"033 (B015) - Murder Melody (1935-11) - Laurence Donovan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

"Zoro knows many things," stated the raiding leader calmly, and named each one of Doc's three aids aboard the Narwhal .
Caulkins turned to Cassalano.
"Rather amazing," he remarked. "Perhaps Doc Savage knows more of this than we think. It could hardly be sheer coincidence that his men should be here. So, Zoro, suppose you explain something of all this? Why do you want our ship?"
Ham was looking at Cassalano. The mineralogist's double chins were trembling. The twinkle had gone from his shrewd small eyes.
"Doc Savage is a dangerous man with whom to fool," stated Cassalano. "You and your men are wearing strange garments, Zoro. I have never seen that composition before, and I know my metals."
Zoro spoke again. A slow smile overspread the ugly smoothness of his face. It seemed to mock any knowledge Cassalano might possess.
"True, you know much of some things," he stated. "But you cannot even surmise why all of you are helpless before us. Possibly this wonderful Doc Savage can find out. It is my purpose to see that he does not."
"Doc Savage has the strange faculty of knowing all before he is told," said Cassalano. "I warn you. And by some remarkable intuition, you seem to believe Doc Savage will come to this place?"
"This Doc Savage will arrive in a very few minutes," said Zoro confidently. "By mischance, some of my plans went wrong. But this bronze man is being delivered into my hands."
"You're crazy!" ejaculated Renny, who was beginning to recover. "Less than two hours ago, Doc Savage was talking to us from the harbor at Vancouver, British Columbia. That is more than two thousand miles from this spot. You may be some sort of a magician, Zoro, as you call yourself, but you've guessed wrong."
"I never misjudge," said Zoro mockingly. "Even now, your chief of the bronze skin is coming."
"Just another bedtime story," drawled Ham. "If that sword blade hadn't brokenЧ"
THEN the air shook. The strangely calm area of sea around the Narwhal danced with choppy waves. Thunder racketed along the gray shores of the Aleutians.
A new fracture appeared in the side of the dying island volcano. Another portion of the cliff split off. A mighty splash was heard.
"Aroon da spurz!"
rapped out Zoro, or the words sounded like that to Ham.
Before any one could move, the silvery-skinned men had swarmed upon them. Renny's fists started slashing a swath through his attackers.
The shrill melody broke from half a dozen flutes at once. Ham was first to feel himself enveloped in what felt like a metallic net. Vainly he sought to free his hands. He saw his companions also had been enmeshed.
The nets had been cast over their heads. They slid down like long jackets and tightened around their legs. In the space of seconds every man of the nearest group was clad in the imprisoning affairs.
Ham's hands were loose inside a blouselike affair, but his legs were held so tightly he fell over. And when he moved his arms it had the effect of tightening a metallic band around his throat. The least pressure of his hands shut off his breath.
Ham rolled over. Renny and Long Tom were lying beside him on the deck. Caulkins and Cassalano were similarly jacketed. Captain Jarnagin was swearing with all of a seagoing master's fluency. But each time the captain moved his hands, his round, red face grew redder.
The metallic jackets were infernally clever in their design.
The sea around the ship glowed more brightly. Evidently another part of the volcanic cap had been blown off.
Zoro stood with folded arms, looking down at his prisoners.
"Doc Savage has arrived," he announced, without raising his voice.
Something grated along the side of the Narwhal. It was on the opposite side from which Zoro's raiders had come.
Chapter 9. A SHIP IN THE NIGHT
DOC SAVAGE awoke. His return to consciousness was like the snapping of a camera shutter. Every nerve and instinct was instantly alert. The bronze man did not move. His inner eardrums ached. They rang with twinging pain. He opened his eyes slowly.
Doc had experienced many strange transitions. But, of all, this had him the most deeply puzzled. His last conscious memory had been seeing the mysterious, beautiful, golden-clad Lanta shoot down Monk, Johnny and himself with one of his own supermachine pistols.
Doc reflected that before his senses went blank he could have brought the girl down with one of the mercy bullets. The bronze man's swift, intuitive reasoning had stayed his hand. Now he reflected further that he had known the girl had a deep, intelligent purpose in firing those bullets.
Yet this did not account for his present position. Just now he decided that his highly trained olfactory sense was hardly an asset. His nose was assailed by the sour, rotten, salty odor of bilge water. By that alone, he would have known he was in a ship.
But being shot down on a mountain glacier and wakening in a ship, was somewhat of a new experience. Doc, at the moment, could only surmise the vessel might be somewhere in the vicinity of Vancouver. He was lying on an iron grating. The bars were uncomfortable. His muscles, though impervious to most outer shock, were aching a little.
Within a few seconds, he had discovered he was not on a ship near Vancouver. Not by many hundreds of miles. For the bronze man had that keen sense of knowing by feeling and smell, many parts of the world. At this moment, he judged he was not far from the Arctic Circle.
Freezing, bitter chill filled the space about him.
The ship was moving. The rushing suck of water along near-by plates told him that. And it was moving swiftly. Its speed was greater than he had ever known even the most modern vessel to have.
More amazing than its mere speed, this ship was traveling stern foremost. A dim light bulb revealed this. Close by was a quivering rudder post. The blade of a broken propeller slapped viciously against steel plates. The rudder cables did not move. Apparently the rudder itself had been snapped off.
Doc hitched his body over. Until now, he had seemed to be only partly bound. His massive legs were immovable. But his hands had seemed to be free. At least he was able to move them about. But he discovered his arms were shrouded by a cold, loose garment. It was cold because it was of metallic texture. The temperature of the ship's hold could not have been much above zero.
Near him another body moved. Doc attempted to lift his hands. This action was abruptly terminated. The movement had brought choking pressure around his throat. He was held within a new form of jacket. By some mechanical contrivance, the pushing of his hands tightened a band around his neck.
Some one's heels kicked on the grating. A voice moaned. It was Monk. He was lying close to Doc. Beyond him Doc's vision took in the four other bound figures of Johnny, Renny, Long Tom and Ham. Still other prisoners lay beyond them in the darkness.
Monk's moan changed to complaining conversation.
"Dag-gonit!" he grunted through chattering teeth. "Nothing makes any sense! First I'm some kind of a bird! Next I wake up in a glass ship an' try to save that pretty girl callin' herself Lanta! An' danged if that cute, poisonous female don't shoot me with my own pistol! Now I must be on an ocean ship, an' I'm beginnin' to get sick of the ways things are turnin' out!"
Apparently many things had been happening too fast for the still-dazed brain of the chemist.
DOC'S other companions were regaining their senses. Johnny replied to Monk's complaint. Even in this predicament he found a few long words.
"Being susceptible to feminine wiles always brings its own disillusionment," he said solemnly. "A concatenation is taking place upon my tympanum."
"Good gosh!" exploded Monk. "Did that happen, too?"
"I also have a ringing in my ears," came the calm voice of Ham. "And every time I wake up out of a bad dream I find I've been sleeping close to one of the ape family."
Monk snorted. "This place does smell something like a daggoned hog wallow. Now I know what it is."
This verbal feud between the chemist and the lawyer had become perpetual. Never was their predicament too serious to permit of overlooking a chance to lambast each other.
For the first time Doc Savage spoke.
"It would seem, brothers, some mysterious force has brought us together. Monk and Long Tom and I were on a glacier near Vancouver. Apparently we have been unconscious a long time, yet I feel as if it had been only an hour or two."