TEXT:  THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
  
  Table of Contents
  THE CRIMSON SERPENT..............................................................................................................................1
  A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson......................................................................................1
  Chapter I. SWAMP TERROR.................................................................................................................1
  Chapter II. CHAINS CLANK..................................................................................................................6
  Chapter III. A THREAT........................................................................................................................11
  Chapter IV. A GIRL CALLS.................................................................................................................15
  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY....................................................................................19
  Chapter VI. A SURPRISE ATTACK....................................................................................................25
  Chapter VII. A PICTURE IS STOLEN.................................................................................................30
  Chapter VIII. "DOC SAVAGE IS DEAD!"..........................................................................................35
  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP..........................................................................................................39
  Chapter X. SURROUNDED..................................................................................................................45
  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR.....................................................................................................................50
  Chapter XII. A TRAP............................................................................................................................56
  Chapter XIII. A TORTURE ROOM......................................................................................................60
  Chapter XIV. PONCE DE LEON’S GOAL..........................................................................................64
  Chapter XV. A HEAD FALLS..............................................................................................................69
  Chapter XVI. TWO MORE FALL........................................................................................................74
  Chapter XVII. HAM PLEADS HIS CASE...........................................................................................78
  Chapter XVIII. A CALL FOR HELP....................................................................................................84
  Chapter XIX. DOOMED!......................................................................................................................89
  Chapter XX. SECRETS EXPOSED......................................................................................................95
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  THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  A Doc Savage Adventure by Kenneth Robeson
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  http://www.blackmask.com
  Chapter I. SWAMP TERROR
  • 
  Chapter II. CHAINS CLANK
  • 
  Chapter III. A THREAT
  • 
  Chapter IV. A GIRL CALLS
  • 
  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
  • 
  Chapter VI. A SURPRISE ATTACK
  • 
  Chapter VII. A PICTURE IS STOLEN
  • 
  Chapter VIII. "DOC SAVAGE IS DEAD!"
  • 
  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP
  • 
  Chapter X. SURROUNDED
  • 
  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR
  • 
  Chapter XII. A TRAP
  • 
  Chapter XIII. A TORTURE ROOM
  • 
  Chapter XIV. PONCE DE LEON’S GOAL
  • 
  Chapter XV. A HEAD FALLS
  • 
  Chapter XVI. TWO MORE FALL
  • 
  Chapter XVII. HAM PLEADS HIS CASE
  • 
  Chapter XVIII. A CALL FOR HELP
  • 
  Chapter XIX. DOOMED!
  • 
  Chapter XX. SECRETS EXPOSED
  • 
  Chapter I. SWAMP TERROR
  A CAMP cook was the first to disappear. Nothing much  was thought of that. The cook was believed to have a
  weakness for swamp  "corn." It was decided he had been the victim of an accident. That he  probably had
  stepped into a sink−hole in the darkness.
  Afterward, it was learned that that was a mistake.
  A youth, hired as a handy man about one of the camps, vanished next.  He took a rifle late one afternoon and
  entered the swamp to see if he  could kill some squirrels for supper.
  He never came back.
  Some uneasy comment followed that. But the youth was known to have  been of the restless, wandering type.
  Finally, it was believed he had  just jumped this job and gone on.
  Then the first rumors were heard.
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  The earliest stories mentioned chains and strange clanking sounds in the night. Government engineers on the
  job grinned broadly.  The swamp men they were using as helpers didn’t grin at all. They  looked queerly
  apprehensive, and that was odd. They weren’t the type of  men that frightened easily.
  A few days later came the rumor of a peculiarly venomous type of  snake. At least it was supposed to be a
  snake.
  Swamp men called it "The Crimson Serpent!"
  The natives now looked almost terror−stricken. Singly and in pairs  they quit their jobs. Within a week almost
  half of them had vanished  into the dark recesses of the swamp.
  That was serious enough.
  And then came the first definite evidence of the weird terror of the  swamp! It came with terrible suddenness.
  It left another man dead,  horribly dead. It changed young Bill Craig from a strong, husky  engineer into a
  trembling shadow of fear!
  EVERYONE had anticipated trouble. But not even the most pessimistic  had any idea of the strange,
  malignant thing that was to be encountered.
  The job was a flood−control project. And flood−control work,  particularly where it means building dams and
  inundating a considerable  section of territory, always brings difficulties.
  In this case, even more than the usual trials and tribulations had  been expected. The area to be affected was
  the almost inaccessible,  impassable swamp in the southeastern part of Arkansas, between the  Mississippi and
  Ouachita rivers. The residents of that swamp were far  from friendly to State or government officials of any
  kind.
  Those in charge realized that. They had gone to the one man they  believed could help them.
  They had asked the aid of Doc Savage.
  Doc Savage was known by reputation even to the swamp dwellers. They  knew they could trust him. Doc had
  assured them the engineers would not  be accompanied by Federal officers, that there would be no attempt to
  hunt down petty law violators.
  He even had one of his own men, Colonel John Renwick, known as  Renny, appointed as chief engineer for
  the necessary survey work, so  that any trouble between the swamp dwellers and the government men  could
  be ironed out promptly.
  That was all Doc thought there was to it.
  Young Bill Craig knew the swamp men, also. He was a graduate of  Yale, but he had been born and reared in
  Arkansas.
  Young Bill was one of the few engineers who did not laugh at the  whispered stories of the natives. Strange
  stories had come out of the  swamp for years, but this one seemed too real, too vivid, to be  dismissed easily.
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  It was with difficulty he forced himself to go out on the job. The  swamp seemed more fearsome, more
  dangerous than ever before. His men  were strangely silent.
  As the morning hours slipped by, his nerves became more and more  tense. It seemed as if the swamp were
  waiting. Waiting for some  terrible thing to occur.
  A premonition of coming disaster gripped him.
  Young Bill Craig tried to dismiss that premonition as he pushed  farther and farther into the swamp. It didn’t
  do any good. The feeling  of dread continued to grow.
  Probably because he could speak their language, Young Bill still had  his crew intact. Two natives were along
  to cut through the tall grass  and thick vines so that he could use his micrometer theodolite. A  couple more
  handled the long steel tapes. Nearby were two guides in the  long, slender boats that were used in the bayous.
  Near sunset, Bill Craig thought it became unusually quiet. The swamp  men seemed to be listening, with ears
  strained.
  The sound itself came without warning. It resembled that of a  logging chain being dragged over rough
  ground, so that the links  clanked together.
  Bill Craig was leaning over, peering through the telescope of the  theodolite. One of the swamp men happened
  to be facing him as he jerked  erect.
  Utter terror was pictured on the other’s leathery face!
  For a time no one moved. Then Jute gave a nervous laugh. Jute was  one of the guides. He was fingering a
  long−barreled rifle and looking  in the direction from which the sound of the clanking chain had come.  That
  laugh freed Bill Craig’s frozen muscles.
  "What is it?" he asked sharply.
  Jute sent a stream of tobacco juice against the thick trunk of a  cypress tree, but did not answer. He was a lean,
  lanky man wearing  faded overalls.
  Bill Craig glanced at the others. They had regained control of their  features, but they couldn’t hide the look
  almost of panic that lurked  far back in their eyes.
  Had Bill Craig been older and more experienced, he might have pushed  his question. Then again, he probably
  wouldn’t. He knew enough of the  swamp dwellers to know he stood more chance of getting information if  he
  let them volunteer it than if he tried to force them to talk.
  He gave his big shoulders what he hoped was an indifferent shrug and  turned back to the theodolite.
  "Back to work." he rapped. "We’ve still got an hour before dusk."
  When he looked up some moments later, he noticed that Jute had  disappeared. He hadn’t heard him go, but
  then Jute knew how to handle a  boat noiselessly.
  Bill Craig smiled with satisfaction. That was more like it. Jute, of  all of them, had seemed least impressed by
  the sound they had heard. He  had spent his life in the swamps, and was quite capable of taking care  of
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  himself. Undoubtedly he would reappear soon with some quite simple  explanation of the chain rattle.
  Then a new sound came. It was a metallic sound, also, but one such  as Bill Craig had never heard before. If
  he hadn’t known better, he  would have sworn that it was a sound such as would have been made by  men
  marching in armor.
  It was only seconds after that when the screams began!
  It was just dusk. That made it harder to tell distance or direction.  Besides, sound carries far over water.
  The screams didn’t sound human. But Bill Craig knew no animal could  make such sounds. They were too
  frenzied, too filled with unbearable  agony.
  Yet it didn’t seem possible that anything could make Jute, if it was  Jute, scream like that.
  The young engineer stood frozen for several moments. Then he turned  to leap toward the other guide and the
  second boat.
  He was just in time to see that boat flash away.
  Bill Craig’s hesitation had been short, but it had been long enough  for the rest of his crew to reach the boat.
  He was left alone.
  Young Bill yelled. Then he cursed. He did a good job at both. The  boat did not pause. It went away. As near
  as Bill could tell, it was  going in a direction opposite to that from which the screams were  coming.
  Physical danger was something Bill Craig did not fear. He had a  small gun in his belt for use in killing
  snakes. He got this gun out  and began to run to help Jute.
  He could still hear the screams. They were fainter now, but no less  horrifying.
  Before Bill Craig realized where he was going, he fell off the  hammock of ground and went into the water. It
  was stagnant water,  filled with crawly things.
  It took him some time to get back to land. He found he had lost his  gun. The screams stopped.
  For a moment, panic seized the engineer. The only way to get out of  the swamp was by boat. He had no boat,
  and something horrible was near  at hand.
  He floundered about aimlessly. Twice more he fell into water. Then  he stopped. He stopped because he heard
  again the sound of a clanking  chain.
  The sound was close by, but it was almost dark and he could see  nothing. He made himself as small as
  possible, shivering. After a while  the sound of the chain faded.
  BILL CRAIG didn’t know a night could be so long. He was almost  thankful for the swarms of mosquitoes
  that buzzed about him. They kept  him awake and kept him busy slapping. Occasionally he could hear some
  animal moving about. Once he heard the piercing scream of a cougar.
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  Unknown peril seemed lurking on all sides. He didn’t even dare light  a cigarette.
  Something was horribly wrong, and his only hope was that he might  live to tell about it. There was no
  question in his mind but that Jute  was dead.
  As soon as the first rays of daylight came he fished out a compass  and started to work his way back to
  civilization. The path that had  been cut through the vines and grass helped some, but he couldn’t  follow a
  straight line. There were too many bayous to cross, and he  knew cotton−mouth moccasins were plentiful.
  It was almost noon when he found Jute’s boat. The boat evidently had  drifted down one of the winding creeks
  until it had tangled up in the  low−hanging limb of a big tree.
  Jute’s rifle was in the bottom of the boat. Bill Craig felt a little  better when he got his hands on that. Then he
  remembered that the rifle  evidently hadn’t done Jute any good, and he felt afraid again.
  Despite his fear, he poled the boat back up the creek. He kept as  near in the center of the bayou as he could,
  and had the rifle where he  could grab it instantly.
  He almost missed finding Jute at that. Then he wished that he had  missed him.
  The lanky guide appeared to be standing up with his back against a  tree. The only thing was that his feet
  dangled several feet above the  water.
  After a bit, Young Bill saw why Jute didn’t fall. Vines were wrapped  about his body. They were rattan vines,
  and appeared to be encircling  Jute just as they encircled trees on all sides.
  One loop of the vines was about Jute’s throat. It was very tight.  Jute couldn’t have done much screaming after
  that vine had encircled  him. The guide’s face pictured almost unbelievable pain and horror.
  Bill Craig saw the rest of it then, and turned a little sick.
  Jute’s shirt was gone. A big red snake, its head buried in the  flesh, appeared clinging to the guide’s skinny
  chest.
  The young engineer jerked up the rifle. He almost pulled the trigger  before he saw it wasn’t a snake on Jute’s
  chest at all. It just looked  that way.
  Bill Craig had to get over being sick before he could get closer and  make the examination he knew had to be
  made.
  What he saw made him sick all over again. Frantically he turned,  poled the boat away. Jute’s body would
  have to be recovered, but he  wanted someone else to inspect it before it was moved.
  Hair rose on the back of Bill Craig’s neck. He had the eerie feeling  that deadly, venomous eyes were
  watching him. Unreasoning fear gripped  him.
  For he knew that the mark of the red snake had not been left on  Jute’s body by any animal.
  It might be called "The Crimson Serpent" by the swamp men�but the  Crimson Serpent was human.
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  Chapter II. CHAINS CLANK
  COLONEL JOHN RENWICK, known to his friends as Renny, found Bill  Craig just as the young engineer
  was about to emerge from the swamp.
  Renny was another who had not scoffed at the rumors he had heard,  although he had not credited them,
  either. When Bill Craig had failed  to return to camp, Renny had gone to look for him.
  Bill Craig was big, but he appeared small compared with the giant  aid of Doc Savage.
  It was some time before Renny could get Bill Craig calmed enough to  tell a coherent story. At first all Bill
  Craig could do was babble:
  "The Crimson Serpent! The Crimson Serpent!"
  But Renny knew how to handle hysteria. His features hard, his mouth  thin and grim, Renny’s huge opened
  palms smacked the other crisply on  either cheek.
  The blows did not appear hard, but Bill Craig’s head rocked from  side to side as if hit by a sledge hammer.
  Reason returned to his eyes.
  "I�I’m sorry," he stammered,
  "Tell me about it," Renny said. His voice was surprisingly gentle.
  Bill Craig’s nerve returned. After all, this was one of Doc Savage’s  men, the one who had faced countless
  dangers unafraid. Hesitantly at  first, but with rapidly reviving courage, the young engineer told what  he had
  heard and seen.
  "Holy cow!" said Renny when the story was complete.
  For a time the giant said nothing more. His thin lips were even  tighter. Then: "We’ll go see," he rumbled.
  Bill Craig gulped. He thought of mentioning the feeling he’d had of  unseen eyes, venomous eyes, watching
  him. He changed his mind. Without  a word he held the boat steady while Renny got in, then turned back  into
  the swamp.
  ORDINARILY, Renny enjoyed going through the swamp. Unlike many, he  got a secret thrill out of the
  practically primeval wilderness.
  This time he didn’t. For once, the swamp seemed ominous. Renny,  also, felt that beady, unwinking eyes were
  watching them. He didn’t  mention it, either.
  Renny believed Bill Craig’s story. The young engineer wasn’t the  kind to be easily frightened. Only one
  thing didn’t seem reasonable.  That was Young Bill’s description of the wound in Jute’s chest.
  That wound, Bill Craig insisted, looked as if it had been made by  human teeth.
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  Renny’s puritanical features became more severe. That was something  he’d have to see for himself before he
  could credit it.
  Bill Craig’s back became tense. "Almost there," he whispered.
  Renny said nothing, but he didn’t see anything unusual about the  other whispering. He felt the same way
  himself. The huge, overhanging  cypress created an artificial gloom. The air was hot and humid, filled  with
  the heavy peculiar odor of bay trees. From somewhere near came the  flat splash of an alligator.
  The boat rounded a bend. An almost inarticulate sound came from Bill  Craig. The young engineer’s face
  whitened. One arm raised, pointed  toward a big tree.
  "It−it−t−the−body is gone!" he gasped.
  RENNY’S expression did not change. It was almost as if he had been  expecting such a development. But he
  asked:
  "You’re sure this is the spot?"
  Bill Craig nodded wordlessly. Close inspection showed he was  correct. There were dark−brown stains on one
  of the rattan vines about  the tree.
  "Friends may have found him," Renny said. The big engineer spoke  calmly, but he didn’t feel that way. And
  he didn’t believe Jute’s  friends had come back for him, either.
  Neither did Young Bill. "But−but�" he started.
  "I’m going to notify Doc," Renny added softly. "This is a case for  him."
  They got out of there swiftly. Renny’s enormous arms helped drive  the boat at an astounding pace. It didn’t
  take them long to get back to  camp.
  Bill Craig was almost light−hearted, Doc Savage was to be summoned.  Everything would be all right.
  Young Bill had never seen Doc Savage, but he’d heard much of him.  Everyone had, he guessed. There were
  so many stories told about him  that he was almost a legendary figure.
  It was exciting enough to work for Colonel Renwick, but to have Doc  Savage on the scene also� 
  Bill Craig’s eyes shone. He wasn’t beyond the age of hero worship.  Now he was going to get to see the
  famous Clark Savage, Jr., himself.
  If half the stories they told about him were true, then the menace  of the swamp, whatever it was, was as good
  as conquered. That was the  way Bill Craig felt.
  Doc Savage was known as master of many sciences. He was recognized  as one of the outstanding physicians
  and surgeons. But it wasn’t of  these things Bill Craig was thinking.
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  He was thinking of Doc Savage, the adventurer, of the Doc Savage who  was the unrelenting foe against the
  forces of evil. With his five aids,  of whom Renny was one, Doc Savage was known the world over as the man
  who had conquered perils that had threatened nations.
  So busy were his thoughts that it came as a surprise to Bill Craig  to find they had left the swamp behind.
  The camp had been laid out on solid ground just outside the  wilderness. It was some miles from the closest
  town, but served as a  base for operations.
  A series of wooden shacks had been thrown up. There was one big  building, Renny used that as his
  headquarters, where he correlated the  work of the engineers. Near it was a long structure that was used as a
  mess hall.
  Smoke was coming from the mess hall stovepipe. The few workers left  in camp were at lunch.
  "Tell them nothing," Renny ordered crisply. "It won’t do to have  this getting out until we know what it is all
  about."
  Bill Craig nodded. Renny turned toward his office, reaching for his  keys. A small, compact short−wave radio
  sending and receiving set was  there. All Doc’s aids had similar sets. With them, they could  communicate
  with Doc Savage no matter where they were.
  Renny stopped suddenly. His jaw dropped. He’d left his office door  closed and locked. It was open now. A
  stranger sat inside, feet cocked  jauntily on a desk.
  RENNY’S monstrosity of fists made tight balls. He advanced  menacingly.
  "It ees not permeeted to hit a gentleman of the press," the stranger  said lazily.
  Renny’s advance stopped. The belligerence went out of his eyes. He  looked as near stupid as was possible.
  "Holy cow! Why didn’t you say so before?" he grumbled. He went on  without pause: "Work is comin’ along
  as good as would be expected, but  it’s quite a job. You can say�"
  The other’s feet came off the table, hit the floor. He held up one  hand. He was a small man with black hair
  plastered close to his head.  He was almost elegantly dressed. A perfumed handkerchief was jammed  into the
  breast pocket of his coat. He showed very white teeth as he  grinned.
  "Très bon,
  a very good act, Colonel Renwick," he complimented. "But it ees of  the red serpent and the murder that I
  weesh to know." 
  Renny blinked rapidly, but that was all. "Your name?" he rapped.
  "Georges Douter." The little man bowed, "Federation Press man for  thees district, and a very good reporter."
  Renny sighed. "I was afraid of that," he said. His manner became  confidential. "Can’t you lay off for a day or
  so? Then maybe I’ll have  a real story to give you. If you spring anything now, you’ll scare off  what few
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  workers I’ve got left, might even defeat the ends of justice�"
  He broke off suddenly, and his lips became thin again, his voice  cold. "Just how did you know there had been
  a murder, anyway?" he  snapped.
  Georges Douter smirked. "Naturally I know some of the natives, even  in the swamp. Rumors have come to
  my ears. Now if you’ll just confirm  them?"
  Renny’s jaw snapped shut. "I’ve nothing to say."
  The other bowed again, grinned sardonically. "That ees confirmation  enough. I shall send out my story."
  He started toward the door. Renny’s hand shot forward, he appeared  to reach out and nab the little man. Then
  he stepped aside. Georges  Douter laughed and walked out. Renny watched him as he went to the edge  of the
  clearing and disappeared. A few moments later he heard the sound  of an auto.
  A thin ridge appeared in Renny’s forehead. He wondered just who  had put on the best act.
  Georges Douter had talked with a French accent. That was all right.  Lots of residents of the Mississippi
  bottom lands in this district  spoke French. He might even be a native of the district. For that  matter, he might
  even have heard of the red serpent and Jute’s murder  as he said he had.
  But he wasn’t a newspaperman.
  RENNY had encountered plenty of reporters in his time. He had even  known a few, mostly cubs, who carried
  guns. But he had never met one  who carried a gun on his hip, another in a shoulder holster and a knife
  sheathed under his coat at the back of his neck.
  That was too much arsenal even for the greenest cub.
  No, Georges Douter was not a reporter. But Renny had seen no reason  for disclosing that he had learned that
  fact. The big engineer had  discovered long ago that hasty action often was unwise.
  But the whole thing was getting more complicated. Doc should be  notified without loss of time. He walked
  toward a rear room where he  had installed the radio sending−outfit.
  A moment later and he was racing back out of the building. He ran  toward the spot where he had last seen
  Georges Douter, even though he  knew it was useless. His fists were clenched. It was one of his tricks  to break
  oaken panels of doors with those fists. Right now he wanted to  use them to smear the features of the dapper
  little fake reporter.
  The radio set had been sabotaged. It wouldn’t work.
  Georges Douter grinned as he heard the words Renny was using. He  didn’t understand American idiom
  enough to recognize all the phrases,  but the tone of the big man’s voice was sufficient to indicate what  they
  probably meant.
  The little man wasn’t far away. In fact, he’d moved back to the edge  of the clearing, where he had a good
  view of the camp. But he was well  hidden.
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  He’d driven his car into a hiding place where he was confident it  wouldn’t be found. Then he had raced back
  to one end of the camp ground  and burrowed under a thick bush. He didn’t seem concerned over how his
  clothes would look when he got out.
  He had a gun out when Renny came back into view walking toward the  office building. But he didn’t use it.
  The engineers who had been in the mess hall had raced out when they  heard Renny shouting. They took one
  look at the big engineer’s face and  quietly returned to their lunch.
  That is, all but Bill Craig. Bill Craig followed Renny. Together  they inspected the radio transmitter.
  "You could drive into town and call up," Bill Craig suggested.
  "Go look at our cars," Renny advised.
  Bill Craig did so. He returned in a few minutes looking rather pale.  Three ancient flivvers were used as
  transportation for the engineers.  The carburetor floats were missing from all three. That was something  baling
  wire wouldn’t fix. It was only two hours’ drive to the nearest  town. It would take a day to walk the distance.
  "Don’t say anything about it," Renny rumbled.
  "It−it doesn’t make sense," Bill Craig faltered.
  "Of course not!" Renny snapped. He had the transmitting set apart,  was making two drawings. "But why
  don’t you think so?"
  "The murder of Jute, all the strange sounds and things I heard,  might just have been a plot to run us off this
  job, to get us out of  the swamp," Young Bill said swiftly.
  "Yeah?"
  "Yes. But if that was it, why then would an effort be made to keep  us from getting into communication with
  anyone, and particularly to  keep us from getting out of here. That is, unless�" Bill Craig’s voice  faltered
  suddenly.
  "Unless what?" Renny asked, more kindly.
  "�unless someone, something�intends to kill us all," Bill  Craig breathed.
  Renny did not answer for a moment. Then he handed the young engineer  one of the two drawings.
  "Can’t you think of anything pleasant?" he roared. "Here! You make  this part. I’ll make the other. Only two
  important doodads are busted  on this set. If we’re any good at all we’ll have it working by night."
  Renny’s voice had excellent carrying power. Georges Douter heard his  words without difficulty.
  A peculiar expression crossed the little man’s face. Without haste,  he wiggled his way back out of the bush
  that concealed him. Then he  slipped through bushes and trees until he came to the car he had  secreted. He
  curled up in the rear seat and went to sleep.
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  Consequently, he didn’t see Renny when the big engineer dodged out  of the camp an hour or so later. No one
  else saw Renny either. His  actions after that were peculiar. He completely circled the camp. Once  in a while
  he stopped. Each time he stopped he was very busy. His arms  had been loaded with small packages when he
  left the camp. When he  returned, they were empty.
  Of all this, Georges Douter was unaware. It was growing dark when  the little man awoke. He glanced at a
  wrist watch and gave a grunt of  satisfaction. Then he inspected the two guns he carried, made sure they  were
  ready for action.
  After that he waited.
  He didn’t have long to wait.
  The sound of clanking chains came just as the sun disappeared.
  Chapter III. A THREAT
  BILL CRAIG had just completed work on his part for the broken radio  transmitter. He said, "Damn!" quite
  emphatically.
  Renny nodded somber agreement, his features more  puritanical−appearing than ever.
  "The message to Doc will have to wait," the big engineer said.
  He reached to a high shelf, removed two peculiar−appearing weapons.  They seemed to be oversized pistols,
  with large drums mounted on the  top. He gave one of them to Bill Craig.
  The weapons were those often used by Doc and his men. They threw  shells with extraordinary rapidity.
  Sometimes they were loaded with  mercy bullets�bullets that merely brought unconsciousness, a type that
  barely penetrated the skin, then released a drug that caused the coma.  On other occasions they were loaded
  with an explosive type of bullet  that had great penetrating power as well as causing a tremendous blast.
  This time they were loaded only with the mercy bullets.
  Sound of the clanking chains had been heard by others in the camp as  well. Those who had scoffed at the
  natives for being superstitious  suddenly became very self−conscious. They glanced at each other  quickly,
  then began to talk loudly, endeavoring by sheer lung power to  overcome the fear they felt.
  "Don’t take any chances," Renny warned. "But try to get close to  whatever is making that noise. When you
  are close, don’t hesitate�open  fire at once."
  Bill Craig’s head bobbed agreement The young engineer was pale, but  his lips were almost as tight as those
  of Renny.
  Renny turned out the lights in the building and the two slipped  outside.
  The chain sound had come only once. A second sound came as Bill  Craig and Renny moved noiselessly
  toward the swamp. It was the same  noise the young engineer had heard the night before, a metallic sound
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter III. A THREAT
  11
  
  such as he had imagined men might make while walking in armor.
  Renny’s thin lips split in a noiseless whistle. He ducked low and  dodged forward rapidly.
  Georges Douter had circled the camp and was near the edge of the  swamp also. The little man had one of his
  guns in his hand, but he  acted as if he did not expect to use it.
  His teeth showed as he heard Renny and Bill Craig plunging onward.  He squatted on his heels and waited
  expectantly.
  A gigantic roar almost split his eardrums. It was the bull−fiddle  roar of one of the queer weapons Renny had
  produced.
  The roar stopped abruptly. In the same instant there was a blinding  flare of light. It burst just beyond the edge
  of the swamp, but was  gone so swiftly Georges Douter was unable to see a thing. He couldn’t  see anything
  for several seconds afterward, either.
  The scream came a moment after the light had faded. It was a  high−pitched, frenzied shriek. It stopped at the
  highest point. It was  not renewed.
  Clanking of metal sounded almost immediately afterward. It faded  into the distance rapidly.
  GEORGES DOUTER had not moved. He remained in a crouching position,  his gun still held negligently.
  A minor eruption took place at the camp. Lights flared on from many  sides. Men rushed out of the buildings.
  Most of them had rifles. A  ragged volley of shots was fired into the swamp before saner heads  quieted the
  hysteria.
  "Colonel Renwick? Bill Craig?" one of the men shouted.
  There was no answer from the swamp.
  Georges Douter nodded, as if a question had been answered as  expected. He got to his feet, but remained out
  of sight.
  Men were rushing for flashlights at the camp. One or two flashes did  appear, but no one seemed anxious to
  use them.
  Georges Douter grinned without mirth. He took a fountain−pen  flashlight from his pocket, shaded it so that
  the glare would not be  visible at the camp, and went rapidly toward the spot from which the  scream had come.
  He found the body on a narrow strip of land that projected for a  ways into the swamp. The body was on its
  back. Near one outstretched  hand was an over−sized pistol with a big cartridge drum on top.
  The man’s face had disappeared. In its place was a crimson−appearing  mass, like a coiled snake. Blood still
  trickled from the hideous wound.  It looked as if the "snake’s" head vanished into the man’s skull. The  hole in
  the scalp and bone was responsible for that.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter III. A THREAT
  12
  
