&&000 Doc Savage #1: The Man of Bronze &&111 There was Death afoot in the darkness. It crept furtively along a steel girder. Hundreds of feet below yawned glass and brick walled cracks -- =NewYork streets. Down there, late workers scurried homeward. Most of them carried umbrellas and did not glance upward. Even had they looked, they probably would have noticed nothing. The night was black as a cave bat. Rain threshed down monotonously. The clammy sky was like an oppressive shroud wrapped around the tops of the tall buildings. One skyscraper was under construction. It had been completed to the 80th floor. Some offices were in use. Above the 80th floor, an ornamental observation tower jutted up a full 150 feet more. The metal work of this was in place but no masonry had been laid. Girders lifted a gigantic steel skeleton. The naked beams were a sinister forest. It was in this forest that Death prowled. Death was a man! He seemed to have the adroitness of a cat at finding his way in the dark. Upward he crept. The girders were slick with rain and treacherous. The man's progress was gruesome in its vile purpose. From time to time, he spat strange, clucking words. A gibberish of hate! A master of languages would have been baffled trying to name the tongue the man spoke. A profound student might have identified the dialect. The knowledge would be hard to believe for the words were of a lost race -- the language of a civilization long vanished! "He must die, the man chanted hoarsely in his strange lingo! It is decreed by the Son of the Feathered Serpent! Tonight! Tonight Death shall strike" Each time he raved his paean of hate, the man hugged an object he carried closer to his chest. This object was a box -- black and leather-covered. It was about 4 inches deep and 4 feet long. "This shall bring death to him," the man clucked, caressing the black case! The rain beat him. Steel fanged space gaped below. One slip would be his death. He climbed upward yard after yard. Most of the chimneys which New Yorkers call office buildings had been emptied of their daily toilers. There were only occasional pale eyes of light gleaming from their sides. The labyrinth of girders baffled the skulker a moment. He poked a flashlight beam inquisitively. The glow lasted a bare instant, but it disclosed a remarkable thing about the man's hands. The fingertips were a brilliant red! They might have been dipped an inch of their length in a scarlet dye. The red fingered man scuttled onto a workmen's platform. The planks were thick. The platform was near the outside of the wilderness of steel. The man lowered his black case. His inner pocket disgorged compact, powerful binoculars. On the lowermost floor of a skyscraper many blocks distant, the crimson-fingered man focused his glasses. He started counting stories upward. The building was one of the tallest in New York. A gleaming spike of steel and brick, it rammed upward nearly a hundred stories. At the 86th floor, the sinister man ceased to count. His glasses moved right and left until they found a lighted window. This was at the west corner of the building. Only slightly blurred by the rain, the powerful binoculars disclosed what was in the room. The broad, polished top of a massive and exquisitely inlaid table stood directly before the window. Beyond it was the bronze figure! This looked like the head and shoulders of a man sculptured in hard bronze. It was a startling sight, that bronze bust! The lines of the features, the unusually high forehead, the mobile and muscular but not too full mouth, and the lean cheeks denoted a power of character seldom seen. The bronze of the hair was a little darker than the bronze of the features. The hair was straight and lay down tightly as a metal skullcap. A genius at sculpture might have made it. Most marvelous of all were the eyes. They glittered like pools of flake-gold when little lights from the table lamp played on them. Even from that distance, they seemed to exert a hypnotic influence through the powerful binocular lenses -- a quality that would cause the most rash individual to hesitate. The man with the scarlet tipped fingers shuddered. The amazing sound had the peculiar quality of seeming to come from everywhere within the room rather than from a definite spot as though permeated with an eerie essence of ventriloquism. A purposeful calm settled over =DocSavage's 5 men as they heard that sound. Their breathing became less rapid; their brains more alert. For this weird sound was part of =Doc -- a small, unconscious thing which he did in moments of utter concentration. To his friends it was both the cry of battle and the song of triumph. It would come upon his lips when a plan of action was being arranged, precoursing a master stroke which made all things certain. It would come again in the midst of some struggle when the odds were all against his men, when everything seemed lost. And with the sound, new strength would come to all and the tide would always turn. And again, it might come when some beleaguered member of the group -- alone and attacked -- had almost given up all hope of survival. Then that sound would filter through