. He feared the news of King Udu's death might be picked up by The Shimba with Renny's radio box.
"Now what do you suppose Doc is trying to do?" squealed Monk.
"I would say he is anticipating the initial maneuvers of our enemies," drawled a slow voice at the mouth of the cavern. "Doc is merely ascending to observe."
Johnny had come up the side of the pass.
"I wonder why he has all the lights going?" said Ham. "Looks like he's inviting trouble."
"I have been informed that is the purpose of this peculiar demonstration," advised Johnny. "The invaders still have a pursuit plane which might be employed to carry bombs."
"Say, but won't that bring the army hotfooting into the pass?" asked Ham.
"Perhaps," said Johnny. "But Doc also is taking that wrinkled old buzzard of a medicine man, Selan, for a little ride."
"Selan is with him?" exclaimed Logo quickly, his eyes piercing Johnny's with the question. "Then there must be a purpose?"
"Doubtless there is," advised Johnny, "but I have not been informed of all of it."
THE Wing swung into the mists higher up. Its ascent suddenly was checked. Monk, Ham and the others heard the whooming of an airplane motor.
"That's the one pursuit plane Doc didn't put out of business this morning," stated Johnny. "I think that was a mistake."
The low hissing of the Wing was altogether lost in the increasing thunder of the pursuit ship. Doubtless it was manned by the same fliers who had been so successfully tricked by the obsolete Spad. If so, they were out to get revenge.
"There won't be anything to that scrap," said Monk confidently. "I'd like to see what happens when those fellows hit the projector rays. Doc'll stop them like nobody's business. They're going high."
The two aircraft were seeking altitude. Apparently Doc was doing some experimenting in the climbing ability of the pursuit ship.
"Maybe he's just taking them for a ride along with that old monkey, Selan," observed Ham. "Too bad it couldn't be a real fight, so the medicine man could rattle the spare teeth he's wearing."
The Wing and the plane again swung downward over the mountain pass. The tube lights of the Wing marked its passage in the mist. The beating of the pursuit plane's prop indicated it was close to the other craft.
Red fire blossomed like two pinwheels. This was accompanied by the chattering of machine guns.
"Might as well save their ammo," commented Ham. "I wonder if Doc will feed their motor some of the cold gas?"
The question was given an unexpected answer. Certainly it was not cold gas that suddenly expanded with the glare of a bursting sun over Mount Kibo and the pass.
All of the stark outlines of the volcanic mountain leaped into view. It was like the sun had suddenly been turned into the middle of the tropical night.
"Well, I'll be superamalgamated!" rapped Johnny. "The plane has smacked into the Wing! Our gas was not combustible! Now what's happened? Doc hasn't a chance!"
Monk and Ham gasped. They were too paralyzed to speak.
The Wing seemed to have fallen into thousands of small pieces. In the great flare of light, the pursuit plane of the legion was whisked upward as if driven by a hurricane wind. All of the air seemed to be sucked from the pass by the great explosion.
Among the echoes came the rattle and clatter of metal clanking on rocks. Some of the scared tribesmen called out. They were dashing away from a sloping side of the great gorge.
Parts of the Wing were falling like a rain of death.
"Doc! Doc!" yelled Monk. "He didn't have time to jump!"
"He must have seen what was coming," insisted Ham. "He would not be caught in that kind of a trap. We'll find him somewhere close by. I'll bet he'd save old Selan, too."
AWE-STRICKEN natives avoided the spot where the flying Wing had been scattered. The metallic parts covered a space of several hundred yards. Monk led the scramble to the spot.
"Hey, Doc!" yelled the big chemist. "You all right?"
There was no answer. For a long distance, all of the rocks were bare. Johnny had caught up an infra-red beam projector. He clapped goggles like milk cans over his eyes. Monk and Ham jammed on their own infra-red observers.
"I would not make too much noise," advised the smart Logo suddenly. "We should not permit the tribesmen to discover what may have happened."
"Dag-gonit! Dag-gonit!" squawked Monk. "Nothin' could have happened to Doc!"
Johnny was not so sure. They had swept all of the possible space where a parachute might have descended.
"The down draft of night wind from the mountain would have carried a 'chute right into the pass," stated Johnny. "I fear we can arrive at only one conclusion."
Though they scoured the base of the mountain wall, no trace of the bronze man was found.
But near one of the caverns, Logo cried out.
"Selan! It's the medicine man!"
The wrinkled old medicine man was crouched in a niche of the wall.
"Where is his parachute?" demanded Ham. "What happened to Doc? Ask him, Logo. I don't get his crazy lingo."
Logo questioned old Selan. The medicine man shook his wrinkled jaws and mumbled.
"Selan says he was placed here to wait by Doc Savage," interpreted Logo. "He would not permit him to ascend to meet the enemy."
It was the steady, well balanced Johnny who assumed command. He led the sad group back to the cavern. From the distance came the rumbling of moving war tanks.
Chapter XVII. KING UDU'S RESURRECTION
KING UDU was dead. Selan, the ancient chief of medicine men, was absent. Thus the news was withheld for some time. But in the night, came a wailing chant from the king's palace.
The six remaining advisors were forced to come before the people. Before they did this, they saw that King Udu's body was prepared to lie in tribal state on the royal couch.
Chanters sat on the earthen floor. They rocked their bony bodies.
"Ai-ee! Ai-ee! Ai-ee!"
The strident wail reached the old men in the huts. It was carried on in the long hut of the women. Children awakened to join the tribal lament.
Tunk-tunk-tunk-tunk!
Once more the skin drums conveyed their message. Because of the explosion of Doc Savage's Wing, and the roaring of oncoming army tanks of the invaders, the telegraph tom-toms of the hills were slow in transmitting their message.
Monk showed unexpected genius. He was among the first to hear the slow dirge of the drums. This was because the apelike chemist still was searching the slopes where the man of bronze might have fallen.
"Dag-gonit! It couldn't have happened to Doc!"
Monk's ugly face worked with grief. He examined parts of the fallen Wing. The explosion had been terrific. Yet Monk knew the gas of the Wing itself was noncombustible. Some twisted metal containers had not been destroyed. Monk examined these.
A queer understanding light appeared in Monk's small eyes.
"I'll bet that's the answer," said the chemist. "That would have blown the old mountain itself to bits."
Not for nothing was Monk a great industrial chemist. He had discovered Doc had been carrying high explosive bombs.
Now he heard the death message of the drums. He had learned to read the tunk-tunking of the hollowed logs.
"So, that's what Doc was trying to cover up," muttered Monk. "He knew King Udu was dead, so he took the old medicine man away before he could start trouble."
MONK loped with ungainly strides back to the cavern. If the tribal chiefs scattered about the mountain pass got the message of the drums, it would send their warriors pell-mell in retreat.
Monk came leaping into the big cavern where Ham, Johnny, Logo, old Selan and a dozen of the tribal chiefs were gathered. He could tell they had not yet heard the message of the drums.
"Well, I'll be superamalgamated!" gasped Johnny. "He has been seized with anthropoidal psychosis!"
Ham looked at Monk with worried eyes. Logo showed that he thought Monk had gone crazy.
"Ho-hee! Ho-hee! Ho-hee!" yelled Monk.
His childlike voice was a shrill scream. Jumping across the cavern, Monk seized the sticks of one of the greater drums. This was an immense, hollowed senecio trunk with dried Kudu skin over its end.
