Doc Savage - 017 - The Thousand Headed Man, page 19
Once inside the structure, they found the architecture differed greatly from the pagodas which they had found in the jungle. There was much woodwork here, tough and tawny jati wood for the most part. The woodwork was elaborately carved, covered with plates of rare, beaten metals and encrusted with exquisite brilliants.
No large rooms were inside the pagoda, the edifice being rather a labyrinth of cubicles, passages and tiny chambers. These were irregularly shaped, and Doc abruptly realized they were intended to represent the cavities inside the human head.
"Scatter and hunt weapons!" he directed.
OBEYING THE bronze man's order, the gaunt Johnny scrambled up into a slit of a passage which was possibly some prehistoric architect's idea of a sinus channel. The geologist reached the level of the head-shaped pagoda's eyes, peered out, and saw that the paved area on all sides of their retreat now swarmed with basket-carrying foes.
"Thousands of them!" Johnny breathed, and shivered.
He was suddenly appalled by their predicament, it having come to him that their chances of escaping were small. They had no really effective weapons. True, there were the stones which they could throw, but with the coming of darkness, now imminent, they could never hope to keep all of the cobras at the distance of fifty feet or so which safety demanded.
Monk clambered up and joined Johnny.
"Monk, you're a chemist," the geologist said uneasily, "What're our chances of rigging up gas masks effective against this venomous vapor?"
"Slim," said Monk. "I just asked Doc about it. He thinks the blasted stuff takes effect when it touches the skin, as well as when it's breathed. We'd have to cover ourselves all over to be safe."
Johnny considered this. The fact that he was not speaking with his usual big words indicated how worried he was.
"Maybe those brown devils wear the head-covered costumes partially as a protection against the venom," he stated thoughtfully.
"Likely," Monk admitted.
From below came crashing of wood, rending of timbers, and a clatter as the wood was piled together.
"Doc is ripping out some of the woodwork to build a barricade," Monk explained. "It may not help much, but it's giving the others something to do that'll keep their minds off the jam we're in."
The two men peered out through the eye-opening and were in time to witness an interesting event, one which had a bearing on past events.
"Look!" Monk exploded.
A brown man in a head-studded costume was dashing forward. Instead of a basket, he carried an ordinary bow and arrows, together with a bit of burning wood. He fitted an arrow to his bow, touched his brand to the tip, and the arrow began to blaze brilliantly.
He discharged the missive at the pagoda, endeavoring to set fire to the barricade Doc and the others were rigging.
"Arrow smeared with pitch or somethin'!" Monk gulped.
"I'll be superamalgamated!" breathed Johnny.
Monk eyed him in the murk, "What's eatin you?"
"Remember that mysterious flame that dropped out of the sky and set our plane afire?"
"Do I!" Monk snorted. "Say, that was the strangest--Hm-m-m! Blazes! Why, I'll be a--it was a burning arrow!"
"Exactly!" Johnny declared. "We turned just in time to see the arrow in the air, or rather the flame alone, for it hid the rest of the arrow. That was what made it so weird."
"But the plane was metal!"
"One of the brown devils must have sneaked out and opened the gas tanks without our noticing. That would explain it."
MONK AND JOHNNY worked on up into the cranial cavities of the Pagoda of the Heads, hoping to locate weapons. They squinted, for it was quite gloomily.
A larger room deployed before them. They stood on the threshold, peering about.
"Hey!" Monk squawled. "Lookit!"
Scattered about the chamber were weapons--not native arms, but modern hunting rifles and efficient pistols. No two of these were alike, this indicating the guns had been the property of ill-fated explorers who had ventured too near this fabulous city. The tiny supermachine pistols formerly carried by Doc's group were among the assortment.
Strewn on the floor also were articles of clothing, bits of equipment.
"Glory be!" grinned Monk. "This is where they stored the stuff they took from their prisoners. What a break!"
"Supereminent!" Johnny's tongue found big words with the rise in his spirits. "This alters circumstances."
He started forward to gather up weapons. Monk moved suddenly, his hairy hands flashed out, wrenched Johnny back and down.
Simultaneously, the sound of a shot whooped in the room. Rock particles spurted off a wall. A bullet, missing Johnny only by grace of Monk's yanking him away, had loosened the stone.
"Back!" Monk rasped.
Another shot roared! That bullet also missed. In the murk of the storeroom, they sighted a shadowy figure leaping swiftly to get in position for more accurate shooting.
"Sen Gat!" groaned Johnny.
"Yeah!" Monk continued hauling the geologist away. "The slant-eyed lug found them guns ahead of us! Heard us comin' an' ducked back."
"How are we going--" Johnny swallowed his words and dived wildly for the nearest stairway, as Sen Gat popped out of the storeroom and endeavored to shoot them down.
Sen Gat had secured one of the supermachine pistols; its bull-fiddle moan throbbed with ear-rupturing violence, the bullets--they were the mercy slugs--spattering like raindrops.