some way and the victim knew that help was at hand. The whistling sound was a sign of =Doc. Of safety. And of Victory! "Who got it," asked =Johnny? He could be heard settling his glasses more firmly on his bony nose. "No one," said =Doc. "Let us crawl, brothers crawl! That was no ordinary rifle bullet from the sound of it!" At that instant, a second bullet crashed into the room! It came not through the window but through some inches of brick and mortar which comprised the wall. Plaster sprayed across the thick carpet! =DocSavage was the last of the six to enter the adjoining room. But he was inside the room in less than 10 seconds! They moved with amazing speed, these men! =Doc flashed across the big Library. The speed with which he traversed the darkness -- never disturbing an article of furniture -- showed the marvelous development of his senses! No jungle cat could have done better. Expensive binoculars reposed in a desk drawer. A high-power hunting rifle was in a corner cabinet. In splits-of-seconds, =Doc had these and was at the window. He watched waited. No more shots followed the first two. 4 minutes 5 minutes =Doc bored into the night with the binoculars. He peered into every office window within range. There were hundreds. He scrutinized the spidery framework of the observation tower atop the skyscraper under construction. Darkness packed the labyrinth of girders, and he could discern no trace of the bushwhacker. "He's gone," =Doc concluded aloud. No sound of movement followed his words. Then the window shade ran down loudly in the room where they had been shot at. The 5 men stiffened then relaxed at =Doc's low call. =Doc had moved soundlessly to the shade and drawn it. =Doc was beside the safe and the lights were turned on when they entered. The window glass had been clouted completely out of the sash. It lay in glistening chunks and spears on the luxuriant carpet. The glowing message which had been on it seemed destroyed forever. "Somebody was laying for me outside," =Doc said with no worry at all in his well developed voice. "They evidently couldn't get just the aim they wanted at me through the window. When we turned out the light to look at the writing on the window, they thought we were leaving the building. So they took a couple of shots for wild luck." "Next time, =Doc, suppose we have bulletproof glass in these windows," =Renny suggested, the humor in his voice belying his dour look? "Sure," said =Doc dryly. "Next time! We're on the 86th floor and it's quite common to be shot at here." =Ham interposed a sarcastic snort. He bounced over -- waspish, quick-moving -- and nearly managed to thrust his slender arm through the hole the bullet had tunneled in the brick wall. "Even if you put in bulletproof windows, you'd have to be blame careful to set in front of them," he clipped dryly! =Doc was studying the hole in the safe door, noting particularly the angle at which the powerful bullet had entered. He opened the safe. The big bullet -- almost intact -- was embedded in the safe rear wall. =Doc looked swiftly aside at =Johnny. The gaunt archaeologist -- who knew a great deal about ancient races -- was scratching his head with thick fingers. He took off the glasses with the magnifying lens on the left side then nervously put them back on again. "It's incredible," he muttered! "The language that fellow speaks I think it is ancient Mayan. The lingo of the tribe that built the great pyramids at =ChichenItza -- then vanished. I probably know as much about that language as anybody on =Earth. Wait a minute and I'll think of a few words." But =Doc was not waiting. To the squat man, he spoke in ancient Mayan! Slowly halting having difficulty with the syllables, it was true but he spoke never the less understandably. And the squat man -- more excited than ever -- spouted more gutturals. =Doc asked a question. The man made a stubborn answer. "He won't talk," =Doc complained. "All he will say is a lot of stuff about having to kill me to save his people from something he calls the Red Death!" Astounded silence gripped the group. "You mean " =Johnny muttered, blinking through his glasses, "You mean this fellow really speaks the tongue of ancient Maya?" =Doc nodded. "He sure does." "It's fantastic," =Johnny grumbled! "Those people vanished hundreds of years ago. At least, all those that comprised the highest civilization did. A few ignorant peons were probably left. Even those survive to this day. But as for the higher-class Mayan" -- he made a gesture of something disappearing -- "=Poof! Nobody knows for sure what became of them." "They were a wonderful people," =Doc said thoughtfully. "They had a civilization that probably surpassed ancient Egypt." "Ask him why he paints his fingers red," =Monk requested, unfazed by talk of lost civilizations? =Doc put the query in the tongue-flapping Mayan tongue. The stocky man gave a surly answer. "He says he's one of the warrior sect," =Doc translated. "Only members of the warrior sect sport red fingertips." "Well, I'll be dag-gone," =Monk snorted! "He won't talk any more," =Doc advised. Then he added grimly, "We'll take him down to the office and see