"Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 268 - Murder Lake" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Maxwell)

The last thing The Shadow remembered was landing from a thirty-foot plunge that was somewhat broken
by the tangle of a rope ladder. The bend in the shaft had not only slowed his pace; it had caused the
shower of stones to cascade beyond his present resting place, while the big boulder had jammed on the
way down, blocking the debris that followed it.

Important though they were, those later facts weren't in The Shadow's mind. His present impression was
that he was in the clutch of enemies from above, for the boom of echoes rendered incoherent the words
now sounding in The Shadow's ear.

WITH a sudden twist The Shadow ended his resemblance to any other person living or dead. Literally,
he swept himself into blackness, for daylight was gone from the blocked shaft, and so were the flashlights
as The Shadow completed his swirl. Swinging the gun that he still clutched, The Shadow knocked those
torches from the hands that held them.

The men themselves escaped The Shadow's cyclonic onslaught, for they were dropping away madly,
anxious to escape this dead man who had come to life. By the time they rallied and closed in upon the
cloaked figure, they were sure he had become a ghost. They were grappling with one another; The
Shadow had gone from their midst.

Added to that, an eerie laugh resounded, seemingly in their very midst. From the passage, The Shadow
was sending back his challenge to the men he still thought were representatives of crime. The Shadow's
taunt, flung from the passage, was carried among the strugglers who sought the ghost who uttered it!
There were others, though, who failed to experience that illusion. They were men who were still coming
through the passage. They saw the cloaked outline of The Shadow as he blocked their flashlights, and
they drove forward to cope with the intruder. Hearing their approach, The Shadow charged them, driving
flashlights and guns upward.

He was himself again, The Shadow. Recognizing that these were men from Dalebury, he realized his
mistake about the others. It wouldn't do to stay around and go through lengthy explanations. Even if
believed, such explanations wouldn't help; not while criminals were riding far away with the remains of
Morgan.

So The Shadow plowed a path right through the men who had opened the blocked passage. Their
massed bulk couldn't slow him, for The Shadow had loads of impetus behind him. The men that he had
left beneath the shaft were on the way out, too, coming with a maddened surge that nothing could resist.
They were shrieking that they didn't intend to stay in a cavern that contained a ghost who could vanish,
yet still be heard.

FIRST to issue from the passage, The Shadow wheeled into the glare of converging flashlights. Men in
the main cavern were responding to a hoarse shout raised by one of their members: Hubert Endorf.

"It's Shep Kroot! Stop him!"

It was to Endorf's advantage to create a diversion. Whether or not Morgan's body had been found,
Endorf bore a grudge against Shep, and was hoping that the squealer would attempt a getaway and be
slain in the act. Guns were drawn, but they froze as their owners saw the weird shape of The Shadow,
looming like a mammoth bat.

Away from the light so suddenly that no one could pick his exact direction, The Shadow gave a laugh
that might have come from anywhere. Immediately, flashlights began to sweep in all directions.