Monk and Johnny scuttled further down. An instant later, Doc Savage was beside them.
"What happened?" demanded the giant bronze man.
"Sen Gat--guns!" Monk ground his teeth. "The weapons were stored up there--and our pal found 'em first."
"Sen Gat's gang!" Doc rapped. "We've got to keep them from joining their chief!"
With all the flashing speed of which his bulging trained muscles were capable, Doc whipped back into the lower regions. In the stress of their predicament, he had let Sen Gat's men range for themselves, since they all had a common interest in escaping from the big brown men.
Doc was too late. Sen Gat must have gotten word to his followers before Monk and Johnny came upon him in the storeroom, for the slant-eyed men, even apish Evall, had mounted to the upper regions by a rear passage.
DELIGHTED SHOUTING indicated Sen Gat had his sinister crew united; a burst of firing showed that he had them armed. They were shootings--not at Doc's party, but from the upper windows at the brown followers of The Thousand-headed Man.
Many of these fell, the others retreating, so that soon the plaza around the pagoda was vacated, except for sprawled forms of the slain, and a few cobras.
"Savage!" Sen Gat called triumphantly. "Do you hear me?"
"Yes," Doc answered.
"Sila-lah dudok!" Sen Gat laughed loudly "Sit down, please! We are going to be very generous and not harm you! You will wait quietly!"
"The mug!" Monk gritted. "He's gonna leave us here!"
Sen Gat evidently heard that, for his harsh mirth cackled again and he said, "If one of you shows his head, he will be shot!"
"He means it," Doc advised. "Stay under cover."
Big-fisted Renny rumbled, "But he'll get away!"
Doc nodded. "We're better off without him."
"But we'd be still better off if we had the guns," groaned Long Tom.
There was, however, nothing they could do about that, for Sen Gat posted men at the stairway. Doc, showing his head for a split-second, drew a storm of bullets which, thanks to his sudden withdrawal, did nothing but warn them that an attack would be hopeless.
Noises soon began coming from above--clatterings and shouts, besprinkled with gloating gasps of elated exclamations. Bits of wreckage spilled from the top of the pagoda, rock fragments and pieces of wood for the most part; but once a large ruby fell and rolled down the steps, clinking, glinting in the last rays of the sun.
Several of Sen Gat's men swore regretfully at this occurrence.
"They're looting," Doc decided.
"Uh-huh," Monk grumbled. "Harvesting the gold and jewels off the top of the pagoda."
"Wonder where that stuff came from--the jewels, I mean," pondered big-fisted Renny.
Johnny fingered, with skeleton-thin digits, at the lapel of his coat where his monocle-magnifier usually hung. This article had been appropriated by The Thousand-headed Man worshippers.
"I made note of the gem mountings," he stated. "From the weathered condition of those, and the cut of the jewels themselves, it is my opinion that the stones have been there for centuries."
"You mean they were put there by the people who built this city?" Renny asked.
"That is my opinion."
Doc Savage took no part in the discussion, for he was watching through the narrow doorways, there being several of these around the circumference of the pagoda. What interested the bronze man was the actions of the ugly natives with the rattan snake baskets.
There were now hordes of fanatics in evidence, barely distinguishable in the dusk, but none of them ventured within range of the guns held by Sen Gat and his party. Mad shouting showed that the desecration of the pagoda was being witnessed--though not with pleasure.
Abruptly, Sen Gat's men could be heard descending the stairs toward a rear door.
Doc and his group promptly seized stones and hurled them but without avail, for Sen Gat's guns kept them from showing themselves.
They were forced to stand and watch Sen Gat and his party race across the plaza, weapons in hand, each man bearing a great bundle of loot. They headed for the river.
Monk scowled uneasily as the last figure vanished in the dusk.
"Now we are in a pickle," he mumbled.
Chapter 25 BLACK SHIRT
SEN GAT and his crew were not to walk out of the city of The Thousand-headed Man without trouble.
A vast tumult arose from all around the pagoda, a shouting and beating of drums. Big, brown figures in grotesque costumes scampered madly, converging on the fleeing party in such numbers that they resembled cinnamon-colored torrents flowing along the narrow streets.
Pistols and rifles rapped; superfirers emitted hooting roars. Sen Gat's voice piped shrill orders, and his men shouted, screams of victims mingling with their cries. And over it all pulsed the drums, the guttural chanting and howling of the brown fanatics.
But the manner in which the bedlam receded from the pagoda indicated that Sen Gat's party was making headway in the direction of the river, which swirled past one wall of the metropolis.
"Wonder if we stand a chance of beating it now?" Renny pondered.
Testing that possibility--Doc Savage stepped outside. His appearance was the signal which brought a swarm of threatening brown figures out into the plaza. These did not venture close, possibly fearing that those still in the pagoda had guns; but they were present in such numbers, all with rattan baskets, that escape was obviously impossible.
