"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 010 - The Phantom City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

sectors of their native land.

This business about the language was the first contact the four had with the bronze man's remarkable
knowledge. This giant, metallic man was something of a mental marvel. The fact that he could converse
fluently in the tongue of nearly any race on the globe, was only one of his fantastic accomplishments.

"You have a submarine," said one of the Arabs. "A submarine with which you once went under the ice of
the north pole!"

"That is right," Doc admitted in Arabic.

The brown man reached under his coat tail, squirmed, and drew his flat sword. He indicated the poison
on the tip.
"We want that submarine!" he declared. He put the sword point against Doc's chest. The steel slit a few
threads of the bronze man's coat fabric. "You will take us to it!"

Chapter II. THE WHITE-HAIRED GIRL
DOC studied the sword. The edge was thin, hollow ground like a razor. Back of the cutting edge were
grooves resembling the corrugations in a file. These held the poison.

"What do you want with the submarine?" he asked.

"That, bronze man, is our affair!"

Doc had expected some such answer. "If I refuse to take you to it, what then?"

The man tapped the sword. "This! You will die suddenly!"

"That does not leave me much choice," Doc said dryly. "Shall I drive you to the boathouse? It is not far."

"We will walk, sajyid! We do not know the city, and you might drive us to a station of the police."

They got out of the limousine. One man slapped hands over Doc's clothing, fingering pocket contents
through the cloth. When he found nothing large enough to be a weapon, he seemed satisfied.

"Imshi!" he grunted. "Go on!"

They strode westward toward the Hudson River water front, setting a leisurely pace which would not
attract attention.

In the gloomy street where the holdup had occurred, there was at no time a sign of the man who had
given the Arabs their orders - the chap hidden in the box. He had kept under cover.

They walked through a section of garment shops, the streets almost deserted. The way sloped
downward. The asphalt had been rutted by wheels of heavy trucks, and rain residue lay like pools of
molten lead in the chugholes.

Body smells of the four Arabs reeked faintly. They were in need of a bath. Here, where the way was
darker, the shabby streets empty of life, they kept their long-barreled pistols in hand.