"Doc Savage Adventure 1935-12 The Fantastic Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

Side by side, they advanced into a rain of clubs -- Monk's pummeling fists working like locomotive driving rods, Ham's sword cane darting in and out like an aroused snake. Pat, pressing forward behind them, scooped up rocks from the beach and threw them as fast as she could. Even Habeas Corpus did his part, squealing and grunting and gouging his sharp tusks into every foot and ankle that came within reach of his wood-rasp snout.

The varied strategy was too much for the attackers. They thought Ham's sword cane was dealing out death, and they broke suddenly, with hideous yells, to go crashing away and disappear in the black recesses of the mangrove sink.

Monk picked up Habeas Corpus and swung him lustily by the long ears, much to the pig's squealing delight. Monk grinned, and the action lighted up his unbelievably homely face, making it very pleasant to look at.

There was a little light now from the stars. Ham was making a quick examination of the anesthetized victims of his sword cane.

They were of different races and colors -- and all wore loin cloths. Their necks were encircled with copper-studded collars made, seemingly, out of lizard hide.

A great blast of noise riveted Ham's attention. It was only Monk laughing.

"What's the matter, you hairy ape?" Ham demanded, suspiciously.

"I was thinkin' how you'd look in the costume of the country -- a loin cloth and a dog collar."

Ham bristled and gripped his sword cane tighter. "You wide-mouthed macaw -- " he began.

Pat silenced him with tight-lipped words. "If you want more fighting, save your strength," she said. "They're coming back."


A LOUD "plud" sounded in the wet sand near Ham's feet. In a second the air was filled with heavy missiles. Habeas Corpus squealed.

"They're heaving rocks!" Ham shouted.

"They can throw more rocks than we can," Monk growled. "Let's get outta here."

Monk tucked one of the short, thick clubs under his arm, grabbed up Habeas Corpus by the ears, and lunged into the shadowed thicket. Pat and Ham followed closely.

Pressing through the mangrove sink, they came out upon a height of land that was nothing. if not weird. Volcanic rock, black lava sharp as broken glass, swallowed them up in a welter of fantastically shaped hills and gullies. Much of the razor-edged glass was in tilted sheets which were prone to slip and shatter under the weight of a footfall. Giant cactuses rooted in the crevices and dangled their spiny pads overhead, like hooded cobras ready to strike.

They lost all sounds of pursuit.

The low-raking clouds lifted and the three pressed on under the pale white light of equatorial stars.

"I hope we get somewhere quick," Pat said, appalled.

"They speak of the Galapagos archipelago as the 'world's end,' " Ham remarked.

"They don't miss it much," Monk grumbled. "How we're goin' to find Johnny in this volcanic scrap heap, I dunno."

"Did either of you get the impression," Pat asked suddenly, "that our League-of-Nations attackers were being careful not to kill us?"

"Yeah," Monk admitted. "Even those rocks were not thrown too hard."

"They wanted us alive, I guess," Ham supplied.

"My guess, too. But why?"