Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (26 page)

“Did she have scales or skin?” asked Ham sharply.

“What difference does it make?” returned Long Tom hotly. “I saw what I saw.”

“You saw a manatee,” corrected Doc Savage without a trace of reproval. “At a distance, and under present conditions, it was an understandable mistake to make.”

“Either that,” inserted Ham, “or you dozed off and had a nightmare.”

“If that was a nightmare,” defended Long Tom, “it was very vivid.”

“My devil was pretty vivid, too,” added Monk Mayfair sheepishly. “Maybe Long Tom saw what he saw.”

They all turned to look at the simian chemist. Monk Mayfair was among the bravest men they had ever known, but his encounter with the Satanic version of Father Neptune had reduced him to a quivering wreck.

“I think you were both imagining things,” Ham insisted.

An argument broke out between the three of them as they beached themselves and started wringing seawater out of their clothes.

Doc Savage left them for a time, and resumed his reconnoiter of the island. The first peep of dawn light was breaking across the water and now that he could see more clearly, the bronze giant wanted to investigate the terrain more closely.

Doc first looked over the spidery sprawl of horny fire-blackened tentacles.

Along their charcoal surfaces were sharp protrusions, rather resembling the tough surface of a pineapple, but of immense size. The light was bright enough to show details clearly, The extensions—for that is what they were—lead back to a central stalk, also barbed and blackened.

Long Tom had drifted up by this time, drawn by the spectacular sight.

“Looks like a petrified giant tarantula, or something worse,” he hazarded.

Doc Savage shook his head. “The ground-traveling roots of a species of Philodendron bush, which had been blasted and burned by lightning strikes. You can plainly see the charred leaves lying about, after having been burnt off.”

The puny electrical expert looked down. The ground was covered in great leaves resembling blackened elephant ears, he now realized.

“That’s a relief,” he exclaimed. “Monk thinks we landed on an outer isle of Hades.”

“This species is native to the Lesser Antilles,” Doc pointed out. “This erases all doubt as to our approximate location.”

“I’ll go tell the others,” offered Long Tom. “It will take a load off their minds.”

As Long Tom turned back, Doc Savage pressed on with his tour of the queer cay.

He was soon lost from view.

MONK AND HAM’S argument had pretty much ended when Doc Savage’s trilling suddenly sounded, carrying to their ears through the tropical night. At first, the others thought it was the song of a tropical bird, but after a few bars, they knew differently. The eerie sound drew them inland.

They found Doc Savage among the mangroves where the going was difficult, to say the least about it.

The bronze man had used his hands with their remarkable tendon strength to excavate something that was overgrown.

It was a stone temple, very ancient. Constructed along the lines they all recognized, but were also very unusual. Great basalt blocks comprised the structure, over which something like stucco had been applied. The stucco surface had largely fallen away over time, exposing the foundational blocks.

This temple had been all but reclaimed by the growth of many generations, if not centuries. Sinuous creepers had entwined it in a verdant web. In the back, a runt palm was growing out of the riven rock at a drunken angle. The thing was an utter ruin.

Monk offered, “Must be the ruin that doggone she-hornet told us about.”

“You should talk—about pests, that is,” jibed Ham.

Long Tom remarked, “Looks kind of Egyptian.”

Monk contradicted him, saying, “Reminds me of the temples down in the Valley of the Vanished, where the Mayans who supply us with our gold dwell.”
⁴

To which Ham Brooks inserted, “The architecture is a peculiar blend of both.”

But that was not what drew their attention as Doc Savage worked.

For over the entrance were cut a series of symbols—four of them in a row. They were the same symbols that Hornetta Hale had carved into a royal palm trunk back on the sandy island on which she had been marooned.

Ham Brooks said darkly, “I don’t like the looks of that mark.”

“You mean that
swastika,
” corrected Long Tom.

“Whatever it is,” Ham sniffed, “I don’t like it.”

Doc Savage reminded them, “This symbol may not be what it appears to modern eyes. Remember that it was carved long ago.”

