Ds184 python isle doc, p.2
DS184_Python_Isle.doc, page 2
The launch got under way.
King Hancock sat in the bow facing the captured girl who was seated between 2 burly ruffians. His eyes were intent upon her obvious charms.
Even soaked to the skin, this vision from the sea was an entrancing creature. She held her head high in a way that was almost regal. And perhaps a bit disdainful. King Hancock had never seen anything so fetching in his life.
"Some dish," one of the men remarked, jerking his thumb toward the girl.
"Pipe down!" the dapper crooks snapped. "She can hear you."
"So what?" the worthy argued. "You heard her talk. She can't speak English, it's plain to see."
"Just shut up, then."
The other shrugged.
"You're the boss, mate."
All eyes were on the enchanting girl in white as the launch beat back toward the Mighty. Thus no one noticed the vanquished prisoner surreptitiously open blue eye and extract an object from his clothes, then concealed it under a thwart.
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7
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
I - Scarecrow
If someone had, he would have seen that the object as a length of bamboo.
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Blackbird Hinton was standing on the tramp steamer's deck like a great black crow when King Hancock clambered aboard.
"I thought I told you to scuttle that blasted plane!" he roared.
"Take another look at it through the glass," the natty crook exhorted. "It's covered with gold plates.
No wonder it was in trouble. One wing is three-quarters gilt!"
Blackbird looked. Then he shouted orders to the wheelhouse.
"Get alongside that plane before it sinks!"
To his First Mate, he said: "Ready a crew with the boom."
"Aye aye, Cap'n," King Hancock saluted.
By this time, the prisoners had been hauled aboard. The raven-like diamond smuggler strode toward them with his rolling gait. Both the girl and her companion were walking under their own power.
"This one doesn't speak English," a sailor offered, indicating the girl. "We're not sure about this guy, though. He gave us a fight."
"So I noticed," Blackbird said sarcastically. "I also noticed that it took most of you lubbers to bring him down. We've got almost a half-million dollars in uncut diamonds aboard this tub with the South African law apt to be breathin' down out necks most any time. And you swabs can't even handle one guy. And a guy in a dress at that!"
The men looked sheepish. No one spoke a word.
"And what about you?" Blackbird roared, turning on the red-haired captive. "What have you to say for your bloody self?"
"What ship is this?" the prisoner asked. He spoke acceptable English.
"This is the Mighty, me bucko. As fine a hellship as ever prowled the seven blasted seas. I'm her skipper. Call me Blackbird."
"What destination?"
"Bombay, India. If that means anythin' to you."
The prisoner nodded. "It does. What year is this?"
Blackbird Hinton
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8
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
I - Scarecrow
"What?" he roared.
"I asked what year is this?"
Blackbird
Then he blurted: "1934. Are you daft?!"
The redhead let out a long gusty sigh.
"7 years! Incredible! I can't believe it's been that long."
Before the black-clad skipper could continue this conversation, the Mighty drifted alongside the damaged aircraft.
A boom swung out and lines dropped, whizzing. Seamen slid down those lines and secured them to various points on the plane. A signal was then given.
Then the boom slowly raised the scarecrow plane. Water rushed out of its cabin.
When most of it had been drained, the boom swung inward and deposited the plane in a gaping hold.
"Let's see this gilded bird," Blackbird rumbled. "Bring the prisoners along."
Most of the crew (including King Hancock) and the prisoners went below to inspect the crippled plane. It was, they saw, a metal Harlequin.
It was patched and repaired with multitudinous gold plates. The entire craft resembled a dural and gold jigsaw puzzle.
Moreover, most of the plates were cunningly wrought as if by master artisans. One wing (the left) was completely sheathed in thinly beaten gold.
Virtually every golden surface was ornamented by serpent designs. Singly, in pairs, and intertwined. They were repulsive. Like swollen veins.
"Snakes," someone muttered. "Gives me the creeps."
"What beats me," another put in, "is how he could flown this thing in the first place. Lindy himself would have had a tough time with it."
"Lindy?" the red-haired prisoner asked puzzledly.
"Yeah. Charles Lindbergh. The hotshot who flew across the Atlantic. Say! I never knew anyone who hadn't heard of Lindbergh!"
"So," the other said wistfully, "someone finally made a transatlantic hop."
"What are you tryin' to pull?" Blackbird snarled.
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9
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
I - Scarecrow
Before he could get an answer, King Hancock -- who had been hovering attentively around the girl prisoner -- came rushing up.
"Cap'n, that girl is talking a mile-a-minute in a lingo I never heard before," he reported.
"What of it?"
"She keeps repeating a name," Hancock insisted.
"What name?"
Dapper King Hancock swallowed noticeably. He was having difficulty with his words.
"Well?" Blackbird Hinton bellowed. "What name?"