if he won't change his mind." Searching the prisoner, =Doc dug up a remarkable knife. It had a blade of obsidian -- a darksome, glass-like volcanic rock -- and the edge rivaled a razor in cutting qualities. The handle was simply a leather thong wrapped around and around the upper end of the obsidian shaft. This knife =Doc appropriated. He picked up the prisoner's double-barreled elephant rifle. The marvelous weapon was manufactured by the =WebleyandScott firm of England. =Monk eagerly took charge of the captive, booting him ungently out to the street and to their taxi. Swishing downtown through the rain and speaking through the taxi window, =Doc tried again to persuade the stocky prisoner to talk. The fellow disclosed only one fact. And =Doc had already guessed that. "He says he's really a Mayan," =Doc translated for the others. "Tell him I'll pull his ears off an' feed 'em to him if he don't come clean," =Monk suggested! Anxious himself to note the effect of torture threats on the Mayan, =Doc repeated =Monk's remarks. The Mayan shrugged and clucked in his native tongue. "He says," =Doc explained, "that the trees in his country are full of them like you. Only smaller. He means monkeys." =Ham let out a howl of laughter at that and =Monk subsided. Rain was threshing down less vigorously when they pulled up before the gleaming office building that spiked up nearly a hundred stories. Entering, they rode the elevator to the 86th floor. The Mayan again refused to talk. "If we just had some truth serum," suggested =LongTom, running pale fingers through his blond, Nordic hair. =Renny held up a monster fist. "This is all the truth serum we need. I'll show you how it works!" Big -- with sloping mountains of gristle for shoulders and long kegs of bone and tendon for arms -- =Renny slid over to the Library door. His fist came up. =Wham! Completely through the stout panel =Renny's fist pistoned! It seemed more than bone and tendon could stand. But when =Renny drew his knuckles out of the wreckage and blew off the splinters, they were unmarked. Unlike the tri-motor which had been destroyed, this plane was of the latest design. It was a tri-motor craft also. But the great engines were in eggs built directly into the wings. It was what pilots call a low-wing job with the wings attached well down on the fuselage instead of at the top. The landing gear was retractable -- folded up into the wings so as not to offer a trace of wind resistance. It was the ultra in an airman's steed, this supercraft. And 200 =mph was only its cruising speed. No small point was the fact that the cabin was soundproof, enabling =Doc and his friends to converse in ordinary tones. The really essential portion of their equipment was loaded into the rear of the speed-ship cabin. Packed compactly in light metal containers -- an alloy metal that was lighter even than wood -- each carton was fitted with straps for carrying. In a surprisingly short time, they picked up the clustered buildings of =Philadelphia. =Doc whipped the plane past a little East of city hall -- the center of the downtown business districts. Onward they swept to zoom down on an airport at the outskirts of =Washington. The landing =Doc made was feather-light -- a sample of his wizardry with the controls. He tailed the plane about with sharp whirls of the nose motor and taxied for the little airport administration office. In vain did he look about for his autogyro. =Ham should have left the windmill plane here had he already arrived. But the whirligig ship was not in evidence. An attendant -- a spick-and-span dude in a white uniform -- ran out to meet them. "Didn't =Ham show up here," =Monk demanded of the man? "Who?" "Brigadier General =TheodoreMarleyBrooks," =Monk explained! The airport attendant registered shock then great embarrassment at the words. He opened his mouth to speak. But instead, excitement made him merely stutter. "What has happened," =Doc asked in a gentle but powerful tone that compelled an instant answer? "The airport manager is holding a man over in the field office who says his name is Brigadier General =TheodoreMarleyBrooks," the attendant explained. "Holding him Why?" "The manager is also a deputy sheriff. We got a call that this fellow had stolen an autogyro from a man named =ClarkSavage. So we arrested him." =Doc nodded absently. He was clever, this unknown enemy of theirs. He had decoyed =Ham by a neat ruse. "Where is the autogyro," =Doc asked? "Why, this =ClarkSavage who telephoned the plane had been stolen asked us to send a man with it to bring him here and confront the thief." =Monk let out a loud snort. "You dumb dude! You're talkin' to =ClarkSavage!" The attendant stuttered again. "I don't understand ." "Someone foxed you," =Doc said without noticeable malice. "The pilot who flew that plane to get the fake =ClarkSavage may be in danger. Do you know where he went?" "The manager knows." They hurried over to the administration building. They found a =HamBrooks who was burning up. =Ham could ordinarily talk himself out of almost any situation, given a little time. But he hadn't made an impression on the blond, bullet-headed airport manager. =Doc