  Faint clucking sounds came from Georges Douter. The sounds indicated  neither pity nor exultation. The little
  man’s face was expressionless,  but he did not appear surprised.
  The tiny beam from the pencil flash darted back and forth. Georges  Douter reached forward suddenly and
  picked up a piece of broken string.
  "Oui.
  As I expected," he nodded. 
  Men were approaching cautiously from the camp. Georges Douter doused  his flashlight and vanished.
  He stopped at one of the ancient flivvers, replaced a carburetor  float, then made his way without haste to his
  hidden car. Its motor  started almost without noise. No one heard him as he edged out on the  rough road and
  headed toward the nearest town.
  A mile from the camp, he turned on his headlights. He laid one gun  on the seat beside him so he could use
  both hands on the wheel, and  increased his speed as much as he could. He was humming faintly.
  He was still humming when lights of the town came into view. He drew  off to one side and stopped the car.
  Then he went to the trunk in the  rear and worked swiftly.
  When he got back into the car, his appearance had changed. His  natty−looking clothes had been replaced by a
  suit of coveralls, a faded  shirt and an ancient hat. The coveralls hung to the ground, hiding the  shoes with
  built−up soles which added several inches to his height.
  In place of shining teeth, he appeared to have two gold plates in  the front of his mouth. Marks of dirt, artfully
  applied, made him look  ten years older.
  He drove up in front of a small telephone exchange and halted. Only  a few people were in sight, but he
  waited until the street was  momentarily clear before he got out and went inside. A grimy hand  produced
  several bills.
  The girl behind the desk looked at him without interest.
  "I want to make a long−distance telephone call," he said. He spoke  with an Arkansas drawl.
  "Whom do you wish to call?" the girl asked indifferently. She lost  her indifference a moment later. She sat up
  straight and went into  action swiftly.
  "I want to speak to New York�to Doc Savage," said Georges Douter.
  THE telephone bell rang sharply in the eighty−sixth−floor office in  one of New York’s biggest skyscrapers.
  There was no one in the office.  The bell rang three times. Then there was a click, followed by a faint  buzzing
  sound.
  "This is the office of Clark Savage, Jr.," a recorded voice said  into the telephone transmitter. "Mr. Savage is
  not here at the moment.  If you have any message for him, it will be given to him when he comes  in."
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter III. A THREAT
  13
  
  For some minutes there was an excited flow of words from the other  end of the line. Then the connection was
  broken. A few seconds later a  disk resembling a dictaphone record stopped revolving, and an electric  robot
  replaced the receiver on the hook.
  It was half an hour after that before the first visitor arrived at  the office. He came silently and furtively.
  He was a peculiar−appearing man, with long arms that hung,  gorillalike, far below his knees. Tiny eyes
  appeared buried in pits of  gristle, while his mouth was so big it looked like an accident.
  He was Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, the chemist among  Doc’s aides.
  A few moments later, footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. A  door, robot−controlled, opened noiselessly
  in what had appeared to be a  solid section of the wall. A tall man paused for a moment in the  doorway.
  This man was the ultimate in "what the well−dressed man wears." A  natty derby was perched on his head.
  His light−colored suit was  faultlessly pressed, the corner of a handkerchief peering from the  breast pocket of
  his coat. A white carnation was in one lapel. In his  hand was a stylish cane, which he spun debonairly.
  For a moment he seemed to be posing. Brigadier General Theodore  Marley Brooks was justly proud of his
  title of fashion plate among the  five helpers of Doc Savage. His present ensemble had been picked up  from
  his tailor less than four hours before. Known as Ham to his  friends, he was Harvard’s gift to the legal
  profession.
  Usually Ham liked to fight and argue with the chemist, who was  called Monk and was really one of Ham’s
  closest friends. But he  couldn’t fight with Monk at the moment, for the chemist was wandering  over to the
  small box that held the machinery for recording telephone  messages. It was purely a routine check, a matter
  of long habit.
  A glance at the disk showed someone had telephoned in their absence.  He removed the disk, started toward a
  machine where he could "play  back" whatever message it contained.
  He tripped over a wire leading to one of the several fans he had  used to fool Ham. For an instant, he fought
  for balance, juggling the  disk in his two big hands. Then he went down.
  "Break it’?" Ham asked without sympathy.
  Monk grunted. The disk was still intact, but he’d taken a hard fall  to protect it. Still grumbling, he put it on
  the machine, started the  disk turning and put on a pair of headphones.
  An angry howl burst from him. Ham whirled. The dapper lawyer took  one look at Monk’s face and made a
  dive for a second set of headphones.
  "I−I’ll repeat it," Monk said queerly. His hands were opening and  closing, a look of pain had filled his small
  eyes.
  Once more the record turned. Ham’s features became grim suddenly.
  "This is the Oracle," came a voice from the disk. "I am calling to  give you a warning it would be well not to
  ignore. Also, I have some  information. The information is this. Your man, whom you call Colonel  Renwick,
  was killed tonight. He was killed for trying to meddle into  some thing that was none of his business. He died
  rather horribly. He  died the death of the Crimson Serpent." The voice paused for a moment,  became stern and
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter III. A THREAT
  14
  
  hard. "Do not try to investigate his death. Stay away.  If not, the Crimson Serpent will kill again!"
  Chapter IV. A GIRL CALLS
  FOR a moment after the voice ceased, neither Ham nor Monk spoke.  They sat silently, eyes locked.
  Still without a word, Monk slipped off the earphones, went to the  telephone. He asked for a record of the last
  long−distance call for Doc  Savage.
  Ham went into the next room. There was a radio transmitter there. He  sounded Renny’s call, time after time.
  There was no answer.
  Monk got the chief of police of the small town from which the  warning had been telephoned. His shoulders
  sagged as he joined Ham.
  "I�I’m afraid it’s so," he mumbled. "Some of the men from the camp  where Renny was located have got into
  town. They tell a strange story  of chains and screams�and say Renny got killed."
  Ham’s expression grew grimmer.
  "Well, what are we waitin’ for, daggonit?" Monk raged. His shoulders  hunched, his long arms sprung back
  and forth. "Let’s go. The speed  ship’s set to go, we can get down there before morning. I’ll tear that  swamp
  apart, if necessary, but when I get my hands on that Crimson  Serpent�"
  "We’d better get Doc first," Ham said quietly.
  Monk subsided slowly. If there was trouble to be found, he didn’t  like to wait. But he knew Ham was right.
  Doc Savage should be notified.
  A banquet was being held in one of Chicago’s largest hotels. The big  dining room was crowded with men of
  international reputation.
  The occasion was the annual dinner of the Scientific Adventurers’  Club. Those present included men who
  had visited both poles, who had  penetrated jungle−guarded spots where no other white men had ever been.
  Others had risked life and health to ferret out secrets of ancient  civilizations.
  All were accustomed to danger. To a layman, whose only peril is  fighting a way through a subway rush hour,
  it would have seemed none of  those men could ever know excitement.
  Yet all were showing excitement now.
  The last course of the banquet had been served. The time for  speeches had arrived. And all attention was
  centered on the man who  rose to speak.
  Clark Savage, Jr., was the guest of honor. After long urging, he had  consented to tell of one of his most
  thrilling adventures.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter IV. A GIRL CALLS
  15
  
  "I understand it will be of the time he penetrated the earth to such  a distance that he encountered a strange
  substance never before found,"  one guest whispered to his companion.
  "I’ve heard rumors," the other replied excitedly. "There was  something about a ‘living fire’ connected with it,
  that caused men to  die in flames without apparent cause."
  Sudden silence fell over the assemblage.
  THE man who arose did not seem so large�at first glance. It was only  those near him who realized that the
  excellent fit of his dinner jacket  concealed a body so perfectly symmetrical, so well put together, that  it gave
  the impression of easy flowing strength rather than size.
  The man’s face was bronze−colored. His hair, only a shade darker,  was pressed close to his head. But it was
  his eyes that first drew  attention. Those eyes appeared to be deep pools of whirling gold. They  had a strange,
  almost hypnotic intensity.
  Then he began to speak. He did not raise his voice, but it had a  peculiar carrying quality that enabled it to be
  heard in every corner  of the large dining room.
  "The discovery I wish to tell you about," Doc Savage began, "was  made far beneath the southern California
  desert. It concerns the  finding of a substance that, under certain circumstances, transformed  men into living
  fire."
  Every listener was leaning forward. It seemed the large audience  scarcely breathed.
  For several seconds Doc Savage stood motionless. Then he turned,  spoke into the ear of the master of
  ceremonies seated at the table  beside him. A moment later and he straightened.
  "I am sorry but I must delay the story I had intended to tell," he  said quietly. "News of great importance has
  just reached me that  requires an immediate answer. If possible, I will return before you  adjourn."
  A flustered master of ceremonies started up, called on another  speaker. Doc Savage slipped from the room.
  He did not appear to be  moving fast, but he was gone almost before the others present realized  what was
  happening.
  A low murmuring filled the dining room. No one had seen a message  delivered to the bronze man. That was
  not surprising. The wrist watch  he wore was not the type to attract undue attention but it was useful  for
  receiving emergency messages from his aides when necessary.
  Acquired as the result of a previous adventure, the wrist watch  really contained a delicate, ultra−violet ray
  receiver. Messages,  flashed by the rays, were transmitted to the back of his wrist in the  form of heat waves.
  The only disadvantage in the watch Doc wore lay in the fact that it  was a receiver only. He had not thought it
  necessary to wear a larger  type that contained a transmitter as well.
  Now he sped toward his room in the same hotel. He opened a small  suitcase, took out a tiny microphone and
  donned headphones.
  "This is Doc," he said quietly. "Please repeat the message you just  sent by ultra−violet ray."
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter IV. A GIRL CALLS
  16
  
  IN New York, Monk and Ham leaned back with sighs of relief. Swiftly,  Ham repeated the message they had
  received over the telephone, the  story that had been told Monk by the Arkansas chief of police.
  "Ham and me want to beat it down there tonight," Monk put in  excitedly. "We’ll get whatever it was got
  Renny�"
  "Fit out the dirigible," Doc’s voice interrupted quietly. "Meet me  here in the morning. Bring with you�"
  Calmly, efficiently, he listed equipment he wished brought along.
  Monk and Ham exchanged swift glances. Doc’s instructions were  indication enough. The bronze man was
  showing clearly that he did not  think the solution would be as simple as Monk believed. Doc said  nothing
  about Renny, but his aides knew the bronze man felt the loss of  the big engineer keenly.
  The hairy chemist opened his big mouth to speak. The mouth remained  open, but no words came forth.
  The girl was responsible for that.
  She had entered through the corridor door Monk had used and had left  unlocked. Small, weighing less than a
  hundred pounds, with perfectly  black hair and large, dark eyes, she stood just inside the door, a look  of
  amazement on features that would have been envied by any movie star.
  She was looking at Monk.
  "I do not think," she said slowly and distinctly, "that I have ever  seen a face so homely, or a person who
  looked so much like an animal."
  Crimson flooded Monk’s features. He seemed unable to move. Ham  whirled, took in the situation at a glance.
  The dapper lawyer’s head  went back, he roared with laughter.
  "At last!" he gasped. "At long last a girl finally tells the truth  about Monk’s face."
  The girl’s gaze shifted slightly to take in Ham. "And I don’t think  much of giggling gigolos, either," she said
  flatly.
  Ham’s mirth choked off in mid−gasp. He looked as if his collar had  suddenly become too tight for him.
  "If you will kindly explain this intrusion," Ham began, with cold  dignity. "I am sure�"
  "I am not sure," the girl broke in frigidly. "I am not sure at all  that I wish to hire a man gorilla and a laughing
  gigolo."
  "Hire?" Monk blurted stupidly.
  "Hire was what I said," the girl snapped angrily. "I really do need  a detective. Perhaps you will do, although
  neither of you look quite  bright." She shrugged small shoulders. "However, the task I have is not  very
  difficult. And you were recommended to me highly, although I  cannot understand why."
  "Lady," Ham began grimly. "I don’t know who told you we were  detectives�"
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter IV. A GIRL CALLS
  17
  
  "Don’t apologize," the girl rapped. "I don’t believe much detecting  ability will be needed. I want you to find a
  man for me�"
  "I don’t blame him for runnin’," Monk grunted, almost inaudibly.
  "�and I have reason to believe he has gone to the Arkansas swamp  lands," the girl concluded coolly.
  MONK’S expression did not change, but huge muscles tightened  suddenly under his shirt. Irritation vanished
  from Ham’s face, his  expression became urbane, his voice smooth.
  "I don’t believe you told us your name," the lawyer said crisply.
  "Consuelo Manresa," the girl answered, "but now that I think it  over, I am not sure that I want�"
  "And the person you are seeking?" shot Ham. 
  "S−sometimes he is called Georges Douter." The girl appeared  bewildered by Ham’s sudden change.
  "Small, with dead black hair, usually well dressed�"
  Ham shot an inquiring glance at Monk. The hairy chemist shook his  head. "Not the guy that made the call."
  Consuelo Manresa apparently didn’t hear him. "But he is excellent at  disguises," she went on. "And he has a
  rather conceited opinion of  himself. Sometimes he describes himself as the Oracle�"
  Monk and Ham both went into action together. That was a mistake. But  they were thinking of Renny. And
  here seemed a connecting link with the  man who had told them Renny was dead.
  They both leaped for the girl at the same time. Monk was a trifle  closer. Ham moved slightly faster.
  Consequently Ham smashed into Monk.  They both went down.
  Consuelo Manresa leaped back, her large, dark eyes flashing.
  "Peegs!" she shrilled. "Madmen!"
  A small gun came to one of her exquisitely manicured hands. She  backed swiftly toward the door behind her.
  Monk and Ham tried to get up.
  Pf−f−f−t.
  The small gun made a hissing sound and lead whistled over their  heads. They remained still.
  "I will not deal with a man gorilla and a gigolo who both are mad!"  the girl cried. She slammed the door
  behind her.
  It was only seconds before Monk and Ham got that door open again.  The girl had vanished. That wasn’t so
  hard to explain. There was a  stairway nearby. Once there, she could go either up or down, could find  a hiding
  place in a score of places.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter IV. A GIRL CALLS
  18
  
  Evidently, she did. She couldn’t be found.
  "She was right when she called you a gorilla!" Ham raged futilely.  "If you hadn’t got in my way, I would
  have had her."
  Monk had regained some of his customary good humor. Seeing Ham so  upset was partly responsible for that.
  It wasn’t often the dapper  lawyer got that way.
  "Yeah, but I notice she was lookin’ at you, not me, when she yelled  ‘peeg,’" Monk grunted.
  THE bickering continued for some time. Neither Monk nor Ham would  have admitted it, but it helped keep
  them from thinking of big Renny.  They didn’t like to show emotion.
  They didn’t mention the girl again either. That one small,  dark−tressed Spanish girl could escape from the
  view of them so easily  was not a memory they could view with much pride. They had a secret  suspicion she
  was laughing at both of them.
  But she wasn’t laughing. She made her way from the office building  fast enough, went to a large hotel. There
  she put in a long−distance  call. A thin furrow creased her high forehead at the message she  received.
  Then she packed. Pretty girls usually carry a large assortment of  clothes with them. This one, quite evidently,
  was different. She packed  all her belongings into one small bag. After that she checked out of  the hotel and
  got into a taxicab.
  She was still in the cab when she saw Monk and Ham get out in front  of a dilapidated building on the water
  front. The sign on the warehouse  read "Hidalgo Trading Co.," but it really belonged to Doc Savage; in  fact, it
  housed his planes, dirigible, yacht and even a submarine.
  It was still dark and the girl’s cab was parked some distance from  the front of the building. Monk and Ham
  failed to notice it at all.
  Not long afterward, a silver shape rose slowly over the Hudson and  pointed its nose west.
  The girl nodded with satisfaction and spoke to her driver. She held  a large bill in her hand.
  The driver made a record trip to the Newark airport. The girl  produced more large bills. When a private plane
  took off a few minutes  later, she was aboard. The plane took out after the dirigible.
  An alert newspaperman, with an eye for beauty, tried to learn who  the girl was, and why she had hired a
  private plane. All he could find  out was her name. He was to recall that name later, but at the time the  world
  at large had not yet heard of the horror that had gripped the  Arkansas swampland.
  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
  MONK and Ham loafed along in the dirigible on their way to Chicago.  They wanted Doc to get a little sleep
  before they started on the next  lap of their trip.
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  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
  19
  
  Doc wasn’t asleep. The bronze man had been busy constantly after  receiving the message from his aides. He
  made many long−distance calls.  Little information resulted.
  Stories of engineers on the flood project merely confirmed what Monk  and Ham had been told. Something
  mysterious and deadly was loose in the  swamp. Renny had been killed; another engineer, Bill Craig, had
  disappeared, probably, one excited witness declared, carried away by  the strange thing that made the sound of
  clanking metal.
  Doc asked that as little publicity as possible be given the  occurrence. Then he himself called a newspaper
  office. He didn’t,  however, talk about what had happened. His conversation was on an  entirely different topic.
  It was about this time that the ring he wore began to act peculiarly.
  The ring itself was uncommon. It appeared of some rare blue stone.  Occasionally it seemed to show a thread
  of dancing light. Right now  that light was more than a thread, it seemed to be a whirling disk  beneath the blue.
  Doc lifted the telephone receiver, and placed another call. Then he  set the receiver silently on the table and
  went to the door. A moment  later he drifted shadowlike down the hallway.
  At an adjoining doorway he stopped and listened. No sound came from  within.
  A small piece of metal came to the bronze man’s hand. He picked the  lock on the door silently. Then he
  leaped inside, flashed on the lights.
  The room was empty.
  Doc whirled, reached down to the floor. His fingers caught a tiny,  almost invisible wire. The wire led out the
  door, on down the hall. It  did not lead far. It had been broken, evidently by a sharp jerk. The  other end had
  vanished.
  The bronze man showed no emotion. There was a complicated listening  device in the room adjoining his. It
  was of the type which permitted a  listener to pick up telephone conversations even without direct contact  with
  the telephone wires.
  The blue ring on Doc’s finger had shown that such a device was in  use. The ring, extremely sensitive to
  electrical circuits when boosted  by coils, had flashed the warning the bronze man had seen.
  But whoever had been seeking to listen in on Doc also had been  shrewd. The thin wire leading from the room
  could have led almost any  place. With a pair of headphones at the other end, a spy could  eavesdrop in
  comparative safety.
  Doc’s rush to the other room evidently had been seen. The wire had  been broken at once, destroying any link
  to the spy.
  The bronze man got the listening device and returned to his own  suite. He did not appear perturbed. There
  were several fingerprints on  the case that contained the listening device. Doc brushed powder over  them,
  inspected them through a glass.
  He did not need a check to identify those prints. He knew them as  well as he knew his own.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
  20
  
  THERE was no light in the hotel room directly across the street from  Doc’s suite. But two men were there.
  One had been peering through the  window, using a pair of high−powered binoculars.
  "He spotted it," he said. There was relief in his voice.
  "I told yuh that guy was smart," said his companion.
  The man with the binoculars placed them on a table, then drew down  the blinds and turned on the lights. He
  was a small man, nattily  dressed. He had thin features, and the hat he wore had a small feather  in its band.
  "Just so he ain’t too smart!" he said.
  The other grinned. He was bigger, and looked more like a night−club  bouncer, with cauliflowered ears and a
  battered nose.
  "No guy would be smart enough to figger this one out." he chuckled.
  Noise came faintly from an adjoining bedroom. A gun leaped to the  hand of the thin−faced man. His
  companion’s big shoulders hunched.
  Both spun, approached the door cautiously. The big man took a key  from his pocket, unlocked the door, then
  jumped back. Then the  thin−faced man laughed.
  "Still O. K.," he rapped. He strutted into the bedroom, the gun  going back into his pocket.
  A man lay on the bed. It was hard to tell what he really looked  like. His features showed the marks of a recent
  beating. He was  spread−eagled on the bed, each hand and each foot tied to a bedpost.  His eyes were blank,
  but occasionally an arm or leg would jerk  convulsively. That, evidently, had caused the noise the others had
  heard.
  The thin−faced man looked at him judiciously. "He’s comin’ out of  it, I think," he said. "Maybe we oughtta
  give him another shot."
  A frown creased the bigger man’s homely face. "We ain’t supposed to  give him too much of that dope," he
  protested. He walked over, leaned  down to look into the bound man’s eyes.
  Several things happened at once.
  Ropes appeared to fly apart at both ends of the bed. The bound man  was no longer bound. He reared up,
  looped one arm over the head of the  bending figure, slapped the other fist into the man’s face and head.  The
  big man sat down.
  The thin−faced man jerked for his gun. He had it half out of its  holster before the man on the bed got up.
  Then the other cracked him  with a right that threw him clear across the room.
  The erstwhile prisoner started to run toward the door. He didn’t get  there. The bouncer was only groggy. He
  caught the other by the legs,  brought him down in a football tackle.
  After that, fists appeared to be flying from all directions.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
  21
  