“What would it mean in this part of the world?” wondered Ham.

Doc Savage was thoughtful. “In the far east, the swastika is considered to be an auspicious sign, rather like a good luck charm. South of here, the Cuna people of Panama and Columbia use it to represent the octopus deity whom they believe created the world.”

“Did they build temples such as this one?” asked Ham.

“They did not,” said the bronze man, returning to his investigation of the weird ruin.

Doc got to the point where he could access what appeared to be an entrance. He brought out his flashlight and directed the light around.

To his disappointment, the light disclosed only a choke of jungle growth and old vegetable debris. The interior of the temple was largely awash with water and mangrove roots. Small fish darted between the roots–-gray angelfish and blue tangs predominantly.

The bronze man found a stick, and attempted to stir the tangle, with the only result being that it became clear to him that whatever lay within the temple, it would be impossible to get at it without the proper tools. Mangrove roots were tough stuff, and brute strength alone would not dislodge them.

THEY stood back, marveling at the ruin. It appeared to be ancient.

Ham Brooks asked, “What do you make of it, Doc?”

“You will remember several years ago when we discovered a vault at the bottom of the Atlantic, not far from Nassau in the Bahamas.”

Ham nodded. “We always wondered if it wasn’t some remnant of something akin to Atlantis, the continent reputed to have sunk beneath the waves centuries ago in a terrific cataclysm.”
⁵

Monk scratched his furry head and said, “It wasn’t long after that that we discovered that dome under the water where people who descended from those original builders still lived.”
⁶

Long Tom asked Doc Savage, “Do you suppose that these mermen or whatever they are, are kin to that race of people?”

“It is too soon to tell,” admitted Doc Savage. “But it is very worthwhile exploring.”

Ham considered this and said, “It may well be that the Count and his men are on the trail of some treasure or scientific knowledge to be found in these ruins, or similar ruins nearby.”

Long Tom added, “It would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Monk said slowly. “That big vault we discovered was filled with scientific knowledge that we weren’t able to get out of there before the roof fell in.”

“Those ruins are very far from here,” reminded Doc.

But to every one of Doc’s men, the pieces began to come together in a way that made a certain sense. Doc Savage’s remarkable oxygen pills had been developed as a direct result of his discoveries in that underwater realm that had once stood on dry land and harbored a great scientifically advanced civilization in a long-ago era before recorded history.

Those thoughts in mind, they returned to the more habitable part of the island, which under the rising sun took on a very weird aspect. The tropical light, very gory, looked like it was setting the charcoal ground back alight.

The air seemed more breathable than before, which did not make it very palatable. It stank of smoke.

Doc Savage retrieved the transparent helmet and its harness, and began mounting the overgrown slope of the dormant volcanic cone. The others followed not far behind.

Reaching the summit, Doc swallowed three oxygen tablets, which he washed down with the milk of a coconut he had found.

The manner in which he cracked the coconut would have astonished a circus strong man. Doc merely balanced the coconut husk atop one metallic palm, and brought the edge of his other hand down sharply.

The coconut split with an audible
crack!
Swiftly, Doc took it up, and drank milky fluid from the breach.

That accomplished, the bronze man set the heavy helmet over his head, and connected the straps under each shoulder. This created a very tight seal. No air could get out, but inasmuch as his system was charged by the oxygen-generating chemical pills, he would not have to breathe for over an hour.

On one wrist he wore an ingenious leather strap on which were several instruments, including a dial watch, a compass and a depth gauge. These would come in handy if Doc discovered any underwater tunnels. All three instruments were painted with radium so they could be read under unfavorable conditions.

Doc removed his shoes, and placed his flashlight in one pocket. Without another word or gesture, he turned and prepared to plunge in.

Before he could do so, the bronze man was stopped by a remarkable sight.

There was a bubbling kind of disturbance in the water below. The surface had been very placid up to this point, but now it roiled.

Something bobbed up from below.

Doc pointed, but said nothing. No sound could escape his sealed helmet anyway.