handed =Ham a phone. "Get the nearest Army flying field, =Ham. See if you can raise me a pursuit ship fitted with machine-guns. It's against regulations, but ." "Hang regulations," =Ham snapped and seized the instrument! From the blond airport manager =Doc learned where the autogyro had gone to meet the man who had put over the trick. The spot was in =NewJersey. =Doc located it on the map. It was in the mountainous or, rather, the hilly western portion of =Jersey. =Ham cracked the telephone receiver onto its hook. "They're warming up a pursuit job for you, =Doc." It required less than 10 minutes for =Doc to ferry over to the Army drome plug his powerful frame into a cockpit saw the throttle back and take off. He had a regulation warplane now! Flying Northward, =Doc had a fair idea of the purpose of their enemy in decoying the autogyro. The place was within motor distance of =NewYork so the villainous unknown one would probably be on hand. He would destroy the autogyro, thus hampering =Doc and his friends all possible. =Ham's cane suddenly leveled at a spot directly between Don =RubioGorro's devil-like ears. "You've got another guess coming, my friend!" Don =Rubio began: "There is nothing that ." "Oh yes there is," =Ham poked his cane for emphasis! "When this government came into power, it was recognized by the =UnitedStates only on condition that the new regime respect property rights of American citizens in =Hidalgo. That right?" "Well ." "You bet it's right! And do you know what will happen if you don't live up to that agreement? The =US Government will sever relations and class you as a plain crowd of bandits. You couldn't obtain credit to buy arms and machinery and the other things you need to keep your political opponents in check. Your export trade would be hurt. You would . "But you know all that would happen as well as I do. In 6 months, your government would be out and a new one in. That's what it would mean if you refuse to respect American property. And if this land concession isn't American property, I'm a string on =Nero's fiddle!" Don =Rubio's swarthy face was flushed a smudgy purple even to his pointed ears. His hands trembled with rage. And worry. He knew all that =Ham was telling him was true. =UncleSam was not somebody to be fooled with! He seized desperately at a straw. "We cannot recognize your right because there is no record in our archives," he said wildly! =Ham slapped =Doc's papers on the desk. "These are 'record' enough. Somebody has destroyed the others. And I'll tell you something else. There are some people who will go to any length to keep us away from this land. They've already made attacks on us. No doubt it was they who destroyed the papers!" As he made that statement, =Ham watched Don =Rubio intently. He felt there was something behind Don =Rubio's attitude. He had felt that from the first. =Ham believed Don =Rubio was either one of the gang trying to keep =Doc from his heritage or had been hired by the gang. And Don =Rubio's agitation tended to corroborate =Ham's suspicion. "It's going to be just too bad for whoever is causing the trouble," =Ham stated. "We'll get them in the end!" Various emotions played on Don =Rubio's too-handsome, swarthy face. He was scared and worried. But gradually a desperate determination came uppermost. He clipped his lips together, shot out his jaw, and offered his final word. "There is nothing more to be said! You have no claim to that land! And that's final!" =Ham twiddled his cane and smiled ominously. "It will take me just about one hour to get a radio message to =Washington," he promised grimly. "Then, my friend, you'll see more diplomatic lightning strike around you than you ever saw before!" Leaving the government building, =Ham and =Monk ascertained the location of the radio station and set a course for it. Darkness had arrived while they were talking to Don =Rubio. The city -- quiet during the heat of the afternoon when they had entered -- was awakening. Carriages occupied by staid Castilians -- the blue blood of these Southern republics -- clattered over the rough streets. Here and there was an American car. "You talked kinda tough to that Don =Rubio gink, didn't you," =Monk suggested? "I thought you was always supposed to be polite to these Spaniards. Maybe if you'd handled him with gloves on, you'd have got somewhere." "=Hur-r-rump," said =Ham in his best courtroom manner! "I know how to handle men! That fellow Don =Rubio has no principles. I give politeness where politeness is due. And it is never due a crook!" "You said a mouthful," rumbled =Monk, for once forgetting himself and agreeing with =Ham! They soon found the anglings and meanderings of =BlancoGrande streets most bewildering. They had been told the radio station and message office was but a few hundred yards' walk. But when they had covered that distance, there was no sign of any radio station. "=Fooey we're lost," =Monk grunted and looked about for someone to accost regarding directions! There was only one man in the street. It was a shabby side thoroughfare in what -- as they only now perceived -- was a none too savory looking part of =BlancoGrande. The