King Hancock croaked 2 words.
"Doc Savage."
A hush fell over the murky hold. All eyes turned toward the girl in white and purple. Sweat oozed from dirty foreheads. King Hancock licked his pointed mustache. Blackbird Hinton nervously commenced his preening motions, smoothing his black coat front repeatedly.
" Doc Savage," Blackbird repeated hollowly.
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It would have been hard to imagine a more unsavory lot of criminals than Blackbird Hinton and his crew.
Not 2 days ago, they had fallen upon a hapless diamond mine on the east coast of South Africa.
They slaughtered its workers to a man and then made off with a young fortune in uncut stones.
They were bloody-handed diamond smugglers and worse. Yet every one of them visibly paled at the mention of the name " Doc Savage".
Even in this out-of-the-way corner of the World, the name of Doc Savage had carried. He was a renowned adventurer. But much more than that. He was the supreme Adventurer. Everything about the
Man of Bronze (as the newspapers called him) was superlative.
He was reputed to be a fabulous individual who had been placed in the hands of a succession of scientists at birth. These men had raised him to be a "superman".
And they had succeeded. Doc Savage had grown up to be a mental marvel and a muscular Midas.
His life's work -- so the story went -- was to travel to the far ends of the Earth helping those in trouble and punishing evildoers.
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10
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
I - Scarecrow
In the silence which followed the utterance of the dreaded name of " Doc Savage", each man in Blackbird's crew considered the fact that he was himself a wrongdoer. And that this was certainly one of the far corners of the World.
Blackbird Hinton swung suddenly on his redheaded prisoner.
"What's your connection with Doc Savage?" he demanded.
Defiant blue eyes bored into Blackbird's own. The prisoner said nothing.
Hinton drew a spike-nosed pistol (a black one) and waved it meaningfully.
"I asked you a blasted question!"
The prisoner remained adamant.
In a rage, Blackbird pointed his pistol at the girl.
"One last time," he grated. "What's your connection with Doc Savage?"
King Hancock interposed.
"Wait! If this guy is hooked up with Savage, killing the girl is only going to get us in deeper. We can't afford that."
Blackbird hesitated. The girl stood calmly, regarding them without comprehension.
It was a little eerie. She flinched not at all under the pistol's snout. It was as if she did not understand what the weapon was.
That -- more than King Hancock's words -- decided the raven-like skipper.
"Stick them in the cabin across from mine," he ordered a seaman. "We're a hundred miles out.
They'd have no place to go if they tried somethin' stupid."
He said it so that the red-haired prisoner would get the message.
The strange captives were taken away.
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The African sun set early (but very slowly) inasmuch as the tramp Mighty was steaming into the sunset. Red dusk swathed the disreputable ship.
No other ships had been sighted since the scarecrow plane had been brought down. Ahead lay the Cape of Good Hope where the Indian Ocean becomes the Atlantic.
A lull descended upon the smuggling vessel during which there was considerable discussion of the gold-plated aircraft and its weird passengers.
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11
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
I - Scarecrow
Currently, this was centered in the ship's mess where the crew was enjoying their supper. Or as much as they could. The Mighty -- whose crew was composed of crooks and wharf-rats from 3
continents --was shorthanded. Thus the food was terrible. And the cabin in which the prisoners were being held was not guarded while the crew ate.
The prisoners had proven to be quiet and seemingly content to await developments. King Hancock had reported that all was well after personally delivering their food. Most of the crew noted the dapper First Mate's interest in the captives. And especially the girl. He became the butt of not a few ribald jests.
Most of the talk, however, dwelt upon the gold. Several thousand dollars' worth had been stripped from the scarecrow plane. This occasioned much speculation. The upshot of which was that anyone who would repair a plane with gold evidently had plenty to spare.
So it was that no one was about when the 2 prisoners eased out of their cabin and down a companionway.
"I spotted a radio room on our way in," the redhead remarked. "It may be deserted now.
Everything else is."
The girl did not respond.
They located the radio room.
"Empty! Now maybe I can get a message to Doc Savage."
At the name "Doc Savage", the black-haired woman broke into voluble speech.
"Sh-h-h-h!" the redhead admonished. "Pipe down, Lha. Or they'll …"
Then realizing that his companion spoke no English, he shifted to another tongue.
The girl promptly quieted. Her black eyes, however, held an impatient light.
The gangling man sat down and warmed up the sending set. He began to tap out a hurried message.
Heavy feet sounded in the passageway outside. The red-haired one almost jumped out of his chair.
He furiously worked the sending key.
"The hell!" a voice roared.
Then Blackbird Hinton plunged into the radio room.
"I'll fix you, mate!"
The other bounded out of his chair. A fist connected. The diamond smuggler bounced backward.
For all his gangling looks, the redhead was quite a scrapper.