Up from the deep came a green-haired head. They all saw it.

The owner of the head flung her hair back, snapping long green tresses that shook off seawater the way a dog sheds rain from its coat.

A face looked up. It was a face they all recognized.

Monk bellowed,
“Hornetta Hale!”

“And pipe this!” exploded Long Tom. “She’s got the mermaid hair I told you about!”

Chapter XXV

SNAGS

THERE WAS LITTLE question that it was Hornetta Hale emerging from the depths of the algae-green blue hole.

Neither was there any doubt that her hair was as green as seaweed, exactly as Long Tom had described hours before.

While Doc Savage and his men were taking in the strange sight, the strange vision began stroking toward the side of the extinct cone.

She reached what looked like a wall of cooled lava and remarkable scrambling up, but the same agility that had allowed her to climb coconut trees and survive on a remote tropic isle for several weeks failed her now.

Monk lowered a hairy arm to assist the green-haired girl up to the rocky rim of the cone. The blonde hesitated at first, seemed to shrink from the sight of the gorilla-like chemist, but finally accepted the offered paw.

Setting the thin-nosed woman on her feet, Monk demanded hoarsely, “Where did you come from?”

They all saw that she had two perfectly formed legs with matching feet, and not the long fishy tale of a mermaid. Nor did she wear sea shells.

Her hair, however, was an unearthly green.

Doc Savage removed his diving helmet and asked, “Explanations would be appreciated, Miss Hale.”

The green-haired blonde looked as put out as a spinster in a rowdy saloon.

“Whatever you do,” she said fiercely, “do not go down there.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Doc.

“Because
they
are down there,” she said thinly.

“Who are they?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? The U-Men—devils who dwell under the sea.”

Ham Brooks said curtly, “Stop giving us the runaround. What happened to your hair?”

The green-haired girl made a distasteful face. “Don’t ask me to explain that now.”

Doc Savage added, “We discovered the old ruin with the strange symbols carved into it.”

Hornetta said, “That was only a clue as to the location of this place. Those ruins are just the tip of the most terrible iceberg you could ever imagine.”

Her voice tone caused Doc to remark, “You have been issuing such dire warnings since we first encountered you. Is it not high time to reveal the facts behind your threats?”

“I… can’t,” she said with a struggle.

“Here we go again,” said Long Tom sourly.

“Do you recall how you got here?” demanded Doc.

“Recall it? I’ll probably never forget it! I was swimming for your boat when I could feel slimy hands grab my ankles and pull me down.”

“I take it these were the so-called Men Under the Sea?” Ham prodded.

“In all their fishy glory,” she shot back. “You have no idea what it’s like to be manhandled by those…things.”

“Where did they take you?” asked Doc. “And while you are answering, how did you get to this island?”

The former blonde spitfire sat down as if tired. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Ham sniffed, “The runaround again.”

She sighed very deeply and said, “I’m done.”

Doc regarded her steadily. “Done?”

“As in beaten. Defeated. Shanghaied. And marooned. Once more.”

“Say again?” asked Ham.

“This time I want to talk. I want to talk so badly my teeth hurt. But if I do, Honoria will suffer. Your cousin, too.”

“Where is Pat?” Doc asked sharply.

“Alive. That is all I can say.”

“Safe?” demanded Doc.

The girl shrugged sun-reddened shoulders. “Only as long as the Men Under the Sea keep her that way.”

They seemed at an impasse. Then the trouble-prone girl looked up with imploring blue eyes. These were very different orbs from those which had previously shot sparks every time they lanced in their direction.

“I suppose you figured out a lot of this already?” she murmured.

Doc advised the woman, “It suggests all this fuss is over a great treasure, yet to be unearthed.”

“You are not far from correct. About the treasure, I mean.”

“It is a wonder that we were not murdered when we were helpless,” Doc stated simply.

“You and me both, big boy.”

“In New York, every effort was made to slay us,” continued Doc. “But in this instance, we were transported to this island alive. It is very puzzling. Why were we spared?”