sole pedestrian was ahead of them, loitering along as though he had no place to go and plenty of time to reach there. =Johnny laughed. "I told =Monk that =Columbus tackling the Atlantic Ocean had a pipe compared to this." =Monk snorted. "You're crazy! Us settin' in comfortable seats in this plane and you call it somethin' hard! I don't see nothin' dangerous about it." "You wouldn't," =Ham said dryly! "If we should be forced down, you could take to the trees. The rest of us would have to walk. And a half-mile a day is good walking in that country under us!" Up in the pilot's well with =Doc, =Renny called, "Heads up, you eggs! We're getting close!" =Renny had checked their course figures again and again. He had calculated angles and inscribed lines on the map. And they were nearing their destination -- the tract of land that was =Doc's legacy! It lay directly ahead. And ahead was a mountain range more nodular and sheer than any they had sighted yet. Its foothill peaks were like stone needles. To the rampant sides of the mountains clung stringy patches of jungle, fighting for existence. The great speed plane bucked like a plains cayuse as it encountered the tremendous air currents set up by the precipitous wastes of stone below. This in spite of =Doc's masterful hand at the controls. An ordinary pilot would have succumbed to such treacherous currents. Or prudently turned back. It was as though they were flying the tumultuous heart of a vast cyclone. Hanging tightly to a wicker seat which was in turn strapped with metal to the plane fuselage, =Monk had become somewhat green under his ruddy brick complexion. Plainly, he had changed his ideas about the ease of their exploration method. Not that he was scared. But he was about as seasick as man ever became. "These devilish air currents explain why this region has not been mapped by plane," =Doc offered. 4 or 5 minutes later, he leveled an arm. "Look! That canyon should lead to the center of this tract of land we're hunting!" The eyes -- all of them -- followed =Doc's pointing arm. A narrow walled gash that seemed to sink a limitless depth into the mountain met their gaze. This cut was of bare stone -- too steep and too flint-like in hardness to support even a trace of green growth. The plane careened closer. So deep was the gash of a canyon that twilight swathed the lower recesses. =Renny -- keen of eye and using binoculars -- advised: "There is quite a stream of water running in the bottom of the canyon." Fearlessly, =Doc nosed the plane down. Another pilot would have banked away in terror from those malicious air currents. =Doc, however, knew just how much his plane could stand. Although the craft might be tossed about a great deal, they were all as yet quite safe as long as =Doc's hand was on the controls! Into the monster slash of a chasm, the plane rumbled its way. The motor thunder was tossed back in waves from the frowning walls. Suddenly air -- cooled by the small river rushing through the cut and thus contracting and forming a down current -- seemed to suck the plane into the depths. Wheeling and twisting, the speed ship plummeted among murky shadows. =Monk was now a striking example of the contention that sudden danger will cure seasickness. For he was entirely normal again. =Doc had the throttles against the wide-open pins. The 3 radial motors moaned and labored and the exhaust pipes lipped blue flame. The progress of the craft along the chasm was a procession of leaps and drops and side-whippings as though they were riding an amusement park Jack Rabbit or roller coaster. "It'll be a long old day before another gang of white explorers penetrate into this place," =Renny prophesied! =Doc's arm suddenly leveled like a bronze bar. "The Valley of the Vanished," he thundered! Quite suddenly, it had appeared before them ... the Valley of the Vanished! A widening in the strange, devilish chasm formed it. The Valley had roughly the shape of an egg. The floor was sloping and of such a steepness that to land a wheel-equipped plane on it would be an impossibility. There was only one spot of comparative levelness. And that was no greater than an acre or two in area. =LongTom kicked mightily backward. He peeled a shin. He and his assailants toppled among round rocks and soft dirt. One of =LongTom's claw-like hands found a rock. He popped it against a skull and knew by the feel of the blow that one of the red-fingered fiends was through with this World. Sheer weight of numbers mashed =LongTom out before he could do more damage. He was securely bound at wrist and ankle with stout cotton cords, then drawn into a helpless knot as his wrists and ankles were tied in a single wad. A red-fingered Mayan -- who had kept well away from the fight -- now came up. =LongTom recognized =MorningBreeze, chief of the fighting men. =MorningBreeze clucked a command in the Mayan tongue which =LongTom did not understand. Lifting =LongTom, they bore him around to the rear of the pyramid. They shoved through a high growth of brush, coming then to a circular flooring of stone blocks. In the center of this gaped a sinister, black, round aperture. =LongTom was left in doubt