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12
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
I - Scarecrow
He dragged the woman addressed as "Lha" out onto the deck. Behind him, Blackbird was bawling for help at the top of his leathery lungs.
When they gained the deck, the captives found it swarming with men. They raced aft.
"Got to find that launch!" the scrappy redhead panted.
He did. It was wet from recent immersion. So he knew it was the craft they had been rescued in (if
"rescue" was the correct term for it).
The launch was hung on davits. These swung easily out.
The man stepped aboard and rapped out strange words to the girl as he prepared to release the lines that would lower the boat into the sea.
Before the girl could join him, rifles started banging forward! Lead chewed the ship's rail and made a squeak-rip of a sound as it tore off a vicious foot-long splinter near the girl. She jumped backward in startlement.
"Grab the girl!" King Hancock screamed.
She hesitated, confused.
Her companion called out: "Lha!"
Then a quick-thinking soul got a fishing net … gave it a quick toss … and snared her. Other seamen made for the suspended launch.
For a moment, it looked as though the red-haired fighter was about to plunge into the oncoming men.
Instead, he said "Damn!" feelingly and started the motor.
The launched, released, smashed into the ocean. It dug in her stern and raced away at a high rate-of-speed, throwing up great sheets of brine. Bullets whupped into the water. But none hit the careening craft.
Once out of range, the redhead reached under a thwart and withdrew the length of bamboo which he had earlier secreted there. He examined this.
It was an ordinary tube of jointed bamboo. Except that it was closed at either end with blue sealing wax. Each end bore a weird design which had been pressed into the wax when it was hot.
The design was that of a twisting serpent. The seals had not been tampered with, he found.
He looked back at the darksome tramp streamer now receding in the night.
"This is all I have left now," he said to himself, "to prove to the World that the whole incredible thing really happened to me."
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13
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
I - Scarecrow
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14
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
II - The Bamboo Tube
II -- The Bamboo Tube
It was well past Midnight according to the flame-haired castaway's calculations when the stolen launch ran out of fuel.
The motor sputtered for a few minutes … gave a cough … and finally expired.
"Damn!" he cursed.
He worked the engine in hopes of squeezing out a last few knots. Then he sat down disgustedly.
The sea -- now that the launch was no longer knifing through the swells under its own power -- grew choppy. There was no Moon. The murk was unrelieved.
For the 3rd time, the castaway searched for a lantern. But the boat was bare of provisions. There was not even a solitary oar with which to propel the craft.
He cursed his ill luck steadily for the better portion of an hour. His teeth chattered in the cool night.
Eventually, he grew exhausted and slept across a hard wet thwart. He shivered in his sleep …
… but he did not sleep long.
He awoke to the sound of a faraway voice.
At first, he thought he was dreaming. Especially when the cobwebs cleared from his mind and he realized that the far voice was singing.
The song was "Waltzing Matilda". The singer was no songbird, however. He was noticeably off-key.
"What the hell!"
The red-haired one swiveled his head in the general direction of the voice. It proved to be coming from a ship some distance astern. A passenger liner. It was only by virtue of the clear night and steady wind that the strains of "Waltzing Matilda" were carried all the way to the becalmed launch.
Ignoring that fact, the shivering castaway stood up and waved his bare arms wildly.
He shouted: "Ahoy the ship! Over here! Can't you hear me? Over here!!"
But the wind defeated his efforts. The huge oceangoing liner plowed on past. The castaway discerned the name H.M.S. Brisbane by the light of its bow.
"Nothing to do but swim," he decided.
Reaching into his shirt front, he checked the bamboo tube.
Then he dived into the chill waters and swam in the direction of the warbling notes.
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15
Doc Savage: #184- "Python Isle"
II - The Bamboo Tube
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That castaway was an excellent swimmer. He made good time.
But the liner Brisbane had the advantage of her great diesel engines. It bore inexorably onward leaving the swimmer behind.
When the red-haired one realized he stood no chance of overhauling the great ship, he let out a
scream! It consisted of no words. Just a merely high piercing sound. It was not a dignified noise for a man to make. But as an attention getter, it was hard to beat.
That the scream worked was evidenced by the abrupt cessation of a chorus of "Waltzing Matilda".
"Ahoy the Brisbane!" the carrot-topped swimmer yelled. "I'm over here! In the water!"
There came a concerted shouting. A searchlight sprang into life washing the ocean with white-hot light. It roved until it finally pinned a bobbing head.
More shouting! A foghorn blew mournfully, evidently without purpose. The castaway treaded water and waited. He cursed the ship's crew -- who kept the incandescent light in his eyes -- and hung a brown arm over his face.
Presently, the putt-putt of a lifeboat announced that rescue was imminent.
"Easy there, lad" called out a voice as sturdy hands pulled the soaked swimmer from the choppy waves. "You're safe now."
