"Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 034 - The Fantastic Island" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Two of Doc Savage's aids -- he had five of them altogether -- were on a vacation cruise in the yacht
Seven Seas, which chanced to be off the coast of Panama, in the Pacific. Aboard the yacht also was
Patricia Savage, a remarkable young woman, whose relationship to Doc Savage was that of cousin. Pat
had gone along for the trip, she claimed; but it was to be suspected that she was looking for excitement.

If she was looking for excitement, she was certainly destined to find it.

Doc Savage, man of bronze, individual of mystery, mental wizard and physical marvel -- to quote the
newspapers -- sent a radiogram to the yacht Seven Seas headed for the Galapagos to look for William
Harper Littlejohn, who was better known as "Johnny," and his expedition.

The Seven Seas was now about to slam headlong into more trouble than those aboard would ever have
believed possible.

THE Seven Seas was riding a radio beam radiated, by special courtesy on the part of the powerful
United States Naval radio station, from the Panama Canal Zone. This beam simplified navigation, and
they were riding it straight for the Galapagos.

Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks stood on the dripping deck of the Seven Seas and stared
into an immensity of black sky and blacker water. Occasionally he scowled anxiously upward at the
radio rigging. Water slapped and phosphoresced around the bow.

Right now, the yacht was rolling in a huge ground swell, rolling alarmingly. Rivets strained and bulkheads
creaked. There was at least half a gale blowing, and it made noises in the rigging like the sighs of dying
men.

Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks was commonly called "Ham," a name which he did not like.
He now frowned darkly and made his way to the pitching bridge.

"This is dangerous," he snapped. "We may run onto a reef any minute."

"Don't I know it?" a surprisingly childlike voice retorted from the semidarkness of the bridge. "This
ground swell is bad -- mighty bad. When it piles up like this, it means the water is getting shallow."

Ham snapped, "But I thought you said -- "

"Something screwy," piped the childlike voice. "According to your log, we're supposed to have more
than a hundred miles between us and the. nearest land."

A young woman joined them on the bridge. She was a very striking young woman to look at, having not
only a lovely face, but hair of a very unusual bronze color and eyes which actually looked golden. She
was Patricia Savage, who loved excitement.

"I wish you'd ask your old ocean to behave," she requested, cheerfully. "I've been thrown out of my bunk
three times in the last fifteen minutes. I gave it up."

"Something is wrong, Pat," Ham told her. "We're getting into a big ground swell. That means we are near
land, or at least in shoal water. And that is very much impossible."
Pat walked over to the second man on the bridge. "Just what is the trouble, Monk?" she asked.