as to what this was for only a moment. =MorningBreeze picked up a pebble smirked evilly at =LongTom then tossed the rock into the round opening. One second dragged. Then another. The pebble must have fallen 200 feet! There was a loud clatter as it struck a rock bottom. Then out of the ghastly hole came a bedlam of hissings and grisly slithering noises! The hole was a sacrificial well! =LongTom recalled reading how the ancient Mayans had tossed human offerings into such wells. And the hissings and slitherings were snakes! Poisonous, beyond a doubt. There must be hundreds of them in the well bottom! =MorningBreeze callously gave a command. =LongTom suffered unutterable tortures as he was lifted and tossed bodily into the awful black opening! =MorningBreeze listened. A moment later came a horrible thump from the well bottom. The poisonous serpents hissed and slithered. =Morning Breeze and his evil followers turned away, highly pleased. Unknown to =LongTom when he left the sleeping quarters, =Ham had not been sleeping soundly. One eye drowsily open, =Ham had watched =LongTom pull on his trousers and go out. =Ham drowsed a while after that. But =LongTom's departure had done something to what little desire he had for sleep. So it was not long before =Ham also got up and pulled on his trousers. Thanks to the balmy night, no more clothing was needed. =Ham took his sword cane along, although for no particular reason. He just liked the feel of it in his hands. Outside, he saw no sign of =LongTom. But a little use of his keen brain told =Ham where the electrical wizard would be likely to stroll -- the most fascinating spot in the Valley of the Vanished, if one disregarded the really entrancing Mayan girls. The Golden Pyramid, of course! =LongTom -- like the rest of =Doc's men -- would not be wooing a Mayan damsel at this hour. They were not interested in women, these supreme adventurers. =Ham ambled toward the Pyramid, breathing in deeply of the lambent night air. He heard no sound -- certainly nothing to alarm him. He clipped the gaudy flower off a tropical vine with a jaunty swing of his cane. A split second later, =Ham was buried under an avalanche of red-fingered men! No gallant of old ever bared his steel quicker than =Ham unsheathed his sword cane. He got it out in time to skewer two of the devils who piled atop him! Outnumbered hopelessly, =Ham was bound and gagged. They carried =Ham to the sacrificial well and -- without a word -- threw him in! Poised on the well rim, =MorningBreeze listened until he heard the loud smash come up from the pit floor 200 feet below. The snakes -- disturbed -- made enraged noises. =MorningBreeze nodded and clucked to himself. Two of them gone! He gave another command. The 3 red-fingered warriors who had been killed by =LongTom and =Ham were hauled up. One after the other, the dead forms were pitched into the sacrificial well. 3 loud thumps and snake sounds arose. Very elated indeed, =MorningBreeze led his followers to get further victims. The treacherous air currents seized =Doc's plane and worried it like a =Kansas whirlwind would a piece of paper. Once -- despite his expertness -- =Doc found himself doing a complete wingover. He recovered and continued to climb out of the Valley of the Vanished. The air currents -- after an interminable battle -- became less violent. =Doc pointed the great ship's nose up more steeply. Suddenly the blue monoplane came hoicking down the sky lanes to the attack. Grayish wisps like spectral ropes suddenly streaked past =Doc's ship. Tracer bullets! The monoplane was evidently fitted with a machine gun synchronized to shoot through the propeller blades! =Doc had not expected that. The blue plane had not possessed such armament when it attacked him in =Belize. But he was not greatly perturbed. At his back was =Renny, whose equal with a machine gun would be hard to find. =Renny knew just how to lean into the firing weapon so as to withstand the recoil and still maintain an accurate aim. =Renny's Browning abruptly released a long, ripping burst. The blue monoplane rolled wildly to get clear of the slugs that searched horribly for its vitals! "Good work," =Doc complimented =Renny! Then it was =Doc's turn to side-slip -- skid his ship out of the procession of slugs that were eating vicious holes in the left wing end. The pilot of the blue plane was no tyro. Warily the ships jockeyed. =Doc's plane was infinitely the larger. But that was certainly no advantage. And its control surfaces were not designed for combat flying. The 2 crafts were nearly evenly matched, with =Doc having the great edge in speed on a straightaway. But this was no straightaway. Lead from the other ship chewed at the fuselage, well to the rear. "Now, =Renny!," =Doc breathed and stood his ship on one wingtip! =Renny's Browning hammered and forked one long tongue of red from the barrel. The burst punctured the pilot of the blue plane! The ship careened over, motor full on. It bored in a howling, unguided dive for the craggy mountaintop. Its antics were even wilder as the air currents gripped it. Far to one side it skittered, then back. A gigantic suction drew it down into