"008 (B018) - The Sargasso Ogre (1933-10) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Doc Savage and his five pals have booked passage on the Cameronic, sailing tonight!" the unseen man said, after hesitating momentarily. "I don't want them to go on the Cameronic, savvy! I've got reasons of my own for not wantin' them on the tub. I thought, if I got Long Tom Roberts killed, Doc Savage would stay behind to investigate the murder. Him and his crowd wouldn't be on the boat."



To say this filled Pasha Bey with rage was putting it mildly. He had been used as a tool to draw Doc Savage's wrath and make the bronze man miss the Cameronic?! Shades of Allah!



"Wallah!" he hissed.



Whipping the silk garrote cord from inside his burnoose, he swung it through the bars. His hand was experienced. He snared the neck of the man inside. By flinging his bony frame backward, he wrenched the terrible cord tight.



A single, startled bleat came from the trapped man. It ended sudden when the cord snugged, as if his head had been cut off.



Pasha Bey leered from ear to ear. He had his prey-the man would soon strangle.



Came the surprise! The door whipped open. Men piled through -- men who had been with the fellow the garrote cord had trapped. Knives flashed! Pistols slammed thunder!



The dark tunnel became a bawling bedlam! Screams, blows, wails, all came at once!



It was over as swiftly as it started. Pasha Bey and his two men were slain with a dispatch as abrupt as any murder they had ever committed themselves.



The barred door slammed behind the retreating killers, while Pasha Bey and his two helpers still thrashed about, spouting their life fluid upon the dank stone floor.





DOC SAVAGE and Long Tom glided into the gloom-filled tunnel. They had held back from the fight, practicing a policy of letting dog eat dog. But they had not expected the slayers to flee so swiftly.



The door was big and stanch, and there was no sign of a latch on the outside. The bars were thick.