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

Not until the light on the Cape of Figs, at Alexandria harbor, was a winking white eye in the distance, did Doc and his men retire for the night.







Chapter V



THE SCALP BELT





AN hour before dawn. Doc Savage arose and. attired in a bathing suit, went up to the sun deck for his daily routine of exercise. The deck was deserted at this early hour.



In a remote spot in the forest of elevators and funnels, Doc began his usual ritual.



These exercises were the explanation of Doc's amazing physical and mental powers. They lasted a full two hours. Every second of that time he was working out at full speed. He had done this sort of thing daily from childhood.



He made his muscles tug, one against the other, until all of his mighty bronze body glistened under a film of perspiration. He juggled a number of more than a dozen figures in his head, multiplying, dividing, extracting square and cube roots. This intricate mental arithmetic sharpened his ability to concentrate.



He employed an apparatus which created sound waves of frequencies above and below those audible to the normal ear. Thanks to his lifetime of practice, Doc was able to hear many of these sounds. His hearing was unbelievably keen.



He named numerous odors contained in a case of small vials. He read pages of Braille print -- the system of upraised dots which is the writing of the blind. This sharpened his sense of touch.



He had many other parts in his routine exercises calculated to develop his every faculty. He went through the whole thing at top speed, and each portion of the ritual was so strenuous that five minutes of it would have prostrated a man unused to that sort of thing.



Finishing his ritual, Doc moved toward his cabin. Rounding a large ventilator, he halted abruptly.