the Valley of the Vanished. Striking in the deeper part of the lake, it raised a great geyser of foam. By the time =Doc had battled the rigorous air down to the lake surface, not a trace of the blue monoplane was to be seen. =Doc taxied over to the beach below the Pyramid. He sprang ashore and ran up the sloping floor of the valley. Directly for =MorningBreeze, =Doc raced. Now was the time for slam-bang stuff! =LongTom, =Johnny, =Ham, and =Monk had not been harmed as yet. But they were ringed around with agitated Mayans. They seemed to want to attack the white men as =MorningBreeze advised but at the same time were afraid of =Doc's wrath. For the resurrection had given them the idea =Doc was a superior being. He had just killed the blue bird, too! =MorningBreeze saw =Doc bearing down on him. Terror seized the squat, ugly-faced culprit. He shouted for his fellow warriors to protect him. 2 of these advanced. Two had short spears. Two had the terrible clubs with razor-sharp flakes of obsidian embedded in the heads. Emboldened by =MorningBreeze's shrieked orders, they rushed =Doc. And fully 15 more warriors -- all armed -- also joined the attack! What followed went into Mayan history. =Doc's bronzed body seemed to make a single move -- Forward! His great, powerful arms did things with a blurred, unbelievable speed. The 2 spearsmen reeled away without making a thrust. One had a face knocked almost flat by =Doc's fist. The other's right arm was broken and nearly jerked from his body. The 2 club wielders found themselves suddenly pushed forcibly together by 2 hands which apparently possessed the power of a hundred ordinary hands. Their heads banged. They saw stars and nothing else. =Doc grasped each of these unconscious warriors by the woven leather mantles they wore secured about their necks. He slung them -- blue girdles flopping -- into the midst of the other attackers. A full half-dozen of these went down -- mightily bruised and bewildered. The others milled, all tangled up with each other. Suddenly =Doc was among them! Not satisfied with overpowering the four, he pitched into the whole crew! Terrific blows came from his flashing fists! Red-fingered men began to drop in the milling, fighting mob. Piercing yells of pain arose! Now-and-then a Mayan would stumble off to his stone home, seized with the horrible Red Death. Perhaps a fourth of the tribe were already prostrate from the malady. Half the morning had gone when =Doc returned. He came via the roofs of the closely spaced houses, crossing the narrow streets with gigantic leaps that only he could manage. He was inside the stone house with his besieged friends before the Mayans even awakened to his nearness. The natives sent up a rumble of anger but did not advance. Tied with roots in a great bundle, Doc had brought many types of jungle herbs. With these, he set to work. He boiled some, cooked others, and treated some with acids. Slowly he refined the product. Noon came. The fourth of stricken Mayans had risen to a third. And with the increased rate of collapse, the temper of the besiegers was getting shorter. The red-fingered warriors had them believing that the death of the white men would solve their problem and vanquish the malady. "I think I've got it," =Doc said at last. "The cure!" "I'm out of gas," =Monk muttered. "How are we going to get out of here to treat them?" For answer, =Doc pocketed vials of the thin pale fluid he had concocted. "Wait here," he directed. He shoved the stone door ajar suddenly and stepped inside. The Mayans saw him and rumbled. A couple of spears sped through the air. But long before the obsidian spear tips shattered against the stone house, =Doc had vaulted to the roof and was gone. Furtively he prowled through the strange city. He found a Mayan who had been stricken and forcibly administered some of the pale medicine. At another home, he repeated the operation on an entire family. When molested by armed Mayans, he simply evaded them. His bronzed form would flash around a corner and all trace would be gone when the Mayans reached the spot. Once about mid-afternoon, he did show resistance to 3 red-fingered men who happened upon him treating a household of 5 Mayans. When =Doc left the vicinity, all 3 warriors were still unconscious from the blows he had delivered. Thus -- as furtively as though he were a criminal instead of the Angel of Mercy he was in reality -- he was forced to skulk and give by main strength the treatment he had devised. By nightfall, however, his persistence began to tell. Word spread that the bronze god of a white man was curing the Red Death! Thanks to his unique medical skill, =Doc's concoction was proving effective. By 9 o'clock, =LongTom could venture forth without danger and treat unfortunates with his health-ray apparatus. This had remarkable properties for healing tissue burned out by the ravages of the Red Death. "=Doc says the Red Death is a rare tropical fever," =LongTom explained to the greatly interested Princess =Monja. "Originally it must have been the malady of some jungle bird. Probably similar to an epidemic known as parrot fever which swept the =UnitedStates a year or two