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

Whatever the mysterious blue meteor was, these men obviously feared it more than they dreaded the possibility of being, after death, sent back to earth in the form of rabbits, which, in some Tibetans, is their idea of going to hell.

"We will draw away a safe distance," Saturday Loo said hoarsely. "Inside this blanket of a thing which I am wearing is a signal gun. When the bronze man appears, I am to discharge the weapon into the sky."

"And the blue meteor will come?" asked a man.

"Aye. And the blue meteor will come."

They moved through the crowd. Not wishing to attract attention, they curbed a natural inclination to elbow people out of their path, and only jostled gently.

"How far is a safe distance?" asked one Tibetan.

"A very great distance!" muttered another.

"Two hundred yards, in this case," said Saturday Loo.

"But the blue meteor has been known to affect men for miles - "

"Two hundred yards!" snapped Saturday Loo. "This time, it is not powerful."


AS the villainous Saturday Loo and his fellow miscreants worked out of the crowd and took up a position in the shade of a rickety stand selling beer, fruit and empanadas, or meat pies, there was one person who watched them intently.

The observer was a young woman; and in her gaze was fear, loathing, and a growing horror.

The young lady herself was in turn the focus of no little attention, for she was possibly the most exquisite thing in femininity that Antofagasta had seen recently.

Once sure the Tibetans would not see her, she squeezed rapidly through the crowd toward the speaking rostrum. Desperation was in her brown eyes, and she nibbled nervously at the inside of entrancing Cupid lips.

She was taller than many of the Chileans, even the men, and she gazed anxiously over heads toward the rostrum.

Chilean senoritas, those of pure Castilian descent, are noted for the comeliness of their figures, but more than one envious eye followed the girl who was working her way feverishly toward the speaking stand.

The tall Venus had hair about the hue of rich mahogany, which was in marked contrast to the tresses of the surrounding senoritas.

She reached the Vicinity of the rostrum and glanced anxiously about. She was an American herself, and apparently searching for Yankee faces. Seeing none, she accosted a Chilean.

"I must find Doc Savage," she gasped. "It's on a vitally important matter. Where can I locate him?"

"No sabe el Ingles," replied the Chilean.

The young woman shook her head and nipped her lips in exasperation. She did not speak Spanish. She supposed the fellow had told her that he did not understand English. She continued her search for a Yankee - and found two of them a moment later.

They were such an incongruous pair that she stopped and stared.


ONE of the Yanks looked as if an immediate ancestor had been a three-hundred-pound gorilla. His great, corded, red-bristled arms were nearly long enough to permit him to walk on all fours without stooping.

He had an enormous mouth, a tuft of a nose, which apparently had been pounded by many fists, and little eyes almost lost in pits of gristle. His ears were shapeless, and one was perforated with a hole the size of a lead pencil - an opening which could have been made by a bullet.