"Doc Savage Adventure 1934-03 Meteor Menace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

IN HONOR OF DOC SAVAGE


The building was being dedicated. The crowd was here for the ceremony, and to see the bronze man.

The bronze man was Doc Savage, that giant, mysterious worker of miracles about whom all Chile was agog.


IN make-up, the crowd ranged from austere grandees of Castilian descent, who had driven to the ceremony in shiny American limousines, to stocky brown Aymaran Indians from far back in the Andes mountains, who probably had come to town driving a string of llamas. The resemblance of these latter to Asiatics was startling.

Saturday Loo was an Asiatic, so he passed among them without drawing attention. To be exact, Saturday Loo was a Tibetan.

As many as one fourth of the Tibetan men become monks or holy men, with a very strict code of morals. Saturday Loo had never been tempted in that direction. A more thorough rogue than he could not be found between the Himalaya Mountains and the Gobi Desert.

Saturday Loo made directly for a cluster of poncho-clad men who hardly seemed to share the enthusiasm of the crowd about the bronze man. These also resembled Aymaran Indians, but were swart Asiatics.

"My children," Saturday Loo hailed them grandly, "make less long the expressions on your faces. One would think you were going to your respective funerals."

"If there should be an error, our fate may be exactly that," mumbled a man.

"Aye," agreed another. "I have beard that this bronze man, this Doc Savage, is very dangerous."

"They say those who molest the bronze man disappear and are never heard from again," offered a third.

"He is indeed what Yankees call 'hell-on-wheels.'"

"Look what he did here in Chile."

"Two hundred thousand people have come to catch a glimpse of him. That proves he is a great man, and dangerous to molest."

"The gun which makes the loudest report does not always shoot the hardest," quoted Saturday Loo. "You are children scaring each other with ghost stories. Stop it! This great crowd only makes our work the easier."

The conversation was carried on in a Tibetan dialect, which none of the surrounding Chileans understood. In addition, voices were kept low.

Saturday Loo stared narrowly at his assistants. He could see that his words had not relieved them a great deal. Several times, the tobacco-colored men rolled uneasy glances upward. They squirmed, and tried not to let their chief see these overhead stares.

The skyward gazing came to Saturday Loo's attention, however. He understood what was really making his helpers uneasy.

"So that is it!" he snapped. His voice, however, was a bit shrill.

The Tibetans shifted their shoulders under the ponchos, but said nothing.

"You fear the blue meteor!" Saturday Loo accused.

"Aye," one fellow mumbled admission. "We fear it."

"Suppose the blue meteor could not be controlled," said another, and shuddered visibly. "You all know what would happen to us in that case."

In the general exchange of looks which followed this statement, Saturday Loo joined. They were hardened rogues, yet mention of the blue meteor had conjured up a stark terror within their souls.