ago." "Mr =Savage is a remarkable man," the young Mayan woman murmured! =LongTom nodded soberly. "There is not a thing he can't do, I reckon." A week passed. During that time, =DocSavage's position among the Mayans not only returned to what it had been before the epidemic of the Red Death but also far surpassed that. As man after man of the yellow-skinned people recovered, a complete change of feeling came about. =Doc was the hero of every stone home. They followed him about in droves, admiring his tremendous physique and imitating his little manners. They even spied upon him taking his inevitable exercise in the mornings. By the end of the week, half the Mayans in the city were also taking exercises! =Renny -- who never took any exercise except to knock things to pieces with his great fists -- thought it very funny. "Exercise never hurt anybody. Unless they overdid it," =Doc told him. The red-fingered warriors were a chagrined lot. In fact, =MorningBreeze lost a large part of his following. His erstwhile satellites scrubbed the red stain off their fingers; threw their blue maxtlis or girdles away, and forsook the fighting sect with King =Chaac's consent. "Where you goin'," =Renny wanted to know? "To explore. I am very curious about this place." =DocSavage took =Johnny and =Monk with him as he wended into the depths of the Golden Pyramid. He was surprised at the amount of wear the steps underfoot showed. In spots, they were pitted to half their depth. It must have taken thousands of human feet to do that! The sovereign of the Mayans -- King =Chaac -- had said only he knew of the existence of this place. That meant it had not been used extensively for generations -- possibly not for hundreds of years. For information about a place such as this would be handed down from father-to-son for ages. At a spot which =Doc's expert sense of distance told him was several feet below the surface of the surrounding ground, they entered a large room. =Doc noted a cleverly constructed stone pipe which bore the water that fed the pool on top of the Pyramid. This crossed the room and vanished into another, larger chamber beyond. This latter was a gigantic hallway, narrow and low of roof but of unfathomable length. In fact, it was more of a tremendous tunnel. It stretched some hundreds of yards, then was lost in a turn upward. Down the middle of it ran the finely constructed stone conduit carrying water. In this subterranean corridor, King =Chaac and pretty Princess =Monja waited with their subjects. The entrancing young Mayan princess had retained her nerve remarkably well during the attack. Her golden skin was a trifle pale. But there was no nervousness in her manner. King =Chaac was maintaining a mien befitting a ruler. =Doc drew the aged Mayan sovereign aside. "Would you care to guide =Johnny and =Monk and myself into the depths of this cavern?" The Mayan hesitated. "I would, gladly! But my people they might think that I had deserted them in their need." That was good reasoning, =Doc admitted. He had about decided to go on alone with =Monk and =Johnny when King =Chaac spoke again. "My daughter -- Princess =Monja -- knows as much of these underground passages as I do. She can guide you." That was agreeable to =Doc. It seemed very welcome to Princess =Monja, too! They set off at once. "This has the appearance of having been built and used centuries ago," =Doc offered. Princess =Monja nodded. "It was. When the Mayan race was in its glory -- rulers of all this great region -- they built this tunnel and the Pyramid outside. 100,000 men were kept working steadily through the span of many lifetimes according to the history handed down to my father and myself." =Johnny murmured wonderingly. =Johnny had been taking notes on bits of little-known Mayan lore, intending to write a book if he ever got time. He probably never would. Princess =Monja continued. "This has been a guarded secret for centuries. It has been handed down through the rulers of the Mayans in the Valley of the Vanished. Only the rulers! Until a few minutes ago when the attack came, only my father and myself knew of it." "But why all the secrecy," Johnny inquired? "Because word of its existence might reach the Outer World." "Huh," =Johnny was puzzled? Princess =Monja smiled slyly. "Wait. I will show you why knowledge that this existed would inflame the Outside World." They had reached the upswing in the tunnel, having covered many hundred yards. =Doc knew they were far under the walls of the chasm that hid the Valley of the Vanished. Suddenly Princess =Monja halted. She pointed and spoke in a voice low and husky. "There is the reason! There is the Gold you are to have, Mr =Savage. The Gold you are to expend in doing good throughout the World!" =Johnny and =Monk were staring. Their eyes protruded. They were stunned until they could not even voice astonishment. =DocSavage himself -- in spite of his marvelous self-control -- felt his head swim. It was unbelievable! Before them, the corridor had widened. It became a vast room. Solid rock made walls, floor, roof. The rock showed veinings of GOLD! It was the same kind of rock of which the Pyramid was made!