"Doc Savage Adventure 1933-10 The Sargasso Ogre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

At the foot of the staircase, Pasha Bey had a strange experience. He encountered a bronze giant of an American. He took a single look at this herculean figure-and shivered.

That was unusual. Pasha Bey had not, in a goodly number of years, seen anything fearsome enough to give him qualms. He was a hardened rogue, afraid of nothing. That is, he feared nothing until he saw the bronze man. One look at the big, metallic American scared Pasha Bey. There was something terrible about the giant Yankee.

Pasha Bey turned to watch the bronze man across the lobby. He was not alone in his staring; almost every one else was doing the same thing. Alexandria was a city of strange men, but never had it seen such a personage as this.

The American was huge, yet so perfectly proportioned that his great size was apparent only when he was near other men to whose stature he might be compared. They seemed to shrink to pygmies alongside him. Tendons like big metal bands enwrapped the bronze man's hands and neck, giving a hint of the tremendous strength which must be harbored in his mighty body.

But it was the eyes that got Pasha Bey. They were weird orbs, like glittering pools of flake gold. In one casual glance, they seemed to turn Pasha Bey's unholy soul inside out, see all its evil, and promise full punishment. The effect was most unnerving.

Pasha Bey had heard of this man of metal-had heard much of him. So had all of Alexandria, for that matter.

The man was Doc Savage. He had appeared in Egypt under circumstances that were cyclonic. Cables had carried news of the event across the Atlantic; airplanes. had rushed pictures of his arrival to newspapers in London, Paris, Berlin, and elsewhere.

For Doc Savage had come, with five strange men who were his aids, flying the Zeppelin-type airship, Aeromunde, which had vanished mysteriously many years ago. It was all very fantastic, this arrival of Doc Savage and his helpers.

Rumor had it that evil men had stolen the dirigible and used it for years to carry slaves to a lost oasis in the trackless deserts, where there was a great diamond mine, and that Doc Savage had rescued the slaves and punished their masters.


PASHA BEY had probed into those rumors, especially after be heard something about several packing cases filled with diamonds. But he had learned precious little. No one was telling the location of the fabulous lost oasis of the diamonds. The Aeromunde had been restored to the government which formerly owned the ship.

Doc Savage -- talk in the drinking places said -- had given to each of the rescued slaves a round fortune, and was keeping the diamonds. But the gems themselves were only rumors, for all the headway Pasha Bey had made at locating them.

The names of Doc Savage's aids had even evaded Pasha Bey's adroit angling for information.

He would have been very shocked to learn that "Long Tom" Roberts was one of those five. Had he known this, he would have thought long and soberly before undertaking to murder the man for four thousand piastres. Doc Savage and his comrades were a bad crowd to monkey with.

They were reported to be a terror to evildoers. It was said they made a life work out of helping those who needed help, and punishing those who deserved it. Doc Savage and the five aids traveled to the ends of the earth to hunt trouble.

Unluckily for him, Pasha Bey did not know the connection between Long Tom and Doc Savage. So he shuffled upstairs in search of Long Tom's room.

He found the door in a brightly decorated hall. Composing a look of bland meekness on his bony features, he rippled knuckles on the panel, after making sure he heard no voices inside.

"Who is it?"

"A messenger for Major Thomas J. Roberts, the electrical engineer."

"Be right with you!"

The man who soon opened the door was rather undersized, pale of hair and eyes, and somewhat pale of complexion. In fact, he did not look at all robust. He did, however, have a very alert manner.

This fellow, Pasha Bey reflected, would surely be an easy one to murder. The thought did not show on his face, however. He extended the note his employer had handed through the barred door.

Long Tom read it.


MY DEAR ROBERTS: I have heard a great deal about your ability as an electrical expert, and of your accomplishments in the field of atomic research.

You may not have heard of me, my name not being widely known. But I believe I have perfected a device for killing harmful insects with atomic streams. My understanding is that you have experimented along the same lines.