  The bouncer tried to get up. That was a mistake. His opponent flexed  his legs, caught the bouncer in the belly
  and threw him into a wall so  hard that his neck cracked.
  Then the former prisoner, more battered than ever, weaved to his  feet. The words he muttered were almost
  indistinguishable, but once in  a while it seemed that he said, "Doc Savage."
  Groggily, he moved toward the door and freedom. He didn’t see the  newcomer just outside the door. That
  newcomer drew a gun, stepped to  one side and brought the butt of the weapon down hard as his victim  came
  into range.
  MONK and Ham spent a peaceful night. They hadn’t expected anything  to happen in Chicago.
  They came down at an airport off the usual track and telephoned Doc.  That was when they got their first
  surprise. They had expected Doc  would come out at once and that the three of them would head  immediately
  for Arkansas.
  "Our plans are changed. Join me at the hotel here," Doc instructed  crisply.
  The dapper engineer and the hairy chemist were more bewildered when  they reached Doc’s suite. The bronze
  man wasted no words. Without  explanation, he showed them the listening device and handed each a
  magnifying glass.
  A low whistle came from Ham. Monk’s jaw dropped. "Renny’s  fingerprints," the chemist ejaculated in
  amazement.
  "But how�" Ham started.
  In crisp sentence, Doc explained how the listening device had come  into his possession.
  "Could those prints have been made after Renny was dead?" Monk  demanded.
  Doc shook his head. "No," he said quietly. "They contain the natural  oil of fingerprints made by a person who
  is alive. Also, it seems  apparent that they had been made within an hour or two at the most  before I first saw
  them."
  "Then Renny’s not dead! He’s here!" A delighted grin spread over  Ham’s face. He pounded Monk on the
  back. "We won’t have to go to that  swamp, after all."
  "Always thinkin’ of your clothes," Monk grumbled.
  "Perhaps it was intended that we should believe it unnecessary to  visit the swamp," Doc put in quietly.
  Ham’s eyes flickered, then narrowed. "It could be. That would mean  Renny is a prisoner�and naturally he is,
  or he would have shown up. So  we will have to take time out to find him. But why would anyone go to  that
  much trouble to keep us away from the swamp? What could be behind  it?"
  Doc did not answer. His aides shrugged. They were accustomed to the  bronze man’s habit of apparently
  failing to hear questions that he did  not wish to answer at the time.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
  22
  
  A slow grin was spreading over Monk’s homely face. "Renny’s alive,  but still there may be some fighting,"
  he piped.
  Ham frowned thoughtfully. "The bringing of Renny here would seem to  indicate that more than just
  opposition of the swamp dwellers is behind  all this. We should check and see if there was any real strong
  outside  opposition to the flood−control project."
  "I did," Doc said simply. "Through newspaper friends here I checked  with all congressmen who had anything
  to do with recommending the dam.  Their answer in every case was the same. The only opposition came from
  those who lived in the swamp."
  "What now?" Monk demanded.
  "Ham is right," the bronze man said. "We know Renny is alive. But  our first step must be to find him. We
  will�"
  The bronze man broke off. The door to the room had opened. Monk and  Ham whirled to face it. They, too,
  showed surprise.
  Two men were entering the room. One was medium−sized, well dressed,  with a look of sleek efficiency on
  his round face. He wore a pink  carnation in his coat lapel.
  The other was a veritable giant, but a giant who looked as if he had  been run through a sausage grinder, or
  else had been the object of a  gang attack.
  It was Renny!
  DOC and his aides were not the only ones who were surprised.
  From a room down the hall a head was projecting cautiously. It was  the head of a black−haired girl with
  large, dark eyes. Just now those  eyes were open even wider than usual.
  "It couldn’t be!" she gasped uncertainly. "That is the one that must  be known as Renny. And he is dead!"
  Then the girl’s lips snapped together in a very businesslike  gesture. She glanced cautiously up and down the
  hallway. From her purse  reappeared the small gun she had used on Monk and Ham.
  A moment more, and she floated down the hallway silently. She  stopped just outside the door to Doc’s suite.
  After a brief hesitation,  she put the gun back in her purse, drew out lipstick and powder instead.
  Had anyone seen her, it would have appeared she merely had stopped  to apply some make−up. But her ear
  was very close to the door.
  Monk and Ham were bubbling excitedly. The stranger who had entered  with Renny was standing at one side,
  smiling amusedly. Only Doc showed  no emotion.
  Renny’s eyes were slightly fogged. He appeared to have difficulty in  speaking, as though his tongue was
  thick.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
  23
  
  "I found him down the street a few minutes ago," the stranger said  quite smoothly. "I recognized him, knew
  he must be looking for you, Mr.  Savage, so I brought him here."
  Doc’s gold−flecked eyes turned inquiringly toward the stranger. The  bronze man did not speak, but the other
  appeared to lose some of his  self−assurance. A faint glow of color came to his cheeks.
  "I am Fletcher Carter, a private detective," the stranger explained  hurriedly. "Knowing faces is part of my job.
  This man of yours looks as  though he had been beaten and drugged."
  Doc nodded, "He has been drugged." he said. The bronze man turned to  a small bag, selected a hypodermic
  and a vial of almost colorless  liquid. He made a small injection in Renny’s huge forearm.
  Almost immediately the big engineer’s eyes cleared, he stood more  erect.
  "What happened to you? How did you get here?" Monk was demanding  heatedly. "Say something, can’t your
  Renny looked around slowly. "I’ve been fighting," he said at last.
  "Sure, we know that." Ham put in. "Your appearance is enough to show  you must have battled at least a half
  dozen."
  Renny’s eyes became a little baffled. "I fought once last night, and  didn’t get away," he said, almost as if
  speaking to himself. "This  morning, I seem to remember there was only one man guarding me. I  knocked him
  out, got to the street, but after that�"
  "The type of drug used on you often brings recurring spells of  blankness," Doc explained briefly.
  "But what happened in the swamp?" Monk almost shouted. "You’re  supposed to be dead."
  Renny shook his head. "Bill Craig and I heard sounds of chains, then  noise, as if of armor. We went to
  investigate. He saw something and  started firing. There was a big flash, and about that time something  must
  have hit me over the head. I remember nothing more until I  realized I was a prisoner some place."
  Monk and Ham exchanged glances. It was apparent now that Bill Craig  must have been the one killed. He
  also had been a big man, they had  been told. With his features wiped out, a natural mistake had been made.
  "What was the flash?" Doc asked.
  Ham gasped. Doc, as usual, had caught the one real significant fact  in Renny’s story. The dapper lawyer
  would have bet he knew what was  coming.
  He was not mistaken.
  A slow smile spread over Renny’s big face. One of his hands went to  the belt he wore. The belt was thick and
  broad, and at each end was a  thick roll, the size of a man’s thumb. These rolls came together to  form the
  fastening.
  Renny flicked back a false top on one of these rolls. From inside it  he withdrew a short, stubby, pen−type
  camera.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter V. AN UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY
  24
  
  "I rigged a flashlight trap around the camp," he explained. "The  flash went off when I was right by one of the
  dozen cameras I had set  out. I grabbed this one, put it in my belt just before I was knocked  out."
  "So you got a picture of that ‘Crimson Serpent,’ eh?" Monk howled  delightedly.
  "Give it to me, I’ll develop it," Ham blurted.
  "I’m so sorry. I will trouble the Colonel Renwick to give the camera  to me," came a soft voice.
  As one man, the five occupants of the room turned toward the door.
  Standing there, the small gun firm in one fist, a look of  determination on her pretty face, was Consuelo
  Manresa.
  Chapter VI. A SURPRISE ATTACK
  "THE girl crook!" Monk rapped disgustedly.
  "Who doesn’t like ape−men or gigolos," Ham mimicked.
  Fletcher Carter had a startled expression on his face. One hand  played nervously with the carnation in his
  lapel. The private detective  looked as though he were witnessing something he couldn’t quite believe.
  Renny’s big fist merely closed tightly about the small camera. With  that fist closed the camera disappeared
  entirely.
  "Won’t you come in?" Doc asked.
  The girl’s lips compressed. Her finger tightened slightly on the  trigger of her gun. "Give me that camera!" she
  repeated slowly.
  The next moment she gasped, half in fear, half in surprise. Doc had  moved so swiftly she could not have fired
  even had she so wished.
  There had been a bronze streak as Doc leaped. Then he held the  girl’s gun in one hand, had her by the wrist
  with his other.
  "Won’t you come in?" he said again.
  Slowly, as if drawn more by the impelling quality of Doc’s  gold−flecked eyes than his grip on her wrist,
  Consuelo Manresa came  farther into the room.
  Fletcher Carter gulped. He seemed about to say something, then  changed his mind. All attention was on the
  girl. Fletcher Carter left  the room, closing the door softly behind him. Only Doc Savage saw him  go.
  Swiftly, Ham and Monk between them were telling Doc of the girl’s  appearance at the bronze man’s New
  York office, and how she had acted  then.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VI. A SURPRISE ATTACK
  25
  
  "We will be pleased to hear your story," Doc invited politely.
  Consuelo Manresa’s lips closed tightly. It seemed she was going to  refuse to say anything at all. Then she
  apparently thought better of it.
  "You can’t make me tell," she said shortly.
  She was right. An hour later they still knew no more than they did  at first.
  Consuelo Manresa had regained her composure, but she wasn’t giving  any facts. Her large, dark eyes hardly
  ever left Doc’s face. It was  plain to see she was taking more than a passing interest in the bronze  man.
  Doc tried to ignore it. That was made more difficult by  ill−concealed snickers from Monk.
  Ham, who had been doing most of the questioning, threw up his hands  in disgust.
  "Send her down to jail and let the cops cool her off for a day or  two!" he snapped angrily. "She might talk to
  them then."
  It was then the attack came.
  CONSUELO MANRESA was directly responsible for the fact that the  attack came as a surprise.
  There was only one thing that ever upset Doc Savage. That was  feminine admiration. The bronze man knew
  there was no place in his life  for a girl. For that one reason, probably, almost every attractive  woman he met
  seemed to show more than ordinary interest in him.
  Consuelo Manresa had been laying it on rather thick. Her long,  languorous looks at the bronze man had been
  highly eloquent. They had  embarrassed Doc exceedingly. As a consequence, his highly trained  senses were
  not as alert as usual.
  Monk and Ham were too busy badgering the girl to pay attention to  anything else, and Renny had been too
  interested in their attempts to  extract information from her to hear the cautious, almost silent  footsteps.
  The attack came from three directions at once. The door to Doc’s  suite had not been locked after Fletcher
  Carter left. In some manner  the raiders had gained entrance to adjoining rooms, then into Doc’s  suite from the
  sides.
  There were a half score of them. They burst into the room without a  word. Each man was swinging a
  vicious−looking blackjack.
  Ham didn’t have a chance. He was closest to the hall door and had  his back turned. One of the swinging
  blackjacks clipped him just behind  the ear, even as Monk was shouting a hoarse warning. The dapper lawyer
  merely folded up and went to the floor.
  Five men swarmed over Doc Savage. The others went after Monk and  Renny.
  The fight was probably an epic. Monk was never quite sure afterward.  It was too fast and too fierce for any
  clear thinking.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VI. A SURPRISE ATTACK
  26
  
  Dimly, the hairy chemist saw Doc go to the floor under the mass  weight of his attackers. Renny was working
  his jaws, but no words came.  The big engineer also was working his giant fists. Those fists were  doing plenty
  of talking for him.
  Despite the overwhelming advantage the attackers had in numbers, as  well as the fact that they had
  blackjacks, Renny was doing a very  creditable job. Each time one of his fists hit, the impact sounded like  that
  of a battering−ram.
  Monk himself was swinging his long arms with feverish good will. He  drew his bullet head down between
  his broad shoulders, to offer as  little target as possible, and waded in.
  The room was a struggling mass of fighting men. One thug, knocked  end over end by Renny, slammed into
  Consuelo Manresa, knocking her from  her chair.
  Monk saw another attacker slip behind the big engineer, raise his  blackjack. The hairy chemist tried to shout
  a warning. It was never  uttered.
  At almost the same instant the building fell in. Or at least that  was how it felt to Monk. He went down in a
  wave of blackness.
  MONK’S head didn’t feel any too good when he finally recovered  consciousness. He looked around him
  groggily. Renny and Ham also  appeared just returning to their senses.
  There was no sign of Consuelo Manresa or Doc.
  "You know." Renny said soberly, "I’m just about getting fed up with  being knocked around." His severe
  features were set tightly. One big  fist massaged the top of his head. "I want to do some knocking around
  myself."
  "W−what h−happened?" Ham gasped.
  "You would have to ask!" Monk snorted disgustedly. "Letting yourself  get knocked cold the first wallop and
  leaving the rest of us to do your  fighting for you!"
  The lawyer looked around, comprehension dawning swiftly. "Looks like  you didn’t do so well yourself," He
  said dryly. "Where’s Doc?"
  Monk gulped. Renny said nothing. From the looks of things, the gang  that had attacked them had gotten Doc.
  "D−did you�I mean have you still got that camera?" Monk asked Renny.
  The big engineer shook his head slowly. "I gave it to Doc only a few  minutes before the fight started," he
  explained.
  "Girl, Doc and camera all gone!" Ham said bitterly.
  The lawyer went to the telephone and did some calling. He looked  even more disgusted when he had finished.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VI. A SURPRISE ATTACK
  27
  
  "Some hotel," he rapped. "There’s a convention going on, with a lot  of noisy parties on every floor. Nobody
  paid any attention to our  little fuss here."
  "If Doc only got away!" Renny said wishfully.
  There were at least five in the group of attackers that were  convinced Doc not only hadn’t got away, but
  wasn’t going to do so.
  They were sitting on a big burlap sack. The sack was in the rear−end  of an innocent−appearing truck.
  Occasionally the sack heaved and bucked  as if the occupant had no desire to stay there.
  When this happened, one of the five would raise a blackjack and tap,  sometimes gently, occasionally not so
  gently. No sound came from within  the sack, but that was not surprising. The occupant was gagged.
  One of the five was the big man with the cauliflowered ears who had  been guarding Renny. The others called
  him Bouncer.
  "Getting this bronze guy oughta make up for my lettin’ that other  mug go!" he growled.
  Bouncer’s features showed he had been in a rather hectic battle. One  of his companions grinned. "Think this
  mug will be any easier to hold?"
  Bouncer scowled fiercely. He reached in his pocket and took out a  gun. "I got permission to use this thing, if
  necessary, on this one,"  he barked.
  "What’s it all about, anyway?"
  Bouncer frowned and tried to look wise. It appeared the best way to  hide the fact that he didn’t know the
  answer.
  "The big boss didn’t want this bronze devil or his side−kicks  gettin’ out of Chi," he said gravely. "That’s why
  we were holdin’ the  big stiff they call Renny. But this is even better. None of those other  guys is going any
  place as long as we hold Doc Savage."
  After that there was silence. The truck went for a long ways. Ahead  of it was a touring car. That car held the
  others who had been in on  the hotel raid. A pretty black−haired girl with large, dark eyes was  with them. She
  did not appear alarmed.
  FINALLY the truck went into a big garage on the outskirts of the  city. The garage had been an alky loading
  depot during prohibition. The  truck went down an incline into an underground cellar.
  "You guys find out where the big guy wants this mug taken," Bouncer  said.
  A couple of the others looked at him questioningly, but said  nothing. One man remained close to Bouncer as
  the others climbed stairs  to rooms up above.
  When they came back, Bouncer was alone. "We’re to bring Savage up,"  one of them said.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VI. A SURPRISE ATTACK
  28
  
  Bouncer nodded and helped pull the burlap bag out of the truck. "You  guys go ahead, I’ll be along in a
  minute," he growled. "I got to find  where Slinky went."
  As soon as the others were out of sight, Bouncer went to the rear of  the building. There was a bound figure
  there but he paid no attention  to that. It was the man who had been with him a few minutes before.
  He scouted around for a few minutes until he found an exit. Then he  pulled a pair of earphones from his
  pocket and took up a comfortable  position.
  Words came clearly through the earphones. The voices were those of  the men carrying the bound figure
  upstairs.
  After a bit there was a solid thump as the sack and the man inside  were dropped to the floor. Then came the
  voice of Consuelo Manresa.
  "You’re sure you’ve got Doc Savage, that he won’t bother us anymore?"
  Someone laughed harshly. "He’d have to be a Houdini to get out of  the ropes we got on him, let alone that
  sack."
  A peculiar expression came over Bouncer’s features. His hands worked  swiftly. A few minutes later the man
  wearing the earphones did not look  like Bouncer at all.
  He looked like Doc Savage.
  Doc possibly could have used some of his tricks and frustrated the  attack at the hotel. He didn’t. He wanted to
  find out what it was all  about.
  He had spotted the real Bouncer immediately, and had seen the other  was carrying a sack. It was plain then
  that someone was to be abducted,  probably himself.
  During the wild fighting, he had rolled Bouncer into the adjoining  room, tied him up and put him in the sack.
  Then, a master of disguise,  he had altered his own appearance.
  Under close scrutiny he probably would have been discovered. But the  flight from the hotel had been swift,
  and the ride in the truck had  been made in semidarkness.
  Voices were coming again over the earphones. At the sound of one of  them, Doc’s gold−flecked eyes flashed
  suddenly.
  It was the voice of a man speaking with a thick French accent. He  was addressed as "Douter." This was the
  man, Monk and Ham had told Doc,  that Consuelo Manresa wanted them to find; was undoubtedly the man
  who  had telephoned the mysterious warning to stay away from the Arkansas  swampland.
  "Everythin’ et ees goin’ smoothly there," Douter said. "I could no  do better myself. Still�"
  The voice broke off suddenly. Almost instantly, alarm bells sounded  throughout the garage building. The
  door to the rear exit Doc had found  closed, evidently operated by some mechanical device. Only the bronze
  man’s quick leap put him in the clear.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VI. A SURPRISE ATTACK
  29
  
  Evidently someone had become curious, had wanted to look at the  captive in the burlap sack. That was a
  hazard Doc had anticipated when  he had hidden a small radio transmitter inside the sack with the real
  Bouncer.
  Now his ruse and the radio transmitter both had been discovered.
  Chapter VII. A PICTURE IS STOLEN
  ONLY rambling buildings surrounded the big garage, but Doc had no  difficulty in making his escape. He
  walked a short distance until he  came to a main highway.
  Almost at once a coupé drew up beside him, a door was opened. Doc  got in. The driver was the man who had
  identified himself as Fletcher  Carter, private detective. He had a fresh carnation in his coat lapel.
  Doc said nothing. Carter drove for several minutes before his  curiosity overcame him.
  "Did you find out anything?" he blurted.
  The bronze man’s gold−flecked eyes surveyed him calmly. "About  what?" he asked.
  Frank admiration showed on Fletcher Carter’s face. "I’d always heard  you were a cold one. You sure are," he
  said. He sighed, "Since you  won’t talk, I’ll have to, I guess.
  "It’s this way. I hung around the hotel, and saw that bunch leaving  with a burlap bag. I knew the boys.
  They’re bad. And I figured that you  or one of your men must have been in the bag, since I saw the girl  goin’
  along.
  "So I trailed them out here, and was just trying to decide whether  to try a lone−handed rescue or to call the
  cops when I heard the alarm  bells go off.
  "Then I knew whoever had been caught had got away, so I was cruising  along, looking for you."
  "Where do you figure in this?" Doc asked softly.
  Fletcher Carter grinned. "I get around," he confessed. "I know  somethin’ is going on, somethin’ big. Private
  dicks make their coin by  hanging where big things is goin’ on and jumping in at the right time."
  Doc appeared to consider, as if deciding whether to say anything  more.
  "You might help me a little, at that," he said. "You say you  recognized the men carrying the burlap bag. You
  evidently knew about  the garage. Who owns it?"
  Carter shook his head, his smile faded. "You sure ask tough ones,"  he complained. "I recognized the thugs,
  yes. They are all gangsters.  But who owns the garage? Frankly, I don’t know.
  "A lot of the big gangs got knocked off by G−men after repeal, you  know. The big shots then mostly
  disappeared; their gangs broke up.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VII. A PICTURE IS STOLEN
  30
  
  "Now there is a new big shot, a new gang. But who the big shot is, I  don’t know. The garage probably
  belongs to him, although not  necessarily. Some of the old boys may be moving back in with a new  racket."
  Doc nodded, but said nothing. Carter wheeled his coupé expertly up  in front of the bronze man’s hotel.
  "But what connection all this could have with trouble in the  Arkansas swamps, I can’t figure out," Carter
  complained. He looked at  Doc expectantly.
  The bronze man got to the sidewalk. "It is an interesting problem,"  he agreed. "Thank you for the ride." He
  turned, walked into the hotel.
  Fletcher Carter looked after him, cursing bitterly. Now that he  thought it over, he realized that he had done all
  the talking, had  given all the information. Doc had contributed no facts at all.
  AN alert country correspondent for a Chicago newspaper was doing a  lot of talking, also.
  The correspondent had heard rumors of the trouble in the Arkansas  swampland. He had gone to the scene.
  And he had gotten a break.
  The Crimson Serpent had struck again!
  Hank Hendricks had lived in the swamp all his life. He had operated  a still there for almost the same length of
  time. At least, he began to  help his dad run one as soon as he could walk and talk, and had started  his son in
  the trade as soon as the son could walk and talk.
  With the son, Bill, he had been tending his still, as usual, during  the early part of the preceding night. Then
  the two started to make a  few deliveries.
  The deliveries were never made.
  Hank Hendricks couldn’t tell a very clear story of just what  happened. He was too excited, and, for the first
  time in his life, was  too frightened.
  But his story agreed with those that had been told previously.  First, he had heard a clanking of chains. Then
  had come a sound like  that of moving metal.
  Hank had wanted to turn back. His son, Bill, had laughed and  continued to paddle ahead in their boat.
  Then Bill had screamed. Hank, himself, said he felt as if he had  been gripped in hands of steel. He had been
  paralyzed with fright,  expecting death any moment.
  He had received a warning instead.
  When he finally recovered enough to light a lantern, Bill was dead.  His shirt had been torn from him, and he
  was lying on his face.
  The mark of the Crimson Serpent was on his back.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VII. A PICTURE IS STOLEN
  31
  
  "You gotta stop buildin’ ‘at ‘ere dam!" Hank Hendricks shrieked.  "At’s the warnin’ I got. I’m a−tellin’ yuh!
  If yuh don’t, all us swamp  men are goin’ to die!"
  Then Hank had rushed back toward home, after sounding a warning of  his own. The swamp men would not
  be idle, he said. Already they were  organizing.
  Whatever the Crimson Serpent was, it didn’t want the dam built.  Therefore, the swamp people didn’t either.
  They were going to fight the  engineers themselves to keep that dam from being built.
  Nelson Erhard, the country correspondent, could hardly relay the  story, he was so excited. Then he found he
  wasn’t being believed. The  skeptical city editor in Chicago told him he had heard too many stories  of swamp
  magic to fall for this one.
  "But one of Doc Savage’s men was supposed to have been killed by the  thing only two nights ago!" Erhard
  bellowed. "It was only today he  telephoned here to say it was a mistake. But he knows all about it. And  he’s
  in Chicago. Get hold of him, he’ll confirm it."
  Extras were on the streets a half hour later.
  CRIMSON DEATH
  LOOSE IN SWAMP
  Government Project Periled
  as "Snake" Killer Runs Amuck
  DOC SAVAGE AIDE ESCAPES
  DOC entered the hotel, expecting to get away at once for Arkansas.  This was impossible to do.
  Within the space of minutes, the hostelry was swarming with  newspapermen and photographers.
  Doc always made it a practice to shun publicity whenever possible.  He would have shunned it now, but he
  was given no chance. Besides, the  bronze man never antagonized the press. He always at least pretended to
  coöperate. Quite often he had found the help of newsmen invaluable.
  He instructed Renny to answer questions to the best of his ability.  The big engineer submitted with ill grace.
  Particularly did his severe  features become strained at the constant popping of flashlight bulbs.  He hardly was
  a pretty sight for easily shocked eyes.
  Ham, on the other hand did his best to ease into every picture  taken. He would have adopted different tactics
  if he had noticed Monk.
  The hairy chemist, after each picture was taken, would sidle up to  the photographer and confide that Ham
  really was only the valet for  Doc. The photographer would nod wisely and make a special note to see  that
  Ham’s features were blocked out before the picture was presented  to the city editor.
  Questions of the reporters were the most annoying.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VII. A PICTURE IS STOLEN
  32
  