A search of the upstairs rooms, moreover, disclosed that Sen Gat's group had taken all arms, together with the finest jewels and the thickest plate from the top of the pagoda.
Calvin Copeland, his wife, and Lucile stood close together. They had not separated themselves from each other since their reunion--as if haunted by the fear that they might be lost to one another again. Even the peril of the situation had not wiped from their features the joy that had come upon their release from the dungeons.
Doc went to them. "Copeland," he said.
"Yes?"
"There's one thing we didn't clear up entirely--the matter of the black sticks."
The explorer nodded. "If we had them, we might get out of this."
"I gave them to Monk," Doc explained. "When he was captured, the sticks must have been taken from him. What were they?"
"The antidote which the brown men use to make themselves immune to the effects of the cobra venom," Copeland stated.
"You discovered its nature?"
Again Copeland nodded. "Yes, on my first visit to this region. You see, when my pilot and mechanic were seized, there was a fight. I caught one of the brown men, and he was carrying a bag filled with herbs and certain jungle berries. I got that before I was forced to flee for my life."
"And you carried it to England with you," Doc hazarded.
"Righto. At the bottom of the bag there was also a little ball of black substance. I naturally believed that to be the antidote. In England, I experimented with the herbs and berries until I had made a similar compound. Out of that, I moulded the black sticks."
Doc considered. "It still seems strange that you told no one of the antidote, or serum, which it more properly is. You did not even tell of the existence of the jeweled pagoda or the lost city."
Copeland looked very uncomfortable. "You have been told that I was ill and at times slightly--er, irrational, when I reached England. That was from the effects of the venom, coupled with a fever I caught while making my way back through the jungle."
"Lucile informed me of your condition," Doc admitted.
Copeland shrugged. "That is the explanation. They would have thought me insane. The story was too fantastic."
"That was not the best of timing," Doc said slowly.
"I realize it now," agreed the explorer. "Maybe I was a bit off mentally, or I would not have kept the whole thing a secret. Too, I believe thinking about all those jewels affected me. I was madly afraid some one would beat me to them. I feared some one would steal the black sticks from me."
Monk ambled over. His shirt was still tightly buttoned. "Did I hear somethin' about them black sticks?" he asked.
"Right," Doc told him. "The black sticks I gave you. I presume they were taken from you."
"Wrong," Monk grinned.
"What?"
"I fooled around with the things," Monk explained. "I figured out they were some compound and discovered that heat would melt 'em to a liquid almost as thin as water."
"What did you do with them?" Doc questioned sharply.
Monk stripped open his shirt, revealing his undershirt. Usually, it was white silk. Now it was very black.
"I melted the sticks and soaked the liquid up with my undershirt," he chuckled. "If you want the black stuff, all we gotta do is heat my shirt and wring it out."
The dapper Ham, who had heard the whole thing, went to the homely Monk, to whom he had not spoken a civil word in years, and draped an arm around the apish chemist's shoulders.
"My sweetheart," he breathed ecstatically. "I love you. I love your hog."
DOC SAVAGE went to work swiftly, rigging up a fire-making apparatus with sticks, and with shoestrings from Monk's footgear. This whirled a pointed stick upon a flat slab until the friction created heat, then a tiny coal that was carefully nursed and fanned until a fire was going.
A sheet of gold off the roof, left behind by Sen Gat, was fashioned into a receptacle to hold the black substance.
They did not work in silence--for there was the shouting of the fanatics outside to keep their actions company. From a greater distance, in the direction taken by Sen Gat's party, came more subdued howling. This latter bedlam seemed to be slackening--the rapping of rifles, the blare of supermachine pistols coming with less frequency.
Finally, the shooting stopped entirely.
"Wonder if Sen Gat got away," Renny boomed.
Maples, tall and thin and silent, had taken little part in proceedings, but now that there seemed some possibility of escape, he brightened to a marked degree and scampered about, seizing timbers and smashing them into smaller fragments which would serve as clubs.
"A good idea," Doc told him. "When the men in the headed suits see their snakes are not going to overcome us, they'll probably get up nerve enough to tackle us."
Monk's shirt was wrung out, and the black material with which it was saturated proportioned among the party. Since they had no idea of the quantity necessary to give immunity to the cobra venom, they divided it equally.
"How long d'you suppose it takes to work?" Monk asked.
Doc, after mulling that over, concluded, "Since it is assimilated through the digestive system, half an hour might do it. We'll wait that long, then give it a try. One of us will go out alone and see what happens."
They waited the half hour, and when it was time for the test, there arose an argument about who was to be the sub ject.
Doc, by the simple expedient of turning a deaf ear to the others, took the task upon himself.
Venturing forth, he approached one of the venom-throwing cobras in the plaza. The black compound he had taken had made him dizzy, slightly ill, but had not detracted from his agility or keenness of sense.
