"044 (B077) - The South Pole Terror (1936-10) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Wardhouse heaved in an effort to free himself, but did not succeed.
"Help!" he screeched unexpectedly. "These men are going to kill me!"
Several members of the Regis personnel had been approaching, unnoticed by Renny and Johnny. These fellows now rushed forward, intent on rescuing Wardhouse, who they believed was being molested. The sailors were husky. It was either fight or let Wardhouse go. Renny and Johnny chose to release him.
"Something queer is happening here!" Renny boomed. "Take us to the skipper!"
It was a reasonable request, and in a few moments, they were confronting the worried master of the liner.
Thurston H. Wardhouse spoke first.
"Give your engines full speed and turn back!" he rapped, excitedly. "It's the only thing that will save our lives!"
The skipper was a man steeped in the humdrum of everyday life. The request to turn back sounded preposterous to him.
"This man has gone mad," he said, calmly. "Lock him up."
The sailors started to drag Thurston H. Wardhouse away.
Forward, near the bows, there was a loud explosion. The shock of it shook the entire liner. Every one stared in the direction of the concussion.
A hole gaped in the bows, well above the waterline.
"It's too late to turn back now," said Thurston H. Wardhouse.
THE few moments immediately following the blast forward were filled with tumult. Orders were shrieked, directing that the extent of the damage be ascertained. A number of sailors dashed forward to comply with the command.
Some of these sailors fell to the deck and did not arise. Back along the decks, passengers were dashing out, and some of these collapsed the instant they were outside.
Thurston H. Wardhouse took advantage of the confusion. He gave a violent lunge, freed himself of restraining hands, and sprang down a companionway that admitted to the innards of the liner.
Caution seized the skipper of the Regis.
"Wheel hard over!" he barked. "Put her bows on our back course! Give her full speed ahead!"
He had decided to take Wardhouse's advice.
Renny looked at Johnny.
"Wardhouse!" thumped the big-fisted engineer.
"A perspicacitive suggestion," snapped Johnny, and they ran in pursuit of the fleeing man of mystery.
Wardhouse had secured but a moment's start. When Johnny and Renny were inside, where the yelling on deck was muffled, they could hear the fleeing man's footsteps. Wardhouse seemed intent on penetrating to the deepest recesses of the ship.
Renny and Johnny, who were about as unlike as two men could be in physical build, were none the less about equal in speed. They kept close together, and they overhauled their quarry.
"We'll have him in a minute!" Renny rumbled triumphantly, when they caught sight of Wardhouse at the end of a passage.
Wardhouse must have heard. He stopped, yanked up a trouser leg, and got a slender revolver which had been holstered there. It was one of the modern target weapons, shooting a missile of small caliber but high velocity. The weapon emitted bullets with small, wicked reports.
Renny and Johnny flipped into the nearest door, and found themselves in a storeroom from which there was no other exit.
"I'll be superamalgamated!" said Johnny, using the word which was his favorite expression of mental agitation.
Renny pawed vigorously at his eyes.
"Holy cow!" he boomed. "Johnny, are you having trouble seeing? Spots in front of my eyes and that sort of thing?"
"Yes," said Johnny. "An excruciating phenomenon."
They were silent a moment.
"It's this heat," Renny thumped finally. "Something queer about it. You remember the story we read in the newspaper about that silver sloop found in Long Island Sound, with everybody aboard dead?"
Big-worded Johnny made an explosive noise.
"Ejaculations and vociferations!" he gasped. "Do you think something like that could be happening to us?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
Renny set himself, obviously for a leap through the door.
"Where you going?" asked Johnny.
"I'm gonna see that the radio operator is letting the world know what is happening to this liner," Renny boomed. "You stick on the trail of this Thurston H. Wardhouse."
With that, Renny dived outside. He was not fired upon, although he distinctly saw Wardhouse watching him at the opposite end of the corridor. It seemed that Wardhouse would only use his gun to prevent his own capture.
RENNY knew the location of the radio shackЧaft, on the top deck. He headed for it. From time to time, he passed his hands over his eyes. He could hardly see. The sensation was like nothing so much as being blinded by a great arc light.
He could, however, perceive enough of his surroundings to feel an unpleasant chill. Passengers and crew were dashing about madly. Remembering the newspaper reports that those aboard the silver sloop found in Long Island Sound had been insane before they died, Renny looked for evidences of mania here.
He became convinced that the strange heat was not driving every one mad. Many persons were acting wildly, but that was to be expected. Every one knew something incredibly out of the ordinary was occurring, by now, and many had become hysterical.
On the decks, there were numerous bodies. The fantastic heat seemed to have the power of overcoming any one who exposed himself to it.
Renny kept under cover. He felt that perspiration was running from every pore. He reeled against the wall of the salon, near a thermometer, and paused to look at it. The temperature was only a little above a hundred and twenty, much to his surprise.
The heat, then, was not wreaking the havoc. It must be something else.
Coming in sight of the radio shack, Renny made the last few yards through the open in a wild dash. He flopped through the radio shack door, and immediately was glad he had come.
The Regis carried two radio men on duty at all hours, and both were slumped on the floor, where they had fallen. They were still breathing.
Renny, like Doc Savage's other aides, was a skilled radio operator. He set the transmitter dials of the C. W. transmitter and began to tap out a series of S O S signals.
He was having even more trouble with his eyes. The pupils seemed to be balls of fire. He shut his lids, but it did not help much. He was feeling weirdly dizzy.