  "What is it all about? What is this Crimson Serpent? Is it a cult  like that of the leopard men of Africa, who
  dress in animal skins and  kill with steel claws? What is behind it? Could it really be the swamp  dwellers
  themselves, or do you suppose there is some outside influence?"
  Doc’s men would have liked to know the answer to those questions  themselves.
  Doc left to Renny the answering of most of the questions. The big  engineer confessed frankly that he didn’t
  know what it was all about.  Renny skirted questions, also, as to how he had gotten to Chicago. He  didn’t
  answer that, either.
  The bronze man and his aides all were careful to refrain from  mentioning any of the events that had befallen
  them since arriving in  Chicago.
  Nor did any of them mention the photograph Renny had taken.
  One of the more astute newspapermen asked Doc about his other two  aides. William Harper Littlejohn, the
  archaeologist, and Major Thomas  J. Roberts, the electrical wizard. He was disappointed when he learned  they
  both were out of the country. Littlejohn with an expedition in  Egypt, and Roberts on a job for the government
  in Panama. The reporter  had hoped they might already be at the scene, investigating the strange  case.
  It was with difficulty the rooms were finally cleared. Renny  breathed a sigh of relief.
  "I’d rather go back and fight the Crimson Serpent," he growled  savagely.
  Monk and Ham glanced quickly at Doc. The bronze man nodded. "Pack up  the supplies. We will go at once,"
  he said calmly.
  "If we only had that camera of Renny’s, and knew something about  what we’re runnin’ into!" Monk growled.
  Doc took the camera from his pocket, moved toward the bathroom.
  "I am going to develop the film now," he said.
  GERALD PETTYBLOOM, despite his name, or perhaps because of it, was a  crime reporter. He had
  "contacts" with the underworld that on occasion  had let him know about gang executions, even before the
  executions were  carried out.
  He was with the reporters who had interviewed Doc and his aides, but  he said nothing about the information
  he had. A telephone tip had given  him what might turn out to be an exclusive feature.
  "Doc Savage has camera with picture in it, taken of the mysterious  Crimson Serpent," his informant had
  whispered excitedly. "Or at least  the picture was taken at the time that engineer was killed down in the
  swamp."
  Pettybloom hadn’t asked his informant for the source of the  information. Failure to ask embarrassing
  questions of that kind had  permitted him to go on living.
  When the other reporters and cameramen rushed from the hotel to  return to their offices, Pettybloom didn’t.
  A twenty−dollar bill got  him into the suite of rooms adjoining Doc’s. Another twenty got him a  key that
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VII. A PICTURE IS STOLEN
  33
  
  would open a connecting door.
  Pettybloom was so interested in what he was doing that he failed to  notice a couple of hard−faced strangers
  who were shadowing him.
  When Pettybloom entered the rooms next to Doc’s, the strangers were  only a few feet behind.
  The crime reporter didn’t see them. He had eased open a connecting  door a half inch and had his ear to the
  crack.
  His face lightened when he heard Doc say he was going to develop the  film. It was with some impatience that
  he restrained himself after that.
  A few minutes later, Doc reappeared. "I have made four prints," he  said. "Here is the best of them."
  Pettybloom saw nothing unusual in the fact that Doc would have to  make more than one print to get a good
  one. The bronze man’s aides did.  Monk started to speak. Before he could, Doc spoke rapidly in Mayan, a
  language he often used when he wanted no one but his aides to  understand them.
  Shortly after that, Doc, Renny, Monk and Ham departed.
  "Why didn’t you just give the guy a print?" Ham asked curiously.
  "This is one time I think publicity will do no harm," the bronze man  said. "I believe greater publicity will be
  given if the reporter thinks  he has really achieved a scoop, and his editor is less likely to doubt  his story."
  Pettybloom didn’t hear that, didn’t know that Doc had heard his  cautious entrance to the next room and had
  seen him in a mirror.
  Casting caution aside, the reporter leaped into the vacated rooms,  rushed to the bathroom. A howl of glee
  came from him as he saw two  prints there. He grabbed them, tucked one inside his shirt, put the  other in a
  side pocket.
  It was then the hard−faced strangers appeared behind him. One  slugged Pettybloom very efficiently. There
  was a lot of force behind  the blow. Before the reporter recovered, his pockets had been rifled  and his
  assailants were gone.
  "For a supposedly good reporter, he used a nutty method, but at  least he got the picture for us," one of the
  attackers growled.
  Pettybloom wasn’t dumb. He’d already figured out that he’d been used  by some crook to get a copy of the
  picture Renny had taken. He was  thankful he had shown enough sense to hide the second copy he had.
  He found his office in an uproar when he reached it. Another story  had come in from Arkansas. A group of
  engineers, caught in the swamp at  night, had just returned with a strange tale.
  They had seen, they insisted, a band of mystery figures moving  through the darkness. Those figures had
  pursued them, but they had  escaped, they said. But that wasn’t the strange part of their story.  Without
  exception the engineers claimed that:
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  Chapter VII. A PICTURE IS STOLEN
  34
  
  The mystery figures were wearing armor! It was ancient armor! They  were carrying guns of a type now seen
  only in museums, ancient,  long−barreled weapons such as were used by Spanish explorers hundreds  of years
  before!
  The city editor was of a calm, even disposition. He rarely showed  emotion. He was showing it now. He was
  yelling to all who cared to  listen that it couldn’t be so. That it was a fake, a publicity stunt of  some kind.
  Gerald Pettybloom eased up to the desk. With an expression that was  almost smirking, he produced the
  picture he had swiped from Doc’s rooms.
  The city editor took one look. He became speechless.
  Chapter VIII. "DOC SAVAGE IS DEAD!"
  DOC and his men did not go directly from the hotel to the airport  where the dirigible was waiting. That was
  an error. They stopped to get  him new clothes to replace those almost torn from him in his repeated  battles.
  Ham and Monk had taken their usual precautions. They had hired four  men to guard the dirigible in their
  absence. The men had been summoned  from a local detective agency.
  The guards were honest. What happened really wasn’t their fault.  They had expected their job to consist
  mostly of just shooing away  curious spectators.
  The airport was a private one, seldom used. But the guards weren’t  surprised when two cars pulled in filled
  with men. The dirigible could  be seen from some distance away.
  The men got out, strolled close to the guards, asking a few idle  questions. The guards answered politely.
  Then things happened suddenly. Four of the newcomers produced guns.  Before the guards really knew what
  was occurring, they had been forced  into an empty hangar, stripped of their uniforms, and bound and gagged.
  Soon four men wearing the uniforms returned to positions near the  dirigible. But this time the uniforms were
  worn by gangsters.
  In the meantime, the other six of the late arrivals hadn’t been  idle. They went to work in groups of two, each
  hauling a package from  one of the two cars.
  One group went to the nose of the dirigible; a second became busy  directly under the belly of the big ship; the
  third was occupied at the  stern.
  A casual observer would have thought them merely workmen. Sight of  the guards would have dispelled any
  suspicion.
  The three groups about the dirigible moved swiftly. They completed  their jobs in only a few minutes. Then
  they drove their cars out of  sight into the empty hangar. Only the guards remained in view.
  When Doc and his men arrived, there was nothing to indicate anything  was wrong. Ham paid off the guards.
  The dapper lawyer, usually alert,  was totally unsuspicious. Inasmuch as he had not seen the real guards,
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  Chapter VIII. "DOC SAVAGE IS DEAD!"
  35
  
  having summoned them by telephone, he could not be blamed for that.
  In the space of minutes, the dirigible soared gently into the air.
  Not until it was almost out of view did those in the hangar  reappear. In the lead was a big, heavy−set man
  with a busted nose and  cauliflower ears. A gloating expression was on his features.
  "Put me in a sack and let me get kicked around, will yuh?" he  snarled. "It won’t be long now. And, boy, just
  let me see it happen."
  A moment later the two big cars were racing down the highway  endeavoring to keep the dirigible in sight.
  They didn’t have far to go before it happened. First a faint cloud  seemed to materialize at the bow of the
  airship. An instant later a  flash of flame came from the center of the ship. Smoke bellowed out  rapidly.
  Then came a tremendous explosion. Tiny bits of débris drifted  earthward.
  GERALD PETTYBLOOM’S name was in headlines. He was delighted. This  surely would get him a job in
  New York. The headline read:
  EAGLE REPORTER GETS
  PICTURE SCOOP OF CENTURY!
  Beneath it, almost taking up the full front page of the Daily  Eagle, was an enlarged print of the picture
  Pettybloom had found in  Doc’s room.
  The picture was of a group of men in ancient armor! They carried  weapons that resembled those used by the
  Spanish Explorers!
  Coupled with the story told by the engineers in Arkansas, the  picture created a stir throughout the entire
  nation. Here was something  that appealed to the imagination, something that seemed almost like  fiction, but
  which was supported by incontestable proof.
  Camera experts inspected the picture, and wagered their reputations  that it was real, had not been retouched
  in any way.
  Antique experts looked through magnifying glasses and solemnly  agreed that the first impression had been an
  accurate one. The armor  was of the type used by the Spanish explorers. The guns, with the long  barrels and
  rods to rest them upon, were of the kind those explorers  had used.
  It was the kind of yarn every editor dreams of getting. Star men  from all the metropolitan papers in both
  Chicago and New York were  dispatched to Arkansas by fast plane. Local correspondents there were  deluged
  with calls.
  It seemed a mystery for which there was no answer.
  Then Pettybloom got a hunch. He yelled for reference books. When  those came, he wrote rapidly. The
  headline in the Daily Eagle read:
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VIII. "DOC SAVAGE IS DEAD!"
  36
  
  SWAMP MYSTERY MEN
  MAY BE DE SOTO KIN
  Pettybloom had done himself proud. He recalled that Hernando de  Soto, the famous Spanish explorer, had
  discovered the Mississippi in  1541 with a party of his men. De Soto had gone on West, returning to  the
  Mississippi in 1542. It was there he died, or so history has it.
  The crime reporter came through with another theory. He recalled  famous Pitcairn Island, settled by
  mutineers from the Bounty.
  Then he wrote:
  Jealousy always existed among exploring parties. Why is it not  possible to believe that De Soto became ill
  perhaps, even if he was not  in violent quarrels with his men. One group, the larger group, slipped  away in the
  night, leaving De Soto and a few faithful followers behind.
  History shows the last trace of De Soto was almost at the place  where these strange happenings are now
  occurring. If the Pitcairn  Island mutineers could live for years without being discovered, think  how much
  more likely it would be that Spanish explorers, and their  descendants, probably married to Indians, could
  remain for centuries  concealed in the trackless wastes of the swampland.
  Proud by nature, these men and their descendants kept the Spanish  tongue, kept the armor and guns their
  forebears had. They shunned  contact with the outside world, created a kingdom of their own inside  the
  swamp. Now, with that kingdom menaced by a flood−control project  that would drive them from their hiding
  place, they are fighting back .  . .
  The story ran for three columns. Pettybloom really thought it was  the best yarn he had ever done.
  That is, until he received the telephone call that told him Doc  Savage was dead.
  THE tip, as usual, came to the crime reporter anonymously.  Pettybloom never did learn that it was Bouncer
  who called.
  Confirmation came rapidly. Scores of rural residents had been  watching the dirigible, had seen the flash of
  fire and heard the  explosion.
  It took only a little checking to learn the airship really did  belong to Doc. Then, too, the real guards at the
  airport were found and  released, and they told their story.
  The sensation was enough to knock even the swamp mystery off the  front pages, or would have been had not
  editors been able to link Doc  directly with the mystery.
  The famous man of bronze, the papers reported, had lost his life  while headed for Arkansas to solve that
  mystery.
  Most newspapers were inclined to treat the fire and blast as an  accident, pointing out that many other
  dirigibles had been similarly  destroyed. Failure to find much wreckage was attributed to the terrific  explosion.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VIII. "DOC SAVAGE IS DEAD!"
  37
  
  Gerald Pettybloom was no dope. He knew better. For one thing, he  knew Doc’s dirigible was mostly of metal
  alloy, very light, and besides  it was filled with helium, which wouldn’t burn.
  The fire could only have been incendiary, probably of thermite  composition designed to destroy the metal.
  The explosion also could have been no accident.
  For once in his life, Pettybloom was frightened. He really had a  hold on something so big he was scared.
  There was no question in his mind but that the swamp mystery and the  destruction of Doc and his aides were
  linked. That meant someone in  Chicago was very interested in the Arkansas swampland.
  Pettybloom didn’t see how that was possible, but he knew it must be  so.
  He called up a few members of the underworld he thought he could  trust and asked what he believed to be
  discreet questions. At first he  could get no information at all. Then he received what he thought was a  hot
  lead.
  He was promised the "real low down" if he would meet a certain  stoolie at a South Side address.
  Pettybloom went there. The stoolie didn’t show up, but three thugs  did. The reporter never did see their faces.
  They pounced on him from  behind. He was terribly beaten up.
  When he recovered, he found a note pinned to his shirt. The note  warned him to forget what he knew, if he
  wanted to keep on living.
  Pettybloom thought of another Chicago crime reporter who hadn’t kept  on living, but had been shot down
  because some of his "connections"  thought he knew too much. Then he thought of Doc Savage, and of all the
  good the bronze man had done. The reporter wanted the killers of the  bronze man punished.
  He staggered to the street, staggered to a nearby cigar store. There  was a telephone booth there.
  He never got inside. A hard object was pushed into his side and a  man, hat pulled low, stepped up behind him.
  "So yuh couldn’t take a hint, huh?" the man asked. His voice was  quiet and without malice.
  Pettybloom tried to run. The gun spoke twice, and the reporter went  down.
  That he wasn’t killed was no fault of the gunman. He was taken to a  hospital, unconscious. A minor mystery
  developed an hour later when he  vanished, apparently kidnapped. Chicago police launched a hunt for him,
  but it was taken for granted he would never be found alive.
  DOC SAVAGE had preferred that for a while everyone believe he and  his aides were dead. The dirigible had
  no sooner taken the air than all  aboard knew it had been tampered with.
  Sensitive alarms were attached to all parts of the big ship. A  glance at dials in the control room not only
  showed the airship had  received visitors, but indicated where they had called.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter VIII. "DOC SAVAGE IS DEAD!"
  38
  
  Without giving away that fact, Doc had inspected the ship swiftly.  His gold−flecked eyes detected at once the
  three bombs that had been  fastened to the dirigible.
  The bomb in the bow was of poison gas. This had been removed by Monk  almost before the ship was off the
  ground. Later, the fire bomb  amidships and the explosive at the stern had been removed.
  Doc and his aides knew they were being watched. But it was easy for  the bronze man to counterfeit what was
  expected to happen; in fact, the  gas bomb made the disappearance of the ship logical.
  A smoke bomb was put in its place. The smoke hid the dirigible while  Doc set off an explosive that sounded
  loud, but did no damage.
  What the watchers from the ground failed to notice was that a cloud  drifted across the sky after that
  explosion. That cloud was  artificially made, but it concealed the dirigible from those below.
  "This way our mystery armor−wearers won’t be expecting callers,"  Monk grinned.
  "I don’t suppose they ever have seen an ape," Ham giggled. "It will  be quite a shock to them when you drop
  in on them."
  Renny’s big fists opened and closed, his face more severe than ever.  "Just so I can get a swat at those guys
  who knocked me over the head."  he growled.
  Doc said nothing. The bronze man only whirled the controls. The  dirigible headed toward Arkansas.
  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP
  DOC and his aides weren’t the only ones heading south. Shortly after  the dirigible lifted into the air, a plane
  took off from another  airport. It carried two persons.
  One was a small man with real black hair plastered close to his  head. He was almost elegantly dressed. A
  perfumed handkerchief was  jammed into the breast pocket of his coat. He handled the controls of  the plane
  with negligent ease.
  In the rear cockpit was a girl. She likewise was small, weighing  less than a hundred pounds, with perfectly
  black hair and large, dark  eyes.
  Georges Douter and Consuelo Manresa also were on their way to  Arkansas.
  The small plane gained altitude rapidly. A strained expression was  on the girl’s face. She kept casting
  nervous glances around her.
  Douter glanced over his shoulder. "There ees nothing to fear," he  said.
  The girl’s mouth tightened. "But Doc Savage�"
  Douter shrugged. "Eef what Bouncer told us ees true, we no longer  need think about Doc Savage."
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP
  39
  
  The small man doubled over with sudden mirth. "That Bouncer," he  chortled. "Eef he wasn’t mad when he
  got out of that sack!"
  The girl looked thoughtful. "Doc Savage had been listening to our  conversation. Do you suppose he heard
  anything�"
  Again Douter shrugged. "What ees the difference?" he asked calmly.  "Doc Savage, he ees no more."
  The girl looked doubtful. She heard of some of the almost miraculous  escapes the bronze man had made in
  the past.
  She paid no attention to the large cloud the plane skirted a short  time later. Even if she had, she would have
  seen nothing. The dirigible  was well concealed.
  Monk and Ham also had been keeping a close lookout. That was not  difficult, even with the airship securely
  hidden in a cloud.
  Infra−ray light was directed through the artificial haze with strong  projectors. Then, using telescopes,
  particularly designed for the work,  it was easy to see anything that was passing below, or on either side.
  Monk spotted the plane first. He said nothing until he could make  out the occupants clearly. Then he erupted.
  "That hussy!" he piped angrily. "Everywhere we go that female  insulting machine has to go also!"
  Ham swung his telescope, smiled sweetly. "Your irresistible allure,"  he jeered softly. "I’d always heard there
  was one type of woman that  went for ‘cave men,’ but this is the first one I ever saw that was  attracted by an
  ape man."
  The hairy chemist snarled angrily, his big shoulders hunched about  his bulletlike head. "You�"
  Monk halted suddenly. Renny had appeared beside him. The big  engineer took the telescope from him,
  looked through it carefully.
  "Holy cow!" he ejaculated. "The Frenchie! The guy who told me he was  a reporter�and wasn’t!"
  "That’s the guy who called us, who said he was the Oracle and told  us you were dead," Ham put in excitedly.
  "Let’s drop down and get ‘em, Doc!" Monk shouted. The chemist jumped  up and down, his long arms
  waving.
  "Not yet," the bronze man cautioned. Doc did not mention that he had  spotted the plane even before Monk
  saw it. Nor did he tell of Douter’s  conversation with the gang that had attacked them in Chicago.
  "I believe we will learn more by following them," he added.
  The dirigible picked up speed as the plane shot ahead. All attention  remained on the plane.
  That was why none aboard saw the second ship that was drifting along  high above and behind.
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  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP
  40
  
  FLETCHER CARTER looked as self−sufficient as usual. He had a fresh,  pink carnation in his coat lapel.
  The plane he was in was almost a pursuit ship. It had sleek lines  and the roar of its motor indicated it was
  capable of tremendous speed.  A hired pilot was at the controls.
  Occasionally, Carter would lift a pair of binoculars to his eyes.  Each time he nodded with quiet satisfaction.
  Neither Georges Douter or  Consuelo Manresa had spotted him. He did not intend that they should.
  It was the pilot who first called his attention to the cloud  following along behind Douter’s plane.
  "I never seen a cloud move that fast," the pilot shouted.
  Fletcher Carter’s lips formed a silent "o," and he swung the glasses  upon the cloud. He watched it for long
  minutes. Then he grinned broadly.
  A sudden gust of wind had ripped away a fragment of the filmy mist.  For just an instant he had obtained a
  glimpse of a dark object.
  Carter had still been in Chicago when the extras had hit the street  blaring, "Doc Savage Dead."
  "Just a slightly exaggerated report," he told himself. One hand  played with the carnation in his coat, and his
  eyes became thoughtful.  He spoke to the pilot.
  After that, his plane dropped still farther behind, and climbed for  additional altitude. It became a mere speck,
  invisible to the naked eye.
  The six hundred fifty miles to the Arkansas swampland area were  covered swiftly. But it was growing dusk
  when the dank,  dismal−appearing expanse appeared below.
  For the first time, Douter appeared uncertain of his destination. He  swung out, skirted the edge of the swamp.
  Several times he circled once  or twice over cleared areas that could have been used as landing  fields, only to
  turn and go South.
  "Lookin’ for something?" Monk breathed.
  Doc nodded silent assent. The bronze man’s gold−flecked eyes were  whirling strangely.
  Ham and Renny strained their eyes through the gathering darkness.
  They all saw it when it came. It was a flashlight signal. The light  was directed toward the sky, and was being
  swung in a large circle.
  Instantly the roar of Douter’s plane was muted. The ship spiraled  swiftly.
  Below, a group of brilliant lights came on suddenly, evidently  spotlights operated by storage batteries. A
  good−sized field was  illuminated, one easily large enough for a plane to land.
  "This is going to be close," Ham muttered.
  Monk and Renny said nothing. They knew what Ham meant. It would be  impossible for the dirigible to come
  down directly behind the plane  without being seen. Yet if there was any delay, those they were  following
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP
  41
  
  might get away.
  The dirigible tilted suddenly. Doc’s aides gasped. The bronze man  had spotted a narrow tunnel between trees
  at the far end of the field.  It was the only place for a quick landing. They would have to chance  that eyes,
  blinded by lights, would not see the shadow of the airship.
  Beneath them, Douter’s ship landed. Two figures got out, to be met  by a third.
  Renny thought he saw a brief flurry of motion, but he couldn’t be  sure. The dirigible was moving too fast.
  UNDER Doc’s expert piloting, the dirigible slid into the space  between the trees with hardly a sound. The
  space was so narrow that it  seemed like a hangar created by nature.
  None of those aboard the big airship spoke. There was no need for  words. Each knew what he had to do.
  Monk and Ham broke out long mooring lines. Swiftly they anchored the  dirigible. Renny seized weapons and
  ammunition. The weapons were the  mercy pistols Doc and his aides customarily used. But this time, as  well
  as mercy bullets, Renny brought out several drums of explosive  shells, bullets that created tremendous blasts
  when they hit.
  Doc vanished. He whipped over the side of the dirigible and was gone  before his aides even knew what was
  happening. He darted toward the  swamp side of the clearing, moving silently and swiftly.
  High overhead, with motor cut low, Fletcher Carter was peering down  through night glasses. There was a
  regretful look on his features.  Finally he sighed, spoke to the pilot.
  "Much as I’d like to, that landing field looks a little too crowded  for us," he said.
  The pilot nodded, swung the nose of the plane in a big arc.
  The bronze man was gone only a short time. But even before he  returned, the bright lights about the
  improvised field to the rear of  the dirigible had vanished.
  Monk, Ham and Renny were moving about restlessly and impatiently.
  Doc did not explain. He bounded back aboard the airship, and went to  the stern. When he reappeared he was
  carrying what appeared to be a  long, thin board, some two feet wide. The board was awkward to carry  and
  undoubtedly heavy, but the bronze man handled it easily.
  "Goggles?" Doc asked.
  Renny produced four queer−looking sets of goggles. Each of them  donned the glasses. The big engineer
  reached down, swung what appeared  like a searchlight.
  The strange part about the searchlight was that no light could be  seen coming from it with the naked eye. It
  was another piece of  equipment the bronze man and his aides used often.
  Shooting an infra−ray light, invisible under ordinary circumstances,  it lighted a perfect path for those wearing
  the specially designed  goggles.
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  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP
  42
  
  Rapidly, but taking care to make no noise, the four moved toward the  clearing. Renny swung the light in a
  wide circle.
  Nothing was to be seen except the deserted plane.
  A grunt of disappointment came from Monk. Not often did he think Doc  Savage made an error, but he
  thought so this time.
  "Daggonit, Doc!" He wailed. "If you hadn’t run away, we’d have got  here in time to see where they went."
  The bronze man said nothing.
  Ham shot a quick look at Doc, and his lips twitched. He knew Doc’s  habit of not explaining all he did, was
  willing to bet the bronze man  had something up his sleeve.
  Doc led the way to the swamp, without a word. Then it became  apparent what the "board" he carried really
  was.
  With quick motions, he pressed release catches. The "board" popped  apart, became a long, narrow canoe.
  Inside were two thin paddles, made  of very strong metal. The canoe was big enough to hold four persons.
  Monk gazed blankly at the thick maze of foliage in front of them, at  the many different paths a canoe could
  take through the almost stagnant  water.
  "B−but, Doc," he blurted plaintively. "Like I said, how are we going  tuh know where they went?"
  The bronze man did not answer�that is, in words. Silently, he  pointed toward the water.
  Monk’s eyes got very large. He gulped with embarrassment.
  Before them was a perfect trail.
  THE trail was plainer than if it had been footprints in snow. It was  a brilliant yellow line, showing up clearly
  on the water under the  infra−ray searchlight.
  Monk was chemist enough to know what it meant. And he knew now why  Doc had disappeared for a few
  moments.
  Doc had wanted to continue trailing those ahead of them. He had  known, naturally, they would take to the
  water. While the others were  still getting from the plane, probably talking to their guide, he had  found the
  boat they would use.
  At the stern of the boat, low where it would not be noticed, he had  fastened a small container like a pepper
  box, but with only one small  hole open.
  Through that hole dropped a steady, thin stream of powder, a powder  that dissolved on the water, leaving
  what appeared to be a yellow trail  behind.
  No matter how many turns and twists the boat ahead of them took,  they could follow without difficulty.
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  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP
  43
  
  Ham was doubled over with silent mirth. Monk, for once, was  speechless. He had nothing to say as the four
  got into their canoe, but  he did take one of the paddles. The savage sweep of his arms showed the  suppressed
  feeling he was working off.
  After a bit, none of those in the canoe felt like talking, anyway.  Their surroundings were responsible for that.
  In their many adventures, Doc and his aides had been in some  strangely disquieting spots. But none more so
  than the swamp.
  The hot, humid stink of the place closed about them. Creepers, long,  dangling vines looked like deadly coiled
  snakes. The trees took on  strange, unearthly shapes.
  Bird noises were few. That was understandable. Those who had passed  that way before them had frightened
  the birds.
  The yellow trail on the water twisted and turned, occasionally going  through towering grass where it seemed
  impossible for a boat to go  until that grass was pushed aside.
  Renny swung the searchlight suddenly from side to side. Nothing was  to be seen. Neither Monk nor Ham
  gave evidence that they had noticed  that startled move. But they knew why Renny had made it. They felt the
  same way themselves.
  It seemed that eyes were staring at them. Hidden eyes, malignant  eyes, that watched every move.
  Doc’s trilling sound came. It was so unexpected the other three  jumped, nerves tense.
  Then they heard it, too. Heard the noise that Doc’s keen ears had  detected in the distance.
  Far ahead there was a faint sound. A sound like that of clanking  chains.
  Without orders, Monk’s big shoulders bent to their work. The strong  metal paddle bent under the force of his
  drive. Doc appeared to be  moving effortlessly, but the paddle he was using bent more.
  The boat shot ahead.
  A queer sense of fatalism gripped Ham. He felt he knew what was  going to happen next, even before it
  occurred.
  He felt no satisfaction when the sound came�the sound that could  only be made by men marching in armor.
  Then it came�the scream they had all been expecting. 
  It was a shrill, high scream, seemingly forced unwillingly from  tight lips.
  It was hard to tell whether that scream came from a man or a woman.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter IX. INTO THE SWAMP
  44
  
  Chapter X. SURROUNDED
  THE sound of the scream came from some distance ahead. Evidently  those they had been trailing also had
  been moving at a rapid rate. The  canoe fairly cut through the water.
  Then they ran into trouble.
  It came so swiftly that Renny, in the bow of the boat with the  searchlight, almost was knocked overboard.
  A thick, tough vine was across the bayou, barely two feet above the  water. It was stretched tight.
  Doc’s gold−flecked eyes flickered at the sight of that. It couldn’t  have been there when the other boat passed.
  Human hands had stretched  that vine, had placed it there deliberately to delay those who were  following.
  Yet how could those ahead have known they were being trailed?
  No one wasted time looking for answers. A sharp knife flashed to  Renny’s hands. The edge was razor sharp,
  but so tough was the vine that  it took several slashes to sever it.
  After that, progress was slower. Several other vines were found  barring the way.
  Then the brilliant yellow trail they had been following vanished.  One moment it was there. The next it was
  gone. The water ahead was  perfectly clear. But the bronze man did not hesitate.
  Without loss of a single stroke, he swerved the canoe toward a  narrow bayou on the right.
  Then others saw what Doc’s keen eyes had found.
  There was a body directly ahead. A body that was held upright  against the broad trunk of a tree by tightly
  twisted vines.  Unconsciously, a sigh of relief came from Monk.
  It was the body of a man.
  The clothes had been stripped almost completely from Georges Douter.  Ironically enough, his shoulder
  holster had been replaced about him.  There was another leather sheath at the back of his neck. It still held  its
  knife.
  Neither gun or knife had done Douter any good. Coiled, stretching  almost entirely over his thin chest, was
  The Crimson Serpent, the  serpent of blood.
  The Frenchman’s eyes were open. His contorted features seemed to  hold an unbelieving, baffled look.
  There was no sign of Consuelo Manresa. There was no trace of the  boat she had been riding in, or of the
  guide that must have been along.
  Renny was swallowing hard, his features dour and stern. Ham looked  as if he were seeing something that
  didn’t exist.
  Tiny noises were coming from Monk. The hairy chemist was torn  between relief that Consuelo Manresa
  hadn’t been killed, and anger at  what he knew must have been true.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter X. SURROUNDED
  45
  
  There was no question in Monk’s mind but that the dark−eyed girl  must have led Georges Douter into a trap.
  A faint whistle came from Ham. The dapper lawyer motioned to one  side. Doc nodded. He had already seen
  it.
  A pile of clothes had been left beneath a huge cypress on the other  side of the bayou. The clothes had been
  folded deliberately and neatly.  Why they had been left, was a question none could answer.
  Doc drove the canoe to the foot of the tree. With skilled fingers he  went through pockets. He extracted a thin,
  flat book. Wordlessly, he  opened it.
  A startled grunt came from Monk. The book was a passport, issued in  France.
  It identified Georges Douter as a member of the Sûreté, the French  Secret Police.
  For a moment, none spoke. Questions flashed to the mind of each, but  they were questions that seemed to
  have no answer.
  What was a French Secret Service man doing in an Arkansas swamp?  What was the impelling mystery that
  had drawn Georges Douter thousands  of miles from his gay Paris to meet a hideous, terrible death?
  "It gets screwier and screwier," Monk growled. "First somethin’  happens down here. Then we find it has
  some connection with a gang in  Chicago. Now we find it must have some connection in France, as well."
  "And the girl knew it," Ham put in, but for once he did not appear  to be gibing Monk. Even the dapper lawyer
  was sobered. "She wanted us  to locate Douter. And she was in New York."
  "Strings leading from every place," Renny agreed somberly. "And all  leading to this swamp."
  Monk started to speak again, then his jaws closed. He had looked at  Doc.
  The bronze man appeared unaware of the scene about him. His head was  tilted slightly to one side, lids
  half−masked his gold−flecked eyes.
  Monk knew what that meant. The hairy chemist did not even try to  strain his own ears. If the sound was too
  faint for Doc to be sure,  then Monk knew he certainly couldn’t hear it.
  From boyhood, Doc had trained daily, exercising every part of his  body, every faculty. His hearing far
  exceeded that of a normal man; his  eyes were trained to detect things that any other person would fail to  see.
  Ham stirred uneasily. Again the dapper lawyer had the feeling that  hidden eyes were watching him.
  Renny felt the same. He was swinging the infra−ray searchlight  ceaselessly.
  "Holy cow, let’s get out of here!" the big engineer rasped. His  voice sounded loud and harsh in the stillness.
  Monk’s muscles bunched, his piglike eyes receded even farther in  their pits of gristle until they could hardly
  be seen through the big  goggles he wore.
  "Maybe that girl wasn’t in this," he said, but even his voice held  no hope. "Let’s go on, Doc. Let’s find out
  what this is all about."
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  Chapter X. SURROUNDED
  46
  
  Doc Savage said nothing. His eyes were open slightly more now, as if  he were nearing something a little
  plainer.
  Ham peered far back into the brush, his jaw dropping as he saw  infra−ray light flash on something. It was a
  boat. Without examining  it, Ham would have bet it was the boat which had carried Georges Douter  to his
  death.
  He motioned to Renny. The engineer turned the light squarely on the  boat. The small can Doc had attached to
  the stern was missing. That  explained that.
  Evidently one of those they had followed had discovered it, probably  by accident. They couldn’t have known
  what it was for, but they had  taken no chances. They had removed it.
  Renny swung the light upward. Its rays pierced the dense foliage of  a tree, some fifty feet away.
  A gasp came from the big engineer. All eyes turned toward the light.
  Peering at them through leaves of a tree was a face. It was a lined,  evil face, with slitted eyes gleaming
  venomously.
  Just beneath it was the barrel of a gun.
  "LET us get out and look around," Doc said. The bronze man spoke  unusually loud.
  Doc slipped the goggles from his eyes as they stepped out upon the  knee of the big cypress, worked their way
  toward the abandoned boat.
  Monk, Ham and Renny made quite a bit of noise. They weren’t  surprised to discover a moment later that Doc
  had disappeared. They had  expected that. Although they had heard nothing, they knew Doc had  vanished up
  the tree above them.
  The bronze man could move as silently through the treetops, and  almost as rapidly, as any denizen of the
  jungle.
  Renny could not resist another flash with the searchlight.
  The face they had seen was no longer there.
  Only seconds later, Doc reappeared. His features were emotionless,  as usual, but his aides knew him well.
  They realized he was slightly  puzzled.
  "Gone," Doc reported briefly.
  If the bronze man was slightly puzzled, his aides were more so. It  didn’t seem possible that anyone could
  move fast enough to elude Doc in  the darkness.
  The whole thing was getting more and more baffling. Ham felt nerves  crawling on the back of his neck.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter X. SURROUNDED
  47
  
  Doc took the searchlight from Renny and replaced his goggles. On the  far side of the boat was a single
  footprint.
  It was a footprint different from that any of them had ever seen  before. The hard mud showed every detail
  clearly.
  It was the print of an armored foot.
  Doc’s head came up suddenly. "Quickly!" he rapped. He leaped toward  their canoe.
  The others had heard nothing, seen nothing. But they did not  hesitate. They jumped after him.
  "Watch for broken twigs. We should be able to trail the others that  way," Doc snapped. Then he added: "If we
  are not too late."
  Monk did not understand what was meant. He didn’t particularly care.  Doc had turned the nose of the canoe
  toward the center of the swamp.  That was what the chemist wanted.
  He was not one to mull long over puzzles. What he wanted was action.  He was quite content to let Doc solve
  all the questions.
  But even Monk wondered what Doc meant by that last statement. It  wasn’t like the bronze man to make a
  statement like that.
  Doc back−watered suddenly. The canoe stopped, swung around, raced  down another bayou. Again Doc
  stopped it. This time he turned back.
  Then Monk and the others heard what Doc had discerned some minutes  before.
  The silence of the night had been broken. There was a faint, steady  sound. It seemed to be coming toward
  them from all directions.
  Perspiration broke out on Monk’s homely features. Renny reached in  the bottom of the canoe, grabbed up
  several of the mercy pistols,  passed them to the others.
  The canoe shot out into a miniature lake, then stopped. The sound  they had heard was louder now. They
  could identify it. It was the  steady, swishing sound of many paddies. It swelled in an  ever−increasing chorus.
  A moment later the first dugout came into view. It held several men.
  Then scores of dugouts appeared. They came from every direction.
  Doc and his men were surrounded.
  LANTERNS and searchlights were carried by men in most of the  dugouts. The searchlights came on, the
  lanterns were lighted.
  The canoe with Doc and his aides was the focal point for hundreds of  lights. They were the center of a silent,
  hostile mob.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter X. SURROUNDED
  48
  
  For long moments no one spoke. Then one dugout moved forward. It  carried but a single man.
  From descriptions given in the newspapers, Doc and his aides  recognized the occupant as Hank Hendricks,
  the bearded still operator  whose son had been killed by the Crimson Serpent.
  "I give yuh fair warnin’, and yuh wouldn’t take it." Hendricks  grated harshly.
  Doc said nothing. The bronze man seemed to have added inches to his  height, even sitting as he was in the
  canoe. His features were  perfectly calm, his gold−flecked eyes quiet.
  A rifle was on Hank Hendricks’ knee. With one hand, the bearded  swamp man shifted that rifle so that the
  muzzle was aimed at Doc. One  finger rested carelessly on the trigger.
  Monk moved his mercy pistol cautiously. Careful as he was, the  movement was spotted.
  "Don’t try that!" a voice spat behind him. "I’d jest as soon shoot  as not."
  Monk breathed deeply. This was a tough spot. He didn’t need a  diagram to tell him what it was all about.
  The natives had been opposed to the government engineers entering  the swamp, to begin with. Then the
  Crimson Serpent had appeared.  Rightly or wrongly, the natives had blamed work on the flood project  for that.
  Hendricks had sounded a warning. He had told all outsiders to keep  away from the swamp. And the bearded
  native had lost a son.
  Ham likewise saw the point. For years, this swamp had been shunned  by peace officers of all kinds. It was a
  sanctuary for all those  outside the law. Not that all of those that lived in the swamp were  lawbreakers, but
  enough of them were. They would jump at an excuse that  would keep the swamp inviolate.
  Doc Savage had persuaded them to let the engineers work, to begin  with. Now, even his influence seemed
  gone.
  "You recognize me?" the bronze man asked quietly.
  Hank Hendricks nodded, and for an instant his features split in a  hideous snarl.
  "Yeah, I recognize yuh. Yuh are responsible for the whole thing. Yuh  just the same as killed my son. If we
  uns hadn’t listened to yuh, if we  hadn’t let them damn engineers in, I’d�"
  "Hold it, Hank," someone cautioned from the background. "Ye said  yerself we’d let these fellers go."
  Hendricks spun his head. "Thet’s what I said. But I changed my mind.  You didn’t lose a son. You ain’t
  suffered like I has."
  He turned back, his rifle came up.
  Doc had not appeared to move. Only his aides had seen the quick  gesture he had made. One hand had darted
  under his shirt, into the  equipment belt he always wore about his waist.
  Now that hand was again resting on the edge of the canoe, over the  water.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter X. SURROUNDED
  49
  
  "If you will only let me speak, and try and explain what is  happening�" Doc began.
  "Yuh can’t speak. None of ye can lie out of this trick!" Hank  Hendricks shrilled. The rifle in his hand came
  up.
  Monk’s shoulders rose and fell. Now it was coming. A fight was  inevitable. They were hopelessly
  outnumbered. Besides, they had no wish  to kill these people. They were doing what they thought best. They
  didn’t deserve to be shot down. And mercy bullets wouldn’t work here.  If they were to escape at all, they
  would have to use the explosive  shells, bullets that were so powerful that even one would wipe out an  entire
  dugout and all the men in it.
  Then Monk gasped. He thought he was going blind. The scene in front  of him faded with astonishing
  rapidity. The lights grew dim, then  vanished. He could no longer see Hank Hendricks. He couldn’t see
  anyone.
  Dimly he was aware that the canoe made a violent lurch forward just  before the shooting started.
  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR
  BULLETS were whistling overhead. Startled shouts came from all sides.
  Then the firing stopped as quickly as it had started. A man shrieked  loudly.
  "I can’t see! I can’t see!"
  Others took up the cry. The secluded lake in the swamp became a  bedlam of noise.
  Monk, Ham, and Renny couldn’t see anything either. They didn’t know  just what was happening, but they
  knew Doc was responsible for it.
  Their canoe was moving rapidly through the water. Once it struck  another boat. A hand reached out, grabbed
  Monk by the arm. The hairy  chemist grunted. This was something he knew about.
  One of his long arms streaked forth, grabbed an unseen opponent  around the neck. The other opened his
  mouth to yell. Monk’s huge paw  smashed him squarely in the open mouth, knocked out several teeth and
  gagged any outcry.
  Several words were spoken rapidly in a strange tongue. Disgustedly,  Monk let go of the man he had grabbed.
  Their canoe glided on. Monk  would have preferred to remain for a little fighting, but he obeyed  instantly
  when Doc spoke in Mayan, ordering him to let go.
  It came as no surprise to Monk that evidently Doc was the only one  who could still see. He had expected that.
  Sounds of shouts and angry cries began to fade. The canoe leaped on  through the winding bayous.
  Gradually vision returned to Doc’s aides. Ham’s features were  bewildered. Big Renny rubbed an arm
  anxiously over his eyes.
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  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR
  50
  
  "Holy cow, I can see again!" he rumbled.
  "The chemical I used does not have long or permanent effects," Doc  said quietly.
  "What is it?" Ham gasped.
  "A chemical which, mixed with water, produces almost the same effect  as tear gas, but without the painful,
  smarting effects," the bronze man  explained.
  He did not add, as he might have, that it was a compound he had  discovered himself, and one that soon would
  probably be adopted by  police for controlling unruly mobs. He took two pieces of glass from  his own eyes.
  They were lenses made to fit directly over the eyeballs.  Use of them had enabled Doc to see when the others
  could not.
  Those behind, evidently had also recovered their eyesight. There  were sounds of splashings and of many
  boats moving through the narrow  bayous as the pursuit started.
  Monk got into action again, aided by wielding a paddle. The speed of  the canoe increased.
  Renny was an engineer and accustomed to keeping his sense of  direction. But even he admitted to himself
  that he would have become  lost had he tried to find his way out of the swamp.
  Doc did not hesitate. The bronze man’s sense of direction also was  highly trained. Doc did, however, take a
  circular, rather than a direct  route to the edge of the swamp.
  His action had its effect. Soon the sound of pursuit began to fade.
  "But now what?" Monk demanded. It was a question that had occurred  to the others, also. They had lost the
  trail of the girl, the only clue  they had.
  Doc did not answer for a moment. His gold−flecked eyes flashed  queerly. "There is one thing more we can
  try�" he began.
  He broke off suddenly. They had almost reached the edge of the  swamp, were nearly back to the dirigible.
  The bronze man held up his hands, stopped paddling. "Get your mercy  pistols ready," he said quietly. "A
  group of men are approaching the  dirigible!"
  IT was some minutes before the others detected the sound. Then they  heard it. It was the sound of several
  men moving almost silently  through the underbrush.
  "The natives?" Ham whispered.
  Doc shook his head. "They could not have reached here yet," he  answered.
  "Do we fight?" Renny demanded belligerently.
  Again the bronze man shook his head. "Not if we can help it. We need  the dirigible. Run for it!"
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR
  51
  
  The canoe was abandoned. With Doc in the lead, the four streaked  through the brush.
  They were almost to the big airship when the light came on. It was a  huge light, evidently one of the type that
  had been used about the  improvised landing field.
  It caught the four men directly in its rays.
  Monk muttered inarticulate words. Ham was using expressions that  would not have been permitted in a court
  of law.
  Pistols barked. Renny grunted as a slug caught him in the side. Only  the fact that all Doc’s men were wearing
  the bullet−proof underwear  that was part of their usual attire, saved him from injury.
  Then came a tremendous blast. The light went out.
  Doc had not slowed his pace in the least. He had fired on the run.  He had been using an explosive bullet. The
  huge light that had been  directed on them went into a thousand pieces.
  From somewhere near a man yelled in fright. Again the gun in Doc’s  hand spoke. The bronze man never
  killed when it could be avoided. He  was not trying to kill now. He had directed the explosive bullets high
  over the heads of the onrushing group.
  That group stopped. Parts of trees rained down on them. The thunder  of the gun was terrific.
  The attackers turned and ran. A minute later Doc and his aides  reached the dirigible.
  The bronze man took no part in releasing the mooring lines or  getting the big ship back into the air. He left
  that to the others.
  Instead, he went to the small but very complete laboratory with  which the dirigible was equipped. For a time,
  he worked swiftly.
  Major Roberts, Doc’s aide known as Long Tom, who was busy at Panama,  would have understood what the
  bronze man was doing had he been  present. It is doubtful if the others would. Long Tom was the  electrical
  expert.
  The dirigible had been in the air for some minutes before Doc  reappeared. He was carrying what looked like
  a huge porcupine�except  that the object he had bristled with large horns instead of quills.
  Ham recognized what it was first. An expression of delight crossed  the dapper lawyer’s face.
  Doc had rigged the big object at the side of the dirigible. In that  position, all of the many horns were turned
  down. Then the bronze man  turned a switch, and produced a pair of headphones.
  "A listening device!" Ham shouted gleefully.
  Monk’s homely face split in a wide grin. He could understand now why  Doc hadn’t wasted time to stay and
  fight. A listening device of the  type the bronze man was using, would enable them to float along  noiselessly
  in the air, but follow the course of anything below them,  even a canoe with muffled paddle.
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  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR
  52
  
  If they could pick up the trail of the men in armor, a sound easily  identified, they could trail directly along to
  the heart of the mystery  that confronted them.
  Monk ambled to Doc’s side, put on a second pair of headphones.
  Doc was whirling a dial and working what appeared to be a loop  aërial.
  Monk grunted delightedly. Faintly, at first, then stronger, came a  sound of clanking armor in the headphones.
  The chemist whirled,  motioned to Ham at the controls to change direction.
  Then a new sound came, a sound they didn’t need earphones to hear.
  It was the sound of many shots, almost as if an army were attacking.
  THE sound of the shots came from the extreme−lower end of the swamp.  It was there the dam was to be built
  which eventually would flood this  swamp, but which also would act as a breakwater, would prove invaluable
  in time of floods.
  And it was there that the main body of government workers were  located.
  "The natives are attacking them!" Renny exclaimed incredulously.
  Monk’s homely face pictured disappointment. Time was everything  right now. If they went to the aid of the
  government workers, they  would lose the trail of the men in armor. If they lost that trail, they  might never
  solve the mystery of the Crimson Serpent.
  But Monk knew, even before Doc acted, what the answer would be.
  The bronze man dropped the earphones, rushed to the controls. The  dirigible spun. Powerful motors roared,
  bit into the air. The airship  lunged forward.
  "Lights! Flare powder!" Doc rapped.
  The others jumped to obey. No other instructions were needed. They  knew what Doc intended.
  Sound carries far in the night, particularly to those up above. The  firing had sounded close at hand. Actually,
  it had been miles away.
  It was ten minutes before the dirigible approached the main  government camp.
  Doc had soared upward, putting the dirigible high above the scene.  As they neared, he silenced most of the
  engines. All lights had been  extinguished.
  Then he tilted the nose down, kicked on all the motors. At the same  instant, two powerful searchlights were
  turned on in the nose of the  big ship.
  The dirigible thundered down. And the lights showed a strange scene.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR
  53
  
  Government workers had taken refuge behind a small earthen ramp that  had been thrown up. There was a
  ditch behind it, giving them ample  protection. But it was apparent from the first that they had but few
  weapons.
  Opposed to them was a sight such as none of those in the airship had  ever seen before.
  Men in armor were moving steadily forward.
  The armored men were not moving rapidly. Their guns handicapped them  there. Those guns were not modern
  weapons. They were of the ancient,  long−barrelled type, that had to be rested on a metal stand before they
  could be fired.
  Only for an instant was the picture clearly defined. The sudden roar  of the airship’s motors, the powerful
  beams of the searchlights had  their effect.
  The men in armor turned and fled.
  It was then that Monk and Ham dropped the flare powder. Brilliant  orange and red lights sprang upward as
  the flares hit the ground.
  The retreat of the armored men became a rout.
  THE flares faded, the searchlights were extinguished. Even those  lights were not powerful enough to
  penetrate the dense growth of the  swamp into which the attackers had vanished.
  The dirigible leveled off, circled and came back over the camp. Men  were running back and forth aimlessly,
  unable to understand what was  happening.
  Doc spoke briefly to Renny. The dirigible came to a stop, however,  practically invisible in the sky. A rope
  ladder was dropped from the  underside.
  A few moments after, the bronze man appeared in the midst of the  excited government workers. So swiftly
  had events occurred that none  knew where he had come from.
  His calm question brought a half−hundred answers at once.
  "They appeared without warning! Two of the engineers got shot! We  wouldn’t have had a chance if it had not
  been for something that roared  out of the sky!"
  Skillfully, Doc dodged from the excited group, went to the tent  where the two wounded men had been taken.
  The camp physician was busy  there.
  Without a word, the bronze man aided. Seconds later he held a lead  pellet in his hand. It was a bullet
  extracted from the wound of one of  the men.
  The bullet showed the momentary impression from the sky had been  correct. It had never been fired from a
  modern rifle. It had been  hand−cast.
  And it was perfectly smooth. It had no marks of rifling on it at all.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR
  54
  
  It could only have come from a very ancient gun.
  Undoubtedly it had been fired from a weapon such as the ancient  Spanish explorers used! The men were
  dressed in Spanish armor!
  "There was something strange I noticed," the camp physician told Doc  conversationally. "I’ve traveled a great
  deal. Once I spent several  years in Spain. These men tonight�those who attacked us�were speaking  Spanish.
  But they were speaking an odd dialect, one that I did not  think had been used for two hundred years!"
  IT was easy enough, through the listening device, to pick up the  trail of those who had fired on the camp. The
  difficulty was in keeping  the dirigible moving slowly enough.
  Monk and Ham debated angrily on the number of men there had been in  the party.
  Ham was convinced there had been several hundred. Monk said fifty,  at least.
  Doc did not join the argument. He had counted the men. There had  been exactly twenty.
  Renny said nothing at all. The big engineer was trying to think. His  huge fists, which he had often used to
  smash through solid oak doors,  opened and closed.
  There quite evidently was an effort to balk the flood project. Or  was there? The swamp dwellers apparently
  thought so. The attack on the  government workers bore that out. But why? And what could the flood  project
  mean to a French Secret Service man, or to a gang in Chicago? 
  And, most of all, where did the men in armor come from? Renny, also,  thought of De Soto. That theory
  seemed almost beyond belief, but the  big engineer had too much experience to dismiss any theory as fantastic.
  Slowly the dirigible floated onward. It was moving silently, lurking  several miles behind those they were
  trailing.
  The night had closed in. The moon was not yet up. The dank gloom  seemed to hold hideous secrets.
  Even Monk and Ham quieted their bickering. It was getting them, also.
  How far they went, they did not know. It was difficult to estimate  distance at the slow speed they were
  traveling. But they knew they  covered many miles.
  Then the sound of the armor clinking ceased.
  Ham’s breath came out in a slow sigh. He glanced at Doc. Whatever it  was, wherever it was, at least they
  were close to their destination.
  The infra−ray beams were turned on. Through the telescope they could  see nothing but an apparently
  limitless swamp. In places, trees loomed  high. Always there was thick, heavy vegetation. Only occasionally
  could  they see a cleared spot, and that was small. It was going to be  impossible to bring the dirigible down
  here.
  Monk gasped suddenly. Renny started. The others had seen it also.
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  Chapter XI. GUNS ROAR
  55
  
  There had been a faint whir, like the sound of wings on a giant  bird. A dark object had shot by in front of
  them, descending swiftly.
  Doc alone showed no surprise. He seemed to have been expecting  something of the sort to happen.
  "A gyro," he said briefly.
  Color returned to Ham’s features. "But what’s a gyro doing here?" he  started. Then his lips closed tight. Too
  many strange things were  occurring to show much interest in one more new fact.
  The dirigible halted, then nosed down. They were making no noise,  they did not believe they could be heard.
  In that they were mistaken.
  Strong lights came on suddenly, flickered a moment, then focused  squarely on the floating ship.
  Then, clearly through the still night, came a girl’s voice, a voice  lifted in screaming warning.
  "Go back, Doc Savage! Get away while you can!"
  Chapter XII. A TRAP
  THE screams choked off in a sort of gurgle. Then there was silence.  The strong lights went out. Perhaps the
  men who controlled them wished  to see if Doc would heed the warning. Or perhaps they knew the lights
  made a perfect target.
  Ham leaned so far out of the cabin window that he almost fell out.
  "That girl’s O. K.," he said flatly. He gave Monk a dirty glare. "I  told you she was all right, you
  empty−headed carcass of a stuffed  baboon!" The dapper lawyer apparently had forgotten that he had said no
  such thing.
  Then a second scream split the air. There were words in it, they  were difficult to understand. It sounded like a
  cry for help. Monk  looked disgusted.
  "O. K. nothing!" he roared. "She’s a phony. Tryin’ to lure us into  trouble. She knows a gigolo like you
  wouldn’t have sense enough to know  the difference."
  The scream came again. Ham shuddered. He was very much puzzled.  First there had been a warning; then
  what sounded like a plea for help.
  Monk grunted suspiciously. "Don’t pay any attention to it, Doc," he  muttered. "It’s a trap."
  Doc contradicted him quietly. "That scream," he said calmly, "was  made by Consuelo Manresa in agony."
  Monk’s jaw dropped. Then he snapped it shut. A look of anticipation  came to his eyes, his long arms swung
  suggestively.
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  56
  
  "Why, those dirty thugs!" he bellowed. "Torture a woman, will they?  Let’s go down there. When I get my
  hands on them, I’ll�I’ll make them  wish they’d gone back to Spain in 1542 and hadn’t hung around here!"
  Monk wanted very much to get into a first−rate scrap. He hoped now  that Doc wouldn’t let a woman suffer.
  Doc made no move to go to the  rescue. Monk thought that strange.
  Renny uttered an ejaculation of surprise. Renny had turned on the  infra−ray power beam. He was looking at
  the ground through the  telescopic filter. The dirigible was steady in the air. It floated only  a few hundred feet
  up, dropping slowly. But Renny could see objects in  the swamp with great clarity.
  "There are many men down there, Doc," Renny said. "They seem to be  swamp men. At least, they were
  dressed that way."
  Renny had decided not to take anything for granted any more. Monk  and Ham grabbed for a pair of infra−ray
  filter telescopes, peered  through them. Monk let out a squall.
  "Our other friends are down there, too!" he shrilled. "Look at them  guys in armor with the swamp guys. And
  lamp the guns they’ve got?" Monk  chuckled hoarsely at the sight he saw.
  He had good reason. The scene below looked as though it might have  come from a musical comedy. Swarthy,
  bearded men in ancient armor  seemed to be mingling with the swamp folk.
  They appeared frightened at the presence of the dirigible.
  DOC’S listening device picked up many sounds from the swamp. There  was the sound of metal rubbing
  against metal as the men in armor  walked. There was excited conversation in Spanish.
  One bearded man tilted back his helmet, seemed to see the airship  for the first time. He fell to his knees,
  shouted hoarsely, pointing.
  "Pure Castilian," Doc observed. "And a sentence structure as ancient  as the Inquisition."
  "What’s he say, Doc?" Monk demanded.
  "He says we’re a big, evil bird," Doc translated. "He�" 
  Doc stopped in the middle of a sentence. He leaped quickly from the  rail, moved silently toward his little
  laboratory.
  But Monk was fascinated by the impossible sight below him. The  armored men began to point ancient
  blunderbusses in the air. The  weapons roared, belched flame and the smoke of old−fashioned black
  gunpowder.
  Monk burst into gales of glee.
  "Wow!" he bellowed. "They couldn’t hit us at a hundred yards with  those things!"
  That was why Monk did not think it unusual when Doc suddenly turned  on every light in the dirigible. Even
  the landing lights glared  downward. The altimeter registered eight hundred feet She was dropping  slowly.
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  57
  
  Monk’s shrill laugh welled from his throat. At precisely seven  hundred and ninety feet of altitude, Monk’s
  sense of humor left him  completely.
  Boom! S−s−s−s−sing!
  The big dirigible shuddered, sank suddenly by the head. 
  "That," Doc’s voice came quietly, "was a two−inch antiaircraft  shell."
  Even Monk knew that the ancient conquerors from Spain hadn’t owned  that kind of equipment!
  Renny’s booming voice cut loose with a roar of amazement. He started  moving, not waiting for even Doc’s
  instructions.
  "I’m dumping ballast forward, Doc," he shouted. "I’ll try to get her  up."
  Doc Savage made no answer. He glided silently along the deck of the  ship, peered downward. Then he went
  over the rail, clung to a network  of guy ropes. He swung one hand back and forth in a strange motion.
  "Go to the motor room, Ham," he said quietly. "Get under way."
  In an instant the big propellers whirled to life. But the ship was  sluggish. She still floated less than eight
  hundred feet from the  ground�a mere pot shot for a modern gunner.
  MONK hung gaping over the window sill. He realized what had caused  Doc’s trilling sound a few minutes
  before. A big mound of swamp grass  and climbing ferns had sprung apart as if by magic. In its center  loomed
  the two−inch gun. It boomed regularly. It seemed impossible that  it could miss at that distance.
  Doc had undoubtedly spotted that hummock as a gun trap even before  it had opened.
  Another hummock of seemingly rotten vegetation cleaved in two. A  sharp rat−at−at−at−at introduced
  Monk to a multibarreled  antiaircraft weapon, the most modern thing in warfare. Heavy slugs  whistled through
  the rigging, dug into the metal bag of the dirigible.
  It was apparent now why the men in armor had rushed out. They had  been trying to lure Doc’s men down to
  what looked like an easy fight.  But what the link was between those ancient muskets and weapons of  modern
  warfare, Monk could not imagine.
  The hairy chemist shook his head, suddenly aware of their predicament
  "The lights!" he shrilled. "We got to put them out! They’ll smear  us!"
  Doc spoke quickly in Mayan. Without a word, Monk obeyed his orders.  He leaped to the after−ballast tanks,
  slammed back the levers that  emptied them. But the ship was still losing altitude. Her head sagged.
  Suddenly a shout of triumph welled up from the ground. The ship  shuddered, lurched sideways. There was a
  hiss of flame from amidships.  A lurid red blaze burst out. Smoke poured from the motor compartment
  Ham rushed through the hatchway. His face strained, white.
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  58
  
  "D−d−don’t know what it hit," he gasped. "But it was something."
  It seemed indeed to have been something. Heavy smoke mushroomed from  the control−cabin windows.
  Flame licked out at the rigging. The  two−inch gun boomed again below and a fresh blaze broke out in the
  bow.  Red flames licked hungrily at the bag. The ship began to sink.
  Doc Savage climbed quickly back from the guy ropes. He paused a  moment beside Renny in the forward
  observation cabin. Then he turned  toward Monk and Ham.
  "Jump!" he shouted. "Take to your parachutes! We are too low to get  away."
  THE bronze man began adjusting a parachute to his body. Monk  tightened the straps of a chute about his
  shoulders, slung one leg over  the sill of a window. Ham was right behind him, bumped against him.  Monk
  took up the quarrel.
  "Don’t shove, you overrated process server!" the hairy chemist  shrilled. "Look what your lady friend has got
  us into now!"
  Ham noticed that Monk’s chute was properly adjusted. So he pushed  him through the window.
  "I hope it doesn’t open, you accidental freak!" Ham growled. "We’d  all be better off."
  Then Ham jumped, held his own rip cord until he saw that Monk’s  chute had billowed safely out above him.
  "Doc thinks it would be a good idea if we drowned you," Ham confided  across a hundred yards of
  atmosphere. "Maybe you’ll land in one of  those deep sinkholes they have here."
  Monk twisted angrily.
  "Doc never said no such thing!" he roared. Then he grinned  sheepishly for having bitten on that one. Monk
  was always so determined  to please the bronze man that the slightest hint to the contrary dug  deep under his
  skin.
  "Doc�" he began. Then his mouth froze in a mask of horror.
  "Doc, Doc!" Renny’s big voice boomed. "I’m stuck! I’ll have to stay  aboard."
  Monk and Ham could only swallow, speechless as they looked toward  the dirigible. Flames billowed all
  about the ship. Smoke poured from  every window. A gust of wind seemed to whip the bag toward the south.
  Then she settled, flaming, beneath the mighty cypress tops a mile away  or more away.
  A ragged scream welled from her as she sank. The voice was Renny’s.
  So horrified were Ham and Monk that they didn’t see the ground rush  up to meet them. They landed with a
  double thump in deep ferns beside a  cypress knee, the huge gnarled roots that provide solid footing in the
  weird Arkansas swamps.
  Monk rubbed his eyes free of a more−than−suspicion of moisture. Then  he snapped erect. In the excitement,
  there was one thing neither had  noticed.
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  59
  
  "Where is Doc?" he demanded. "I didn’t see him get clear."
  Ham swallowed with difficulty.
  "I d−d−don’t know," he stammered slowly. "But it doesn’t seem likely  he’d leave Renny in a jam."
  Monk didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The barrel−chested chemist stood  up. He flicked on a pencil flashlight,
  looked around him. In this  setting he looked like a mighty ape in his native habitat.
  THERE is no place more eerie than a cypress swamp in the night. And  few places are more dangerous to a
  man without a boat. Sinkholes  without bottoms await the unwary trespasser. Deadly moccasins as thick  as a
  man’s wrist carry potent poison.
  Even the wind that whispers through the ghostly trees carries the  scent of fresh meat to the swamp cougar.
  And in this morass of low  bayou moss and sinkholes, another menace stalked. It was one that both  Monk and
  Ham knew was there, but which neither understood. The menace  of the Crimson Serpent.
  Monk grunted. He wished he could hear a noise. Any kind of a racket.  The dark silence was oppressive. He
  flicked on his light again.
  "Whaddya look so scared about?" he growled. "This ain’t nothing."
  "Not for you," Ham replied tartly. "You can take to the trees and be  more at home than you’ve been in several
  generations."
  "Well, I wish I knew what happened to Doc and Renny," Monk  complained, as he plodded beside the lawyer.
  Monk played his flashlight  about. Suddenly Ham stopped short. He seized Monk’s wrist with one  hand. The
  chemist stopped, flicked off his light.
  Far off, he heard a twig snap. Then another, closer. Monk’s sense of  hearing was more highly developed than
  any of the group except Doc’s.  Ham attributed that to his theory that Monk’s simian ancestors had been
  forced to develop good hearing or be eaten by the other animals of the  jungle.
  Ham pressed his fingers on Monk’s wrists, conveyed a message in  Morse code.
  Chapter XIII. A TORTURE ROOM
  TWO huge cypress trees were near them. Silently, each of the two  climbed one. Monk opened his mouth,
  tensed his chest muscles. He  scarcely breathed at all. Whoever was approaching was using utmost  stealth.
  Monk marveled at the woodsmanship of the man.
  He didn’t realize his presence until the woodsman was directly below  him. Then Monk jumped. As he
  jumped, he howled. Monk fought best when  he created the loudest racket. He struck a huge body with the
  force of  a battering ram.
  Then Monk went through the most amazing convulsions he had ever  known. He felt himself tossed in the air
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  60
  
  like a chip before a storm.  His powerful arms were as helpless as a child. He landed, sitting down,  in a clump
  of ferns.
  When he found his voice, it carried an extremely crestfallen note.  Ham jumped down from his tree, grinning
  widely at Monk’s discomfiture.
  "Doc!" Monk yelled. "How did you get here?"
  "Renny and I have hidden the dirigible." the bronze man explained.  "He is still aboard."
  "B−b−but how�" Monk began.
  Doc spoke swiftly, in a tone that carried only to his two aides. He  had noticed the fake hummocks, had
  suspected what might be coming. The  ship was too low to escape from high−powered weapons, so Doc
  pretended  to fall into the trap. To do so it was necessary to turn on the lights.  In the gloom, a dark shadow
  would have been sufficient target. But Doc  had dusted a fine powdered chemical from the ship. The chemical
  dust  had set up a field of light refraction, similar to a mirage. The  gunner’s aim had been accurate, but the
  dirigible had not been where  they thought it was. The refracting dust had bent the light rays. Doc  had created
  a harmless fire aboard the ship.
  "I believe we are near the center of this mystery," Doc told his two  aides. "I want you two to follow the tracks
  of the men who abandoned  those anti−aircraft guns and see what you can learn. But be careful."
  "O. K., Doc." Ham replied. "But where are you going?"
  The bronze man apparently didn’t hear him. That was a habit of his  when he didn’t want to answer a question.
  Then, suddenly, Monk and Ham noticed that the bronze man had  disappeared.
  LATER, Ham blamed Monk’s curiosity for the jam they got into. Monk  blamed it on Ham’s gullibility. Ham,
  as assured himself, had always  been a sucker for women. Monk had to forget a great many of his own
  infatuations to arrive at that conclusion. But, he preferred to forget  those anyway.
  They found the contrivance not far from the hummocks that concealed  the antiaircraft guns. At first they
  didn’t know what it was.
  "Imagine anyone carting a victrola out in a swamp like this!" Monk  finally grunted. "Wonder what’s on the
  record."
  Ham didn’t object to Monk’s finding out. Later he said he would  have, but Monk didn’t give him time. The
  chemist started the flat disk  moving, planted the needle in the groove.
  The blood−curdling scream that came out of it made both men whirl  around. Then Monk hastily removed the
  needle.
  "That’s where the scream came from!" he bellowed. "That frisky dame  wasn’t even here to scream for
  herself. Why, you sucker!"
  Ham stiffened.
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  61
  
  "Yes," he rapped. "And that’s why Doc didn’t investigate a scream he  knew was made in agony. He realized
  it was coming from a talking  machine. I wonder where she is."
  Ham’s question was answered more quickly than he had any idea it  would be. The voice of Consuelo
  Manresa came suddenly from the night.  It sounded frantic. Her footsteps stumbled in the swamp grass and
  roots.
  "Oh, Meestair Savage!" she called. "I heard your two men."
  Monk twisted uneasily. He whipped his mercy gun from a shoulder  holster. The footsteps came closer.
  "Let her come," Monk growled. "She better have a danged good  explanation."
  Consuelo Manresa burst into the circle of Monk’s flashlight. Her  clothes were torn. Red marks on her wrist
  indicated that she had been  bound. There was a look of fear upon her face. But Monk wasn’t going to  be
  fooled by any histrionics this time. He seized her by the wrist,  barked at her harshly: "What’s the idea?
  Why’d you record that phony  scream to trap us?"
  The girl’s dark eyes dilated.
  "That scream is not phonee!" she cried. "They make me do eet."
  She bared an arm that showed the red marks of a hot poker or some  other instrument.
  "I was here when I cry the warning," she protested. "They did not  know I have escape. Then they stop me an’
  turn on this theeng. Now I  escape again."
  "Hm−m−m," Monk grunted. "A likely story."
  Ham straightened his shoulders, took on his most judicial air. It  looked as though this girl had led them too
  many times into a trap. Ham  decided to find out what it was all about.
  "Who are they, Miss Manresa?" he began in his best courtroom  manner.
  Consuelo Manresa shuddered, "I do not know," she moaned. "They are  Spanish. But they speak a Spanish I
  do not understand very well. They  are�they are terrible!"
  "Why are they trying to stop construction of the dam?" Ham bored in.  "It is important that we know."
  "Dam?" she queried. "I don’t know of any dam."
  Monk grunted in disgust. Then he began to howl. The swamp was  suddenly alive with men. None of the men
  were swampers. They were  swarthy, armored giants clad in the full steel mail of ancient  warriors. They had
  come silently through the swamp, sprung as if at an  unheard order.
  Monk squalled in rage, sprayed mercy bullets from his gun. The  armored battlers formed in ranks, swept
  relentlessly toward the group  like a phalanx. Monk wished he had explosive bullets in his gun. He  wished it
  just a bit too late. The light−shelled slugs, designed to  pierce flesh shallowly, splatted harmlessly against the
  steel−plate  armor.
  When Monk realized he should have aimed for their faces, his ammo  drum was empty.
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  62
  
  Ham danced about with his sword cane. It was hardly a match for the  broadaxes with which Spain’s
  conquerors had hacked their way across a  continent.
  Monk threw his gun down in disgust, leaped forward for hand−to−hand  combat. He picked up one huge
  ruffian weighted down with half a hundred  pounds of armor. Monk swung him around in the air, hurled him
  at his  fellows. Then his fists slashed out.
  Ham fenced like the master that he was. The anaesthetic−tipped sword  cane found tiny cracks in sheeted
  mail, put several of the attackers to  sleep.
  But the force of numbers was too great. The pair were literally  pounded down by the mailed fists and bodies
  of their attackers. A  mailed fist slammed against Monk’s rugged jaw and he went to sleep. Ham  succumbed
  to the whanging slap of a broadsword.
  THE tolling of a bell awakened Monk. At first he thought the bell  was inside his head. Then he thought that
  was a mistake. He couldn’t  really be awake at all. He couldn’t see anything.
  Monk spread his hands out below him. He seemed to be lying on a  masonry floor. The masonry was covered
  with the slime of ages. It  didn’t make any sense to him.
  Then the chemist heard it: The steady clanking of heavy chains came  to his ears. It wasn’t distant this time. It
  was right below him. Monk  sat erect.
  "Ham," he whispered experimentally. There was no answer. His words  seemed to echo back to him from
  masonry walls.
  Monk staggered to his feet, moved cautiously about. He was in a room  of solid masonry about twelve feet
  square. A dull mumble of voices came  to him. At first he couldn’t distinguish any words. Then he made out
  the clear tones of Ham’s voice.
  Ham was laughing!
  "The shyster!" Monk growled. "Having himself a time while I’m cooped  up!"
  Monk finally found a masonry block that moved. He tugged at it. It  seemed to swing on hinges. Monk forced
  his way through the opening into  a narrow corridor. This was also of solid stone. Then Monk stiffened.  The
  voices were plain now.
  "I don’t know where Doc is," Ham said lightly. "If I did, I’d tell  you."
  Monk’s jaw dropped open. He’d said many things about Ham. But what  the ensuing conversation told him,
  he didn’t want to believe was true.
  "The dirigible?" Ham asked. "Sure, it’s safe. Why, it’s right over�"
  With a roar, Monk leaped forward. That Ham would tell Doc’s plans or  expose the hiding place of the airship
  was beyond his comprehension.  There was consternation in his face as he raced down a flight of narrow
  stairs. What he saw made him roar with rage.
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  63
  
  He plunged into what looked like an ancient torture room. Chains  hung from the masonry ceiling. There were
  cuffs attached to them of the  type used for the gentle torture of drawing and quartering. Men were  hanged
  alive and their entrails carved out and shown to them. There was  a rack for spread−eagling helpless victims.
  Ham was spread out on it now. He stared unseeingly at Monk. Ham  wasn’t being tortured. A bearded giant in
  a suit of chain mail stood  over him. The giant held a very modern hypodermic in his hand. Monk,  the
  chemist, knew what it was. He quickly diagnosed Ham’s reactions. He  was answering questions under the
  effect of truth serum.
  Monk roared a challenge, leaped across the room. Half a dozen other  men swarmed upon him. They, too,
  were dressed in the battle garb of  four centuries ago. They swung broadswords and axes.
  MONK dodged them, raced to Ham. There was only one thing to do. Ham  must not divulge any facts he
  knew. Monk swung one hairy fist, caught  Ham flush on the chin. Ham was immediately unconscious.
  But in that instant, the armored men seized Monk. They gabbled to  each other in Spanish. Monk didn’t
  understand any of it.
  "Crawl back into the century you belong in!" he bellowed. "Lemme  go�or I’ll tear you all apart!"
  But they didn’t let him go. Monk slammed out with every bit of  strength he owned. There were too many of
  them. Slowly, they forced him  to the floor. They untied Ham’s unconscious form from the rack, hauled  Monk
  to it. The bearded giant who seemed to be in charge spoke in  English. It was a stilted English. Some of the
  words were obsolete.
  "You will answer just as well, excellency," he purred. "The serum  will also make you talk."
  He jabbed the hypodermic deep into Monk’s forearm. Then he waited  several minutes and began asking
  questions.
  "Go climb a cypress tree!" Monk snapped. "You’re makin’ a monkey  outta yourself."
  The bearded man shook his head in amazement. He didn’t know that  Monk had just completed a series of
  research tests on truth serum for  Doc. In the process of his work, Monk had developed a highly preventive
  drug for truth serum. He had immunized himself with it for the purpose  of further experiments just before he
  and Ham had left New York.
  But suddenly Monk’s eyes narrowed. Then his body went limp. His eyes  glazed.
  "What is it you want to know?" he asked in a small voice. "I will  tell you."
  Chapter XIV. PONCE DE LEON’S GOAL
  THE bearded giant chuckled harshly. Triumph showed on his face.  Apparently he didn’t know that a subject
  under truth serum never  volunteers information. It was unfortunate for him that he did not.
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  64
  
  The stall gave Ham, now recovered from both the blow and the drug,  time to creep stealthily upon the leader.
  In the same instance Monk  galvanized into action. He leaped from the rack as if strong springs  propelled him.
  The ancients had not had time to lash him securely.
  The fight that took place was the one Monk had been hoping for ever  since he had arrived in Arkansas. The
  room was small, and no one had a  chance to get away. Monks bellowing reverberated against the walls. His
  fists pumped in and out. Each time he smashed a face. The dental  profession should have subsidized him.
  Monk grunted with pride as he saw the job Ham was doing. The lawyer  demonstrated an ability to use his
  fists in a way that even Monk found  hard to believe. The big leader was the last man to go down. He tried  to
  get away. Monk leaped at him.
  He felled the big man with a blow that probably broke his jaw. But  Monk tripped over another inert form as
  he swung. The hairy chemist  yelled once and fell down a flight of stairs. Ham raced right behind  him.
  "Serves you right, you homely baboon!" he snapped. "Don’t smack me  on the jaw again."
  Monk started to answer. But pounding feet above them made him think  first of flight.
  "This may lead us out," he said quickly. "We better get going fast."
  Doc’s two aides raced down two flights of stairs. Then they stopped.  The reason was simple. They couldn’t
  go any farther. A hollow clang  sounded behind them. Monk whirled, began to shout. A barred grating had
  dropped down, closing the corridor. They stood in what seemed a blank  end of the hall. Then a huge block of
  masonry swung slowly in from the  rear. It was on the other side of the grating. Heavy machinery rumbled
  below them, apparently causing the huge block of stone to move.
  When the machinery stopped rumbling they were in a windowless stone  cubicle about six feet by six. The
  grating swung up into a recess in  the ceiling. Dim light filtered down through the cracks in that.
  Then they saw De Soto. Neither of them believed it. But there he was!
  HAM thought quickly of the history books he had read in school. He  remembered the glossy illustrations.
  This was De Soto to the life�a  cruel, merciless De Soto. The man was huge, commanding in appearance.  His
  black beard fairly bristled. The eyes were black, totally without  mercy.
  They could see the man, but could not reach him. He spoke in  medieval Spanish. Ham understood it. He had
  to translate it for Monk’s  benefit.
  "I am the last descendant of De Soto," the bearded one informed  them. "You have displeased me greatly by
  trespassing in the Castle of  the Ancients. It is necessary that you die."
  Ham snorted.
  "Aside from that, who are you and what’s your racket?" he snapped in  English. If he had expected to trick the
  man into an answer, he was  mistaken. De Soto gave no hint of understanding. His beady eyes merely
  flickered cruelly. A feeling grew on Ham that the stories of Spanish  cruelty to the Aztecs had probably been
  understated.
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  65
  
  It seemed fantastic. But even Ham began to believe that it all must  be true, that even the wildest guess of a
  newspaper reporter was being  borne out by fact.
  The man who called himself De Soto looked like De Soto. The ancient  castle they were in, far in the heart of
  the great swamp, apparently  had been here for centuries.
  It was all possible, Ham conceded to himself. This man might very  well be a true descendant of the original
  explorer. His men might be  descendants of those original hardy spirits who had invaded the  fastness of a new
  land.
  It took no great stretch of the imagination to realize that they  could have lived for years, even centuries,
  concealed in this forgotten  spot, without being discovered. It was possible that the swamp men knew  of
  them�they probably did, in fact�but the natives kept closed lips on  anything that was not their own business.
  They would have said nothing.
  De Soto had been standing silently, erect and proud, his cold eyes  watching the faces of Monk and Ham. It
  seemed almost that he was  reading their very thoughts, even though he did not understand their  language.
  "The manner of your death will please me," De Soto continued softly.  "Listen!"
  Monk and Ham could do nothing else but listen. The rumbling of  machinery below them began again.
  Suddenly Monk let out a yell. The  cubicle was no longer six feet by six. The masonry wall was moving!
  MONK leaped to the small trap through which De Soto spoke. It  slammed shut in his face. Through a tiny
  slit, the Spaniard purred his  last, sneering word.
  "None who enter the Castle of the Ancients shall return alive," he  hissed. "The year is still 1542. And no one
  shall change it."
  Then De Soto was gone. The sound of clanking chains came to the ears  of Monk and Ham. But even more
  menacing was the steady rumble of some  strange machinery. The masonry wall moved closer. Five feet was
  cut to  three. Three feet became scarcely more than two.
  "Gee!" Monk observed. "That expensive suit of yours is going to be  an awful mess when this thing comes
  together."
  Monk didn’t look at Ham. He didn’t want to. Monk wondered for one  hopeless instant if there wasn’t some
  way he could wedge his stocky  body so that he could take the full force of the crushing wall. Ham  whistled a
  bar of a popular tune.
  "Science is losing a great opportunity for research," he said  lightly. "A post mortem on you would solve the
  problems of evolution."
  Monk turned on his side. The space between the walls was about  eighteen inches.
  A scraping sound above them attracted Monk’s attention.
  "Hsst!" a voice whispered loudly. "Don’t give up. I think I can help  you."
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  Monk scrambled erect, looked at what was left of the ceiling. A  stone slab moved aside with a scraping noise.
  Then a pair of hands  appeared. The hands held a masonry block. The block was slightly less  than eighteen
  inches square. If it had been any larger, it wouldn’t  have worked at all.
  The hands held the block by the sides, dangled it between the  closing walls, the walls gripped it. Chips broke
  off, crumbled from the  block. Then the rumble of machinery below them stopped. The wedged  block of
  masonry had stopped the walls.
  "Hsst!" the voice above them said again. "I’ll get a rope. Maybe we  can figure a way out of this."
  The sleek, efficient face of Fletcher Carter, private detective of  many parts, peered down at them. Monk
  could see that he still wore a  red carnation in the buttonhole of his well−groomed suit.
  Monk went up the rope with an agility that amazed Carter. Ham  explained that it was a simple matter of
  genealogy. Just as the bearded  De Soto claimed to be a descendant of the original explorer, he said,  Monk
  was a hand−me−down from the great apes.
  The hairy chemist grunted angrily. Ham, he snapped, was not alive at  all. He was merely a tailor’s dummy,
  animated by an intricate clockwork  device that was a tribute to the mechanical skill of Doc Savage.
  Fletcher Carter gulped. His sleek face did not display its usual  self−satisfied expression. He appeared puzzled.
  "Aren’t you two ever serious?" he asked.
  Monk’s homely face darkened. He turned ominously toward the private  detective.
  "Occasionally," he rapped. "This is one of the times. We owe you  something for savin’ us, but just the same,
  you got some questions to  answer. How do you happen to be here?"
  Monk’s long arms swung suggestively. Fletcher Carter gulped  uneasily, took a step back.
  "I−I have a legitimate reason," he stammered. "B−but I want you to  take me on trust for the moment. I am
  representing clients that I  cannot name just yet. It all centers here. I followed you all from  Chicago, but
  whereas you got caught, I managed to get into this castle  undetected."
  Monk glanced at Ham. The lawyer appeared doubtful.
  "My clients’ motives are honest, I am honest," Carter went on  earnestly. "Please believe me. My clients, I
  will admit, want the flood  dam relocated. They have a good reason. But since I came here, I have  encountered
  an even better reason. An astounding one."
  "Yeah?" Monk piped scornfully. "What?"
  "De Soto," Carter said impressively.
  The hairy chemist’s anger returned at the mention of that name. He  scowled fearsomely.
  "Just let me get to that guy!" he raged. "I’ll knock him back  through ten generations, or however many it took
  him to spring from the  old man."
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  Strange fear showed on Fletcher Carter’s face. Little beads of  perspiration stood out on his forehead. His
  voice dropped to a mere  whisper.
  "That is it!" he breathed. "That strange lapse of generations! It is  the most amazing thing I ever encountered.
  It frightens me."
  "What do you mean?" Ham asked cooly.
  Then came the statement that almost made Monk laugh. Almost, but not  quite. He jumped to one quick
  conclusion. It was a wrong one. Monk  found out about that later. Fletcher Carter scarcely whispered.
  "The Spaniard is not a descendant of De Soto," he said impressively.  "He is De Soto!"
  FOR a moment, there was silence. Both Monk and Ham were speechless.  The statement was incredible, but
  the whole set−up was incredible. The  clanking sound of chains came to his ears, regular, muffled, as if
  ghostly hosts were stalking through other corridors to surround them.
  The three men stood in a low−vaulted hall of solid masonry blocks.  The whole place was cunningly
  constructed. There were no lights. But  the corridor seemed alive with a weird phosphorescence. The air was
  dank with a fetid odor of death and decay.
  In spite of himself, Monk shuddered. There was something about the  place that made anything seem
  believable. With an effort the hairy  chemist regained his skeptical attitude.
  "This guy is nuts!" he barked. "Get ready to grab him if he gets  violent."
  The expression on Ham’s face showed that for once he was in complete  agreement. Carter seemed to
  understand their reactions.
  "Come," he whispered. "You shall see for yourself. Then, I have a  request to make."
  The private detective led them through the dank corridor. Moisture  sweated from the masonry blocks of the
  walls and ceiling.
  Their progress became slowed. Carter went forward in a crouch. He  held his hands at his sides in a gesture of
  caution.
  Monk was wishing fervently that Doc was present. Where the bronze  man had disappeared, the chemist did
  not know. Evidently he had not  been captured. Just as evidently he had not entered the castle, or he  would
  have come to their aid.
  Ham also thought things were becoming too involved. But there was  nothing to do but trail along after
  Fletcher Carter, no matter how  suspicious of him they might be.
  Then the light grew brighter. The corridor took a sudden turn. The  three men found themselves on a small
  balcony of medieval iron lattice  work. Before them stretched a broad patiolike courtyard. It appeared to  be in
  the center of a towering castle of Roman architecture. The  courtyard was lighted by scores of flickering
  yellow torches. They  reflected on the surrounding walls, clearly illuminated the ground  around them.
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  In the middle of the courtyard was a bubbling fountain. One figure  was discernible near it. An ancient crone
  huddled by the basin of the  fountain. She stared longingly at the water. A young girl beside her  offered her a
  gourd from which to drink. The crone shook her head.
  "That woman," Fletcher Carter whispered, "is the wife of De Soto.  She refuses to drink. Life, she says, has
  been too long. She wishes to  die after four hundred years on earth!"
  Ham’s voice was sarcastic. He’d seen theatrical settings in a  courtroom that had convinced juries that black
  was white. Ham was not  going to be taken in.
  "I suppose that’s the elixir of life," he sneered. "Or is it just  swamp moonshine?"
  Fletcher Carter’s face paled. He put one finger against his lips,  pleaded for caution.
  "Not so loud," he whispered. "They might hear us."
  Then his voice filled with awe.
  "What Ponce De Leon sought in the swamps of Florida actually  existed," he confided. "The legend was a true
  one. Only the location  was wrong. The Fountain of Youth awaited its discoverer. Not in the  Everglades of
  Florida, but in the great swamp of Arkansas!"
  Chapter XV. A HEAD FALLS
  THE only sound was the dim clanking of chains, and the splash of  water in the fountain. Monk’s mouth
  frankly was open. Even Ham, for  once, appeared dazed.
  Fletcher Carter’s voice had been sincere. The very scene before them  appeared to bear him out.
  The Fountain of Youth! The legendary waters that brought eternal  life!
  Ham had imagination. He tried to discount the setting, tried to  assure himself that this couldn’t be so. But
  why couldn’t it be true?
  The man who called himself De Soto looked like the original Spanish  explorer. His men wore similar armor,
  carried similar guns. The very  castle in which they stood appeared to have been in existence for  centuries.
  And this would explain why De Soto and his men never had attempted  to contact the outside world. They
  were keeping the secret of life for  themselves.
  Just as easily, it would explain the visitations of the armor−clad  men, their fight to prevent the building of the
  flood−control dam, one  that would make even this part of the swamp uninhabitable, would remove  for all
  time the youth−giving waters.
  It was staggering. It was too big to be true. Yet, Ham argued  silently, other things he had thought false had
  been proven true.  Modern science was finding more and more that ancient beliefs, once  scorned, had a basis
  in fact.
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  Why could this not be true, also? The legend of the Fountain of  Youth was an old one. But could it not, also,
  have been based on fact?
  Fletcher Carter was scarcely breathing. His eyes never left the  faces of Monk and Ham. Slowly, he seemed to
  relax.
  "Ah, I see you also are wise men," he breathed. "Only fools scoff at  what they cannot understand."
  Monk gulped, he nodded uneasily. Ham gave slow assent.
  "Soon," Carter went on, "you will see some of the original soldiers  of De Soto. You will see more proof of
  what lies before you. You will  know that the Fountain of Youth is no idle dream."
  The now−familiar sound of metal scraping on metal came from the  courtyard. Monk began to make strange,
  inarticulate sounds. They were  sounds of amazement, of disbelief. Ham’s eyes widened.
  Armored warriors, in parade formation, came into the courtyard. They  looked neither to right nor left. Behind
  them came a file of Indians.  Ham noticed the trappings they wore were ancient Aztec. They were  chained.
  The warriors were young, strapping. At their head hobbled an  old Indian. His flesh was creased in a thousand
  wrinkles. He turned and  grinned, showed aged, toothless gums.
  The procession halted when the aged man reached the fountain in the  center. The Spaniards all dropped to
  one knee. Then the chant began.  The chant was weird, wordless. It made Monk’s reddish hair stand erect,  the
  flesh on his neck seemed to crawl.
  The chant ended suddenly. As it did, a deep−throated pipe organ  somewhere in the bowels of the castle began
  to play. The tones were  awesome, terrifying, like some forgotten black mass played by Satan in  a medieval
  Hades.
  The old man reached out palsied hands, took the gourd from the young  girl by the fountain. Then he began to
  drink. A faint hum in the air  replaced the organ music. Monk tried to yell. He found that some  strange force
  held him rooted where he stood, made his larynx unable to  function. He couldn’t utter a sound. It might have
  been some strange  gas, might have been pure hypnotic influence of the tableau before him.  His little eyes
  protruded from his head.
  The old man reached for a second gourd of water. Then he turned his  back to the fountain. Slowly, he began
  to straighten. His eyes  brightened as he did. The wrinkles of age began to fade. The old man  rubbed gnarled
  hands up and down his body. The hands no longer shook.  Ham and Monk suddenly saw before them a man
  strong in youth with head  erect, thrown back in clear defiance.
  Fletcher Carter whispered suddenly.
  "I overheard the story of his return," he breathed. "The man  escaped, years ago. These Aztecs are slaves to De
  Soto’s men. But when  age threatened his life, he returned to slavery�so that he might live."
  Monk closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see any more. But he opened  them quickly enough. The suddenly
  youthful man uttered a piercing  scream. He pointed at the three men on the balcony.
  The armored Spaniards whirled, roared in unison. Then they raced  toward doorways, shouted orders to others
  to catch the three intruders.
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  WITH Carter in the lead, the three raced madly through winding  passageways. Occasionally, the private
  detective seemed confused, but  he never hesitated long.
  "N−now you see why the location of the dam must be changed," he  panted. 
  "I−I got interested in this case because my clients own important  mineral leases that might sometime be
  valuable here. But that isn’t  worth considering now."
  Sounds of pursuit were suddenly close. Carter spun, took a new  course.
  "W−we hold a secret that can be of tremendous aid to humanity," he  pleaded. "Cannot we bring Doc Savage
  here to see it and then use your  influence to have the dam site changed?"
  They spun around a corner without slackening speed. Ham glanced  quickly at Monk. The hairy chemist’s
  eyes blinked.
  "We would have to guard our secret carefully," Carter urged. "And we  must protect these people. I have
  heard there is another race�a Mayan  race, I believe, that Doc Savage found and protects. He could do the
  same here. These people do not realize they are breaking laws and doing  harm. They are an empire unto
  themselves. Their claims predate even the  existence of the United States."
  Monk was frowning slightly. There was something screwy in Carter’s  argument. There seemed something
  screwy in the chase they were leading,  also, unless he was mistaken, they were going around and around.
  Monk spoke to Ham suddenly. He spoke in Mayan. Ham nodded.
  "Do you agree? Will you get Doc Savage to use his influence?" he  gasped.
  "We will not," Monk blurted. "You’re a phony�"
  Monk broke off suddenly. It was his turn to gasp. Carter had rounded  a turn ahead of them. When they went
  around the corner, Carter was gone.
  "You fixed it," Ham said bitterly. "I think if you played along, we  would have got out of this."
  "But that guy is a crook. He was leading us around and around, and  tellin’ us fairy stories," the hairy chemist
  protested plaintively.
  "Maybe," Ham rasped. "But how are we going to get out now?"
  Monk didn’t answer. Again they could hear sounds of pursuit. The  corridor they were following slanted
  downward. It should lead outside.
  Then they halted. They halted very suddenly. Another grating had  dropped down from the masonry above. It
  dropped squarely in their path.
  Monk seized the iron bars, tried to force them. They would not budge.
  "We’ve got to turn back! We’ve got to fight!" Monk roared. He did  not appear particularly disappointed.
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  71
  
  WITHOUT hesitation, the two reversed their course. There seemed to  be no hope of escape, but at least they
  could make a battle of it.
  And it seemed evident that Fletcher Carter was a crook, was in  league with the armored men of the castle.
  Why else had he seemingly  offered them freedom if they would ask Doc’s aid to balk the flood  project? And
  why else would he vanish and leave them alone when they  refused to do as he wished?
  Monk suddenly smashed into a body in the darkness. The chemist  bellowed out a battle cry and waded in.
  The other wiggled, fought back.  Monk slugged.
  There weren’t too many men who could stand up under the type of  slugging Monk dealt out. And this wasn’t
  one of them. The man slumped  to the floor with a groan. Monk grunted with pleasure. Then he got a  look at
  his opponent.
  Gerald Pettybloom, the Chicago crime reporter, looked up dazedly.  There was a bandage around his head.
  "Whatta story, whatta yarn!" he muttered to himself. "If I could  only get out to write it!"
  Then full consciousness came back to him. He recognized Ham and Monk.
  "You guys are supposed to be dead!" he wailed. "Another big yarn!  Another big story! But why beat me up?
  You guys crazy?"
  "Monk always did beat up little fellows," Ham said. "He’s just a  bully. But, if I may ask, what are you doing
  here? Is this Old Home  Week? Have we got to find everybody here we saw in Chicago?"
  "Are you wanting to find the girl, Ham?" Monk put in slyly. Ham  scowled.
  Pettybloom shook his head, looked bewildered. "How I got here I  don’t know," he muttered. "That’s another
  big story, I guess. The last  I remember I was getting shot back in Chicago, evidently I only got  creased. I
  came out of it once and thought I was in a plane, then  somebody gave me a shot of dope, and the next I knew
  I was in this old  castle."
  "Get up. Maybe we can still get out." Ham rapped. That was a little  hope. All realized it a little later.
  Armored men suddenly appeared in  the corridor ahead of them. From some place behind, more armored men
  appeared.
  Monk bellowed, rushed forward swinging. Ham followed. Pettybloom,  weak as he was, followed.
  All three stopped abruptly. A queer humming noise filled the  corridor. The three were powerless to move.
  They were still powerless  as the armored men threw loops of vines over their heads, bound them  securely.
  Then the humming noise ceased.
  "An electrical field," Ham muttered unbelievingly. "A very modern  electrical field. That’s what held us. And
  that isn’t ancient or  medieval. It’s very modern."
  "Why, yes," said a voice in perfect English. "In four hundred years  of life, we have managed to learn many
  things. English, for example,  when we wish to speak it. And also how to harness many forces of  nature."
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  72
  
  A stone slab swung back. The bearded figure of De Soto, merciless  eyes hard, stepped into the corridor with
  them.
  "IT might please you to know," De Soto went on unpleasantly, "that I  could have trapped you at any time. I
  took interest, however, in  listening to you and the one who calls himself Carter. Finally, I tired  of Carter. I
  had him taken.
  "Then I wished to see if this weakling who calls himself a reporter  really was one. I left him where you would
  find him."
  "And now?" Monk blurted belligerently.
  "Now you will see a man die!" De Soto snapped cruelly. "His will be  an easy death. Yours, when it comes,
  will not be so easy. But you will  live, at least until I have the man who is known as Doc Savage."
  Armor−clad men seized the three bound figures, carried them rapidly  along a corridor. Then they came to a
  large room.
  Before them, lighted by the weird phosphorescence, they saw the form  of Carter.
  Fletcher Carter screamed. It was a scream of agony. He was  spread−eagled, hands and feet bound tightly.
  They were tied to the rims  of a torture wheel. Carter writhed in obvious pain, screamed for  release from his
  agony.
  De Soto flicked one hand in signal. Monk shuddered. A tall armored  figure swung hands downward, partly
  obscured the body. Then Monk saw  the instrument the man was wielding. It was an old−fashioned broadax.  It
  crunched as it struck. Fletcher Carter’s screams stopped abruptly. A  head rolled on the concrete floor.
  De Soto chuckled once more, pushed onward into another torture  chamber. Monk and Ham were manacled to
  heavy chains bolted into the  walls. De Soto pried open Gerald Pettybloom’s mouth, inserted a pellet.  Then he
  made him drink, forcing him to swallow the pill.
  "You will be of use," he snarled. "That poison will be fatal within  two hours."
  Pettybloom winced, fell to his knees.
  "W−what do you want me to do?" he stammered.
  "Find Doc Savage," De Soto snapped. "He is at large somewhere in the  swamp. Tell him his two aides have
  sent for him, that they are in  danger and have made a great discovery."
  The bearded man’s eyes narrowed to tiny slits.
  "You have but two hours to find the bronze man," he rasped. "And to  bring him back here�alone. If you fail,
  you will be dead. Even his  medical skill cannot halt that poison. I alone have the antidote."
  The reporter’s face was bathed in sweat. He shot a haggard, helpless  glance at Ham and Monk.
  "I guess I gotta do it," he mumbled. "Maybe Doc will figure some way  out when he gets here."
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  Two of the soldiers guided Pettybloom down the corridor.
  De Soto barked quick orders to others of his henchmen. Monk and Ham  were suspended by their wrists from
  chains in the ceiling. Their feet  did not touch the floor. Other chains were attached to their ankles.  Those
  chains led to a windlass. The windlass began to turn. The chains  tightened.
  De Soto sneered.
  "The bronze man shall watch you suffer," he said. "And to save you  he will communicate with your engineer,
  named Renny. Even here we know  he has ways of communication. You shall suffer until Renny has brought
  his influence to have the flood dam relocated."
  He paused, flicked an imaginary speck of dirt from his beard.
  "When that has been done," he added, "you shall all die so you  cannot tell what you have seen."
  Chapter XVI. TWO MORE FALL
  THE swampland was strangely alive. The hovels, huts and shanties of  the swampers seethed with a strange
  activity. Outside each, little  knots of men huddled in angry conversation. The swamp men were mad. And
  they were afraid.
  "This Doc Savage is the guy we gotta git!" one gaunt trapper told a  group of his fellows. He paused to squirt
  a mouthful of tobacco juice  big enough to drown a rabbit.
  "Hank Hendricks is right," he said sagely. "We−uns oughtta shoot Doc  on sight. Then we gotta tell the
  government they caint build that dam."
  Another agreed with him.
  "We−uns ain’t afeard o’ the governmint," he drawled. "But the danged  Crimson Serpent is somethin’ else."
  A paddle splashed then in the bayou behind the shanty. The twanging  drawl of Hank Hendricks came through
  the night.
  "Yaw’ll go down ter Robbins Knoll," the voice ordered. "Ah got  somethin’ all−fired important for we−uns ter
  know. Git thare by moonup."
  The paddle splashed and the dugout was gone. It paused at a score of  other shanties and hovels. The same
  instructions were repeated. The  swampers scratched their heads, hauled old squirrel guns from wall pegs.
  Half an hour before the moon was up, hundreds of dugouts and canoes  were splashing through creeks and
  bayous. They were all headed toward  Robbins Knoll, the only large area of high ground in several miles. The
  swampers muttered among themselves. Hank Hendricks was by now their  acknowledged leader. They
  wondered what it was that Hank Hendricks had  to impart to them.
  Peculiarly, the swamper who wondered most about that was Hank  Hendricks himself. The lank swamper
  cursed as he strode beneath a grove  of cypress trees. He hadn’t said anything to the man who told him he  was
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  74
  
  on his way to the knoll. Hank decided he’d confront the imposter  when he got there.
  But Hank didn’t realize quite what was in store for him. His first  inkling was when a stout silk loop dropped
  over his neck from the  spreading boughs of a huge cypress tree. It effectively choked off the  outcry Hank
  wanted very much to make. A second loop dropped under his  armpits. Then Hank Hendricks soared into the
  air. He found himself face  to face with Doc Savage. The bronze man’s face was quite without  expression.
  Hank’s was not. His expression was not pleasant.
  HANK slapped out with his gnarled hands. He was a powerful man for  all his gauntness. Doc Savage was
  gentle with the swamper. He had no  desire to hurt him. That was why Hank managed to kick up such a fuss
  before he was finally subdued.
  It was also why the little hump−backed man who crouched fifty yards  away managed to hurry through the
  ferns and swamp grass without Doc  hearing him. The little man had beady, snapping eyes. They glittered
  now in triumph. Those eyes had followed Doc for the last hour as the  bronze man paddled near shanties and
  sang out in the voice of Hank  Hendricks.
  "Dat mug kin imitate any voice," the little man muttered. "An’ he  kin make himself up to look like any ginzo."
  The voice was scarcely Spanish. And it wasn’t ancient. In fact, it  was distinctly Chicagoese, in the gangster
  fashion.
  Its owner finally stopped in the gloom. He leaned over a small  portable short−wave radio transmitter.
  The form of Hank Hendricks shifted on uneasy feet before a mob of  two hundred swampers. Hank stood on
  the flat stump of what had once  been a huge cypress tree. The moon was up now, revealing him dimly.
  The swampers buzzed among themselves. Hank probably had some good  advice, they whispered. Or maybe
  he had learned something of Doc Savage  and his men.
  Hank Hendricks cleared his throat, flung a cud of tobacco at a  squirrel.
  "We−uns maybe been makin’ a mistake," he began flatly. "I seen Doc  Savage an’ he tole me this black magic
  business we aire afeard of may  be all a fake."
  An angry muttering came from the mob. They hadn’t expected this kind  of thing. Catcalls came from the
  swampers. One man yelled, "Throw him  in the bayou! He’s a traitor!"
  Hank Hendricks held up his hand.
  "Doc Savage tole me we cain’t fight the whole U.S. army," he  drawled. "I guess he’s right."
  He coughed, leaned over slightly.
  "Doc said he’d come here an’ show some magic of his own," he  insisted. "He’ll do his best ter pertect us if
  we−uns’ll jest have a  little patience."
  Suddenly there was an explosion a quarter of a mile away. A big  cypress tree toppled to earth, its roots
  blasted by some explosion.  Then the moon went behind a cloud. Faintly at first, then more loudly,  angry
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  voices barked in Spanish.
  The mob gave a shout of fear. Through the night, down below the  knoll, they saw the forms of men in armor
  marching. The armor clanked  ominously. Swamp men appeared before them, aimed old squirrel guns at  the
  armored soldiers. The armored men cursed, rushed at the swampers.
  Then other figures appeared�men in khaki, in modern fighting  equipment. Machine guns rattled, raked the
  armored forces. A company of  United States infantry charged into the line of ancients. The ancients  retreated,
  firing their old−fashioned muskets. Then a terrific blast  rent the air. A dozen cypress trees hurtled from their
  roots, fell upon  the armored soldiers. There were cries of pain, of surrender.
  Then darkness came again. The swampers yelled in fear. They were  impressed. It was one thing to tell them
  that it was useless to fight  the nation’s soldiers. But an object lesson they could see went home.  They might
  have figured that Doc had been using a sound−film projector,  might have realized that the scene they had
  witnessed had been  carefully made from spliced films Doc had in his airship laboratory.  But the blast of the
  trees was real, not a moving picture. It had  hurtled several of them to the ground.
  Doc knew they were a simple, superstitious folk. Most of them had  never even been inside a moving−picture
  theater. The bronze man had  taken the simplest method he knew of driving home a point.
  The swampers were excited. They allowed as how they might have been  in error. Maybe they had just better
  go back to their homes, and forget  about the whole thing. But one voice raised in dissent. It was a voice  that
  spoke in stilted English.
  "You have been tricked, swamp men," he shouted. "The man you think  is Hendricks is really Doc Savage in
  disguise! He cares not for your  welfare. Unmask the man. Then drive out the flood−dam engineers�or the
  Crimson Serpent will get each of you!"
  MOB psychology is a peculiar thing. A mob unsells itself on  something in the flashing of an instant. It did
  that now. Nerves were  highly strung. With a roar, the nearest swampers rushed to the figure  on the stump.
  Hank Hendricks sat down heavily. He opened his eyes dazedly.
  "W−w−what all I been doin’?" he asked blankly. "W−whereat am I?"
  Doc Savage had to save Hendricks then. He had not taken on the  character of a swamper, as the beady−eyed
  gangster had thought he  would. Doc’s voice came from the edge of the clearing.
  "The man is Hendricks," he said clearly. "But he has been under the  influence of hypnosis. He is not
  responsible for anything he said."
  Doc had to undo what little good he had been able to accomplish. If  he didn’t, he knew the swampers would
  tear the unfortunate Hendricks  apart. He had other plans that might have stopped the mob. But he had  no
  chance to use them. Two incidents intervened to change the bronze  man’s plans.
  The first was the arrival of Gerald Pettybloom.
  The crime reporter’s clothing was cut and torn. He bled copiously  from a dozen wounds and scratches.
  Gerald Pettybloom’s lips were drawn  into a grim white line. It was nearly two hours since he had left the
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  Castle of the Ancients.
  Gerald had relived a lot of life in those two hours. It was the sort  of crucial moment that brings out true
  character in a man. Or shows he  hasn’t any. Gerald Pettybloom did have it.
  So Gerald Pettybloom had come to a decision. He was going to tell  Doc Savage everything. To hell with the
  consequences.
  He wouldn’t have found Doc at all if he hadn’t happened to stumble  by Robins Knoll when the bronze man
  called out to save Hank Hendricks.
  Pettybloom stumbled into the knot of men.
  "Doc Savage! Doc Savage!" he screamed. "I got to see you. You have  to save your men. A lot of lives depend
  on what I got to tell you!"
  Pettybloom weaved on his feet. The poison deadline had arrived. He  convulsed. His eyes dilated strangely.
  Then he collapsed.
  A low trilling sound welled through the night. The swamp men turned  to look at one another. The sound
  didn’t seem to come from any  particular place. They wondered if it were some new menace. Their
  momentary doubt gave Savage the opportunity he needed. He leaped from a  place of concealment behind a
  six−foot fern and ran smoothly to the  inert form of Gerald Pettybloom.
  Before the mass reflexes went into action and the mob began to roar,  Doc had Gerald Pettybloom over his
  shoulder and out of sight.
  De Soto had underestimated the medical knowledge of the bronze man.  Even before he had Pettybloom on a
  concealed hummock of ferns, Doc  Savage had identified the poison that had the unfortunate reporter in  its
  grip. It was one that could be made only from certain rare berries  found in swamps of the semi−tropics. Doc
  quickly whipped a hypodermic  from his equipment vest. He found two tiny vials, mixed their contents
  together. Then he jabbed the hypodermic into the reporter’s upper arm.  Gerald Pettybloom still breathed
  faintly. Doc knew his life hung in the  balance. It would be nip and tuck. And it would be some time before he
  would be conscious, even if he lived.
  Doc swung the man over his shoulder. Pettybloom would go back to  Renny and the dirigible. In the hospital
  bay there, he might recover.  But Gerald Pettybloom did not go to Renny and the dirigible.
  The reason was that Renny no longer was aboard the craft. In fact,  Renny was less than two hundred yards
  away. And very busy.
  "HOLY COW!" he roared. "If you guys have done something to Doc, I’ll  bust every head in sight."
  The sound of Renny’s huge fists smashing heads was distinct. Perhaps  in the dim light he hadn’t realized the
  number of opponents he had  barged into. But he realized it after he got started.
  Renny’s bellows shook the treetops. But they were soon muffled. Even  Renny couldn’t combat the numbers
  he was against. He continued to shout  his defiance.
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  Doc Savage gently laid Gerald Pettybloom back on the bed of ferns.  It was obviously necessary that he
  extricate Renny from the clutches of  the mob.
  "I’m coming, Renny!" he yelled. "I’ll be there in just a second."
  The crowd whirled, roared anew. Now they would have Doc and Renny  both. The bronze man’s voice called
  encouragement to the big−fisted  engineer. The mob surged toward the voice, milled at the edge of the
  clearing.
  Doc stepped quietly in from the side of the knoll and helped Renny  to his feet.
  Probably most of the swamp men had never even heard of ventriloquism.
  The ruse didn’t fool them more than half a dozen seconds. But it  seemed enough. Doc and Renny raced
  across the ground, dived once more  in the swamp.
  "Holy cow!" Renny rumbled. "I didn’t mean to make a nuisance of  myself. I got worried when you guys
  didn’t come back, parked the  dirigible in the trees and started looking for you."
  Doc Savage did not reply. He ran smoothly to the hummock where he  had left Gerald Pettybloom. Then his
  flaked−gold eyes whirled  strangely. The hummock was still there. But the poisoned reporter was  not. His
  body had vanished without a trace!
  Doc spoke quickly, then leaped backward.
  "Look out!" he rapped. "Jump to the left."
  But the warning was not quite in time. A bludgeon as thick as a  man’s leg smashed against Renny’s skull. A
  broadax that weighed fifty  pounds nearly caved Doc’s skull in.
  Whoever had taken the body of Gerald Pettybloom had known that Doc  would return to look for it.
  Chapter XVII. HAM PLEADS HIS CASE
  LOUD voices brought Renny back to consciousness. He was tightly  bound, hand and foot. Doc Savage was
  tied beside him. The bronze man’s  body was limp.
  Renny raised his head and looked about.
  "Holy cow!" he managed to stammer.
  He was looking at an illustrated page of Spanish history. The huge  medieval castle towered above them in the
  background. Closer at hand  was a wide, sluggish moat.
  Renny noticed a dam at one end of it, a spillway at the other. Doc  and Renny were not alone. About half of
  the swamp men who had been at  Robbins Knoll were there. The swamp men were silent, cowed. They
  shuffled uneasily, twisted battered hats in their hands. A swarthy,  bearded man was speaking to them. It was
  the same man who had told them  to turn on Hank Hendricks back on the knoll. His stilted English hissed
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  through his teeth.
  "You may still appease the Crimson Serpent," the bearded man  intoned. "First you must hurl Doc Savage and
  his man into the moat of  the alligator garfish."
  He paused for dramatic effect.
  Renny shuddered. "Those things are worse than sharks or barracuda!"  he muttered.
  Renny had been around the swamp long enough to become acquainted  with the alligator gar. The savage,
  ferocious monsters abounded in the  waters of the great swamp. They attained tremendous weights, some
  running close to two hundred pounds. Their snouts were equipped with  tremendous jagged teeth like those of
  a crocodile. In shallow water  they were always dangerous. If starved, they would attack and devour  anything.
  The bearded man noticed Renny’s shudder. His thin lips spread over  even white teeth in an evil grin. His
  voice rose to a shriek.
  "Hurl the interlopers to their death!" he cried. "Then return to  your homes. Forget what you have seen and
  resist the workers on the  dam. Only by doing what you are told can you escape the Crimson Death  and the
  curse of De Soto!"
  The men mumbled among themselves. Then two more brave�or  cowardly�than the others stepped forward.
  They rolled the tightly bound  bodies of Renny and Doc into the sluggish water of the castle moat.  Doc’s body
  was still limp. The two bound forms struck the water with a  splash.
  THE muddy water boiled instantly. It churned. It grew red as the  famished garfish plunged at the two inert
  forms. But Doc Savage moved.  Savage teeth slashed at his arms and legs. The only thing that saved  the two
  from instant death was the bulletproof underwear that they  wore. Their hands and faces alone were
  unprotected.
  But the bronze man kept right on moving. Doc had not been  unconscious long. He had been quietly working
  on his bonds before the  bearded man had begun to speak. His hands were free now. He leaped  erect. The
  moat was very shallow. It had probably been deliberately  made that way. The alligator gar is much more
  vicious in shallow water  than in deep.
  Doc’s arm flung out. A tiny thermite−nitroglycerin bomb raced  through the air. It struck the retaining dam at
  the upper end of the  moat. The blast hurled swamp men from their feet. The bearded spokesman  of the grim
  castle screamed in rage.
  A torrent of water swept down the moat from the shattered dam. Doc  held Renny with one hand. The cabled
  fingers of the other dug into a  crevice between two masonry blocks on the wall of the moat. The fingers
  whitened under the terrific strain.
  Water roared down the moat, crashed into the spillway at the lower  end. The garfish were turned end on end.
  There were literally hundreds  of them. They were thrown in confusion. The lower end of the moat  became
  like a salmon trap at the height of the Columbia River run. Doc  climbed up on the inside of the moat, hauled
  Renny with him. Both had  been slashed, but not seriously.
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  Doc quickly untied Renny’s bonds, spoke quietly to him in Mayan. He  said he was convinced now that Monk
  and Ham were prisoners within the  castle. And that, also, the secret of this whole plot lay within it.
  The two men leaped to their feet. Lights flashed from the castle.  Concealment or secrecy was impossible.
  Renny expected plenty of trouble. He was right. Armored men met them  as they rushed through an entrance
  into the castle.
  Broadaxes swung. Mighty, fighting swords slashed through the air.  Doc flung a smoke bomb to the floor of
  the passageway into which they  fought their way. The fumes were blinding, stifling. But the passageway  was
  too narrow to permit them to escape or fight through. It was  instantly choked with men.
  Renny cried out once, then went down under an avalanche of flesh. He  struck out with his bony fists,
  accounted for more than one armored  figure.
  Then the smoke cleared from the air. Renny groaned as he saw the  blood−smeared bronze figure stretched
  out beside him. An armored guard  leered brutally at the bronze man, chuckled hoarsely. He spoke in  ancient
  Spanish. Renny didn’t get much but the name of De Soto.
  Then the big engineer got his first glimpse of the man who claimed  to be a descendant of the great explorer,
  the man whom Fletcher Carter  had said was the original De Soto himself!
  The bearded giant was laughing. He kicked the blood−smeared figure  with a polished boot, spoke in English.
  "Carry him to the main torture room," he ordered. "I wish to find  out how much he has learned. We must be
  sure that our secret of eternal  life is safe from prying eyes."
  RENNY groaned as one huge guard in steel breastplate and helmet  carried the bronze man under one arm.
  The guard’s armor was decorated  with a black maltese cross and a skull. De Soto spoke to him.
  "Tie him and leave him on the floor, Montevalle," Do Soto snarled.  "I will start with little wedges under his
  fingernails. We will  continue after that with thumbscrew treatment."
  Montevalle nodded his head, answered in English equally as good as  De Soto’s.
  Other guards dragged Renny along the corridor, toward some other  dungeon.
  The strength that comes in desperation flowed through the veins of  the big engineer. Only two guards were
  with him. He didn’t look as  though he had enough strength to fight a cat. But that proved to be an  error.
  Renny suddenly stumbled to his feet. The fists that had broken oaken  doors for a pastime smashed out. The
  first guard went down without a  sound. The second let out a howl. But it was a short one. Renny put him  to
  sleep with alterations in his countenance that a plastic surgeon  could scarcely repair. There was no danger of
  either of them talking  much for a while.
  Renny staggered along the corridor. He made a turn into another one.  He was soon completely lost in a maze
  of passageways that defied even  his engineer’s trained sense of direction.
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  Then he heard Ham’s voice. What Ham was saying made Renny think that  he himself had gone a little mad.
  He feared he had suffered a severe  concussion in the fight back there.
  HAM was discoursing in his most polished courtroom manner. He seemed  pleading with some unseen panel
  of jurors.
  "Gentlemen," Ham argued clearly, "my client is obviously innocent of  the charge that has been brought
  against him. He does not deserve the  fate that the prosecution has demanded."
  Renny could mentally picture the dapper lawyer twirling his  pince−nez on the end of a black silk ribbon.
  Renny shook his head.  Either he was crazy, or Ham was.
  "Gentlemen of the jury," Ham went on, "it should be obvious to you  by this time that death is not a fitting
  solution for Andrew Mayfair. I  beg of you, gentlemen, send this simian monstrosity to an institution,  where
  he should have been for years."
  A howl of rage came from Monk.
  "You danged shyster!" he shrilled. "If I ever get out of here, I’m  going to separate you into a twenty−volume
  edition of how not to be a  lawyer."
  Ham chuckled softly.
  "Tut, tut, gentlemen!" he admonished. "Now you see clearly that  Lieutenant Colonel Mayfair does not have
  sufficient intelligence to be  at large. Cutting off the ears of little children is obviously the act  of an
  unbalanced mind, gentlemen. Oh, perhaps we should say no mind at  all."
  Monk’s roar of indignation at that was not decipherable. His  affection for small children was well known by
  everyone who had  encountered him. Ham always said children trusted Monk as they would a  dog, or any
  other dumb animal.
  Renny was charging through the corridor by the time Ham made his  closing remarks to the jury. He came to a
  heavy paneled door. It was  too tough for his fists to smash. But it yielded to his shoulder. What  he saw almost
  made him laugh.
  Ham had apparently taken on the role of the monkey. The dapper  lawyer was perched on a chain that hung
  from the ceiling. Then Renny  saw what had happened. Ham’s slim wrists had slipped through the cuffs  that
  had chained him to the ceiling. He had freed himself and was now  working on the chains that held Monk’s
  hamlike hands. But he was making  the hairy chemist pay for his release with plenty of abuse.
  RENNY rumbled a greeting, helped Ham free Monk. Neither seemed  surprised to see him.
  "What’s this all about?" Renny demanded then.
  Ham’s face sobered. He told the big engineer what Fletcher Carter  had told them and what they had seen.
  Renny exploded. "D’you suppose it’s on the level? Can this guy  really be De Soto?" he asked.
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  He remembered then the remark the bearded giant had made about the  secret of eternal life being safe, told
  Ham about it. The lawyer shook  his head, perplexed.
  "History’s been wrong before," he reminded Renny. "De Soto might not  have died as his men reported."
  A low whistle burst from Renny’s lips.
  "This beats anything we ever got into!" he rumbled. "It’s the  screwiest thing I ever saw!"
  Renny had encountered too many impossibilities that were facts to be  over−skeptical. But he suddenly forgot
  his amazement. More serious  matters had to be taken care of.
  "They got Doc," he rapped. "Took him to the main torture chamber."
  Monk’s face blanched. His jaw grew belligerent.
  "Let’s get goin’!" he shrilled. "What’re we waitin’ for?"
  Ham led the way. In a niche in the corridor he found a suit of armor  propped up on a stand. It was there just
  to be ornamental. But it gave  Ham an idea; in fact, two ideas.
  Ham was the only one of the three who could speak ancient Spanish.
  He put on the armor.
  "Now, you hairy baboon," he rasped. "I’m going to take you to the  torture room!"
  He kicked Monk in the seat of his pants. Monk growled indignantly.  But he marched along beside Renny.
  Both held their hands behind them as  if bound. Ham stalked in the rear.
  At a turn in the corridor, they encountered another guard in armor,  Ham spoke in Spanish.
  "These two are wanted in the main torture room," he stated. "They  are dangerous. Assist me."
  The other armored guard nodded sullenly.
  "O. K., buddy," he growled. "But why in hell don’t you speak  English? The other stuff gets my goat."
  Monk doubled up with uncontrollable laughter.
  HAM walked slightly to the rear, letting the other call the turns.  The encounter was fortunate. For Ham
  hadn’t the slightest idea where  the main torture room was located.
  A massive iron door gave onto the room they sought. They knew they  had arrived when they heard De Soto’s
  voice.
  "And now, the marvelous Doc Savage," De Soto sneered. "We shall see  how much punishment you can
  absorb before you talk."
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  Ham reached out quickly to the guard who was with them. He used a  trick Doc taught all his aides. Ham’s
  fingers touched sharply on  certain nerves at the base of the skull. The guard went to sleep.
  Then the three men rushed into the torture room. It was unfortunate  that they did so. Their arrival inside the
  room coincided with a scream  of rage from Do Soto. The bearded giant had just wiped blood from the  face of
  his captive. His face was livid.
  The unconscious man was not Doc Savage!
  "Look, Louis Montevalle!" De Soto screamed. "Savage is now in your  armor. He tricked me when the smoke
  bomb was thick. We shall�"
  Then he saw Monk, Ham and Renny. And he thought he saw a lot of  other things.
  De Soto was quick for a big man. He leaped to a wall, pressed his  fingers into the masonry. A slab dropped
  from under him. He shot from  sight. In the same instant, stone walls dropped over every opening in  the room.
  They were in a solid tomb, without any aperture.
  A low moan at one side made Ham turn. He saw a body on a torture  rack.
  "Water! Water!" a cracked voice pleaded. The man turned his head.
  It was Gerald Pettybloom.
  THE armor of Louis Montevalle stalked solemnly through the lower  corridors of the castle long before De
  Soto discovered the deception.  The weird castle grew more eerie in the deeper passageways.
  The clanking of chains could be heard plainly here. It was a  regular, systematic clanking, as if a methodical
  ghost were performing  some meticulous task. With the clanking noise there now came strange  sighing
  accompaniment. The ghost perhaps was tired.
  Then the armor of Louis Montevalle came to a wide oaken door. The  suit of armor had been equipped with
  keys. It might have been  considered queer to one who knew that Louis Montevalle did not select  the correct
  key first. He should have known his own ring of keys.
  But there were no eyes to watch him. Louis Montevalle threw the door  wide open.
  The sight that met his eyes was scarcely one of ghostly origin. Blue  mercury lights filled a cavernous expanse
  with a glaring light. The  clanking chains became a modern battery of printing presses. They were  moving
  with methodical regularity.
  Behind those were bins of jewels, rows of masterpieces from the  painter’s world.
  Doc saw that. And he saw Fletcher Carter. He hadn’t seen Carter’s  head supposedly fall, so he wasn’t
  surprised.
  Carter’s sleek face was wreathed in smiles. He stood beside the  largest printing press. He rubbed his hands
  together like a money  lender who has just discovered he was overpaid.
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  "Ah, Montevalle," he purred. "I am pleased. Our take this month will  run well over a million."
  He grinned delightedly. "Come," he beckoned. "Look at this new  press."
  Doc Savage advanced slowly. One hand came up, reached inside the  armor, felt in the equipment kit about
  his body. It looked as if he was  scratching a cootie.
  Fletcher Carter leaned over the press, partly obscuring it. Then he  straightened suddenly. He cradled a
  Thompson machine gun in his arms.
  "This will go through that cheap armor like an ice pick through  cheese, Doc Savage!" he snarled wildly. "I
  don’t want to do this, but  you give me no choice."
  The machine gun swung up.
  Chapter XVIII. A CALL FOR HELP
  DOC SAVAGE stood perfectly still. Fletcher Carter was trembling, his  finger tight on the trigger.
  "I see that you have recognized me," the bronze man said quietly.  "But why is it necessary that you shoot?"
  "Because now you know too much; you know that I am alive," Carter  bleated.
  Fletcher Carter no longer appeared self−sufficient. His face was  haggard. Even the red carnation in his coat
  lapel was wilted. Death  shone in his eyes. His finger jerked.
  Carter had acted fast. He was slow compared with Doc Savage. One of  the bronze man’s hands made a quick
  jerk. A small pellet flashed  through the air, hit the firing mechanism of the gun, even as the other  tried to pull
  the trigger.
  A howl of pain came from Carter. He hauled his finger from the  trigger guard. The finger was white. It made
  a clicking noise as it  knocked against the gun.
  The finger was frozen. So was the firing mechanism of the submachine  gun. Doc had thrown a small capsule
  of highly compressed liquid air. It  had broken, expanded instantly with freezing force. It made the gun
  momentarily useless.
  The bronze man bounded forward, reached for Fletcher Carter. But  Fletcher’s feet were not frozen, and Doc
  was handicapped by the heavy  armor he had donned.
  Carter ran like a startled rabbit. He found a lever in the wall and  pulled it. He darted through the opening that
  appeared in the wall,  slammed the door closed behind him, then he ran.
  After a time he came to a small room. He entered and reached for a  telephone. It was a small phone, of the
  type used for interoffice  communication.
  De Soto answered Carter’s call. The bearded man was in an office, a  peculiar kind of office. One century
  blended into another there. Most  of the furniture was as ancient as the castle itself. Armor−clad men  were
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  there. But De Soto sat beside a flat−topped desk. It bore the name  of a manufacturer who didn’t start in
  business until quite a while  after De Soto explored the Mississippi.
  "He came down to the pressroom," Carter wailed. "I covered him with  a Tommy gun, but he got away."
  De Soto exploded. He barked sharp questions in English.
  "Froze it. Froze it!" Carter’s voice insisted. "I tell you he froze  the damn gun! And my finger, too!"
  Do Soto subsided somewhat.
  "I think he is going to try and free his friends," Carter howled.
  The bearded giant in Spanish mail leaped to his feet. He barked  orders in Spanish, then lapsed into English.
  "Come!" he roared. "We have had enough of this bronze man. We will  make certain of him this time."
  De Soto swept from his office. His staff of armored warriors trailed  along behind him.
  The bearded giant strode rapidly down a phosphorescent lighted  corridor. It led in the direction of the press
  room. About half way  down, De Soto stopped. He looked sharply around to see if any alien  eyes were upon
  him. He didn’t see any.
  De Soto opened a little panel and found a lever, pulled it. That  opened a larger door into another
  phosphorescent lighted corridor. A  few yards farther on they encountered a sharp flight of stairs. Just  under
  the fourth stair riser, a hidden button opened a second door.  That took them straight to the torture room.
  De Soto opened another switch box there. It held two levers. De Soto  hesitated. Then he chose the lever on
  the right. It opened a  grill−barred window. They could see inside. There wasn’t anyone in the  room except
  Monk, Ham, Renny, and Gerald Pettybloom.
  Monk squinted at the grilled opening.
  "Come in and fight, you rats!" he shrilled. "We’ll see if you’ve  learned how in four hundred years!"
  De Soto ignored him. He clapped the iron door shut over the  grilling. He grunted.
  Another guard pounded up then. He was breathless.
  "The guy in Montevalle’s armor is back in the pressroom!" he said.  "I seen him there. I slugged him and he
  went down."
  De Soto stared at the guard. He didn’t seem to think it peculiar  that a Brooklyn accent was emerging from the
  