"078 (B078) - The Crimson Serpent (1939-08) - Harold Davis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

THE CRIMSON SERPENT
A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson


Chapter I. SWAMP TERROR
A CAMP cook was the first to disappear. Nothing much was thought of that. The cook was believed to have a weakness for swamp "corn." It was decided he had been the victim of an accident. That he probably had stepped into a sink-hole in the darkness.
Afterward, it was learned that that was a mistake.
A youth, hired as a handy man about one of the camps, vanished next. He took a rifle late one afternoon and entered the swamp to see if he could kill some squirrels for supper.
He never came back.
Some uneasy comment followed that. But the youth was known to have been of the restless, wandering type. Finally, it was believed he had just jumped this job and gone on.
Then the first rumors were heard.
The earliest stories mentioned chains and strange clanking sounds in the night. Government engineers on the job grinned broadly. The swamp men they were using as helpers didn't grin at all. They looked queerly apprehensive, and that was odd. They weren't the type of men that frightened easily.
A few days later came the rumor of a peculiarly venomous type of snake. At least it was supposed to be a snake.
Swamp men called it "The Crimson Serpent!"
The natives now looked almost terror-stricken. Singly and in pairs they quit their jobs. Within a week almost half of them had vanished into the dark recesses of the swamp.
That was serious enough.
And then came the first definite evidence of the weird terror of the swamp! It came with terrible suddenness. It left another man dead, horribly dead. It changed young Bill Craig from a strong, husky engineer into a trembling shadow of fear!
EVERYONE had anticipated trouble. But not even the most pessimistic had any idea of the strange, malignant thing that was to be encountered.
The job was a flood-control project. And flood-control work, particularly where it means building dams and inundating a considerable section of territory, always brings difficulties.
In this case, even more than the usual trials and tribulations had been expected. The area to be affected was the almost inaccessible, impassable swamp in the southeastern part of Arkansas, between the Mississippi and Ouachita rivers. The residents of that swamp were far from friendly to State or government officials of any kind.
Those in charge realized that. They had gone to the one man they believed could help them.
They had asked the aid of Doc Savage.
Doc Savage was known by reputation even to the swamp dwellers. They knew they could trust him. Doc had assured them the engineers would not be accompanied by Federal officers, that there would be no attempt to hunt down petty law violators.
He even had one of his own men, Colonel John Renwick, known as Renny, appointed as chief engineer for the necessary survey work, so that any trouble between the swamp dwellers and the government men could be ironed out promptly.
That was all Doc thought there was to it.
Young Bill Craig knew the swamp men, also. He was a graduate of Yale, but he had been born and reared in Arkansas.
Young Bill was one of the few engineers who did not laugh at the whispered stories of the natives. Strange stories had come out of the swamp for years, but this one seemed too real, too vivid, to be dismissed easily.
It was with difficulty he forced himself to go out on the job. The swamp seemed more fearsome, more dangerous than ever before. His men were strangely silent.
As the morning hours slipped by, his nerves became more and more tense. It seemed as if the swamp were waiting. Waiting for some terrible thing to occur.
A premonition of coming disaster gripped him.
Young Bill Craig tried to dismiss that premonition as he pushed farther and farther into the swamp. It didn't do any good. The feeling of dread continued to grow.
Probably because he could speak their language, Young Bill still had his crew intact. Two natives were along to cut through the tall grass and thick vines so that he could use his micrometer theodolite. A couple more handled the long steel tapes. Nearby were two guides in the long, slender boats that were used in the bayous.
Near sunset, Bill Craig thought it became unusually quiet. The swamp men seemed to be listening, with ears strained.
The sound itself came without warning. It resembled that of a logging chain being dragged over rough ground, so that the links clanked together.
Bill Craig was leaning over, peering through the telescope of the theodolite. One of the swamp men happened to be facing him as he jerked erect.
Utter terror was pictured on the other's leathery face!
For a time no one moved. Then Jute gave a nervous laugh. Jute was one of the guides. He was fingering a long-barreled rifle and looking in the direction from which the sound of the clanking chain had come. That laugh freed Bill Craig's frozen muscles.
"What is it?" he asked sharply.
Jute sent a stream of tobacco juice against the thick trunk of a cypress tree, but did not answer. He was a lean, lanky man wearing faded overalls.
Bill Craig glanced at the others. They had regained control of their features, but they couldn't hide the look almost of panic that lurked far back in their eyes.
Had Bill Craig been older and more experienced, he might have pushed his question. Then again, he probably wouldn't. He knew enough of the swamp dwellers to know he stood more chance of getting information if he let them volunteer it than if he tried to force them to talk.
He gave his big shoulders what he hoped was an indifferent shrug and turned back to the theodolite.
"Back to work." he rapped. "We've still got an hour before dusk."
When he looked up some moments later, he noticed that Jute had disappeared. He hadn't heard him go, but then Jute knew how to handle a boat noiselessly.
Bill Craig smiled with satisfaction. That was more like it. Jute, of all of them, had seemed least impressed by the sound they had heard. He had spent his life in the swamps, and was quite capable of taking care of himself. Undoubtedly he would reappear soon with some quite simple explanation of the chain rattle.
Then a new sound came. It was a metallic sound, also, but one such as Bill Craig had never heard before. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that it was a sound such as would have been made by men marching in armor.
It was only seconds after that when the screams began!
It was just dusk. That made it harder to tell distance or direction. Besides, sound carries far over water.
The screams didn't sound human. But Bill Craig knew no animal could make such sounds. They were too frenzied, too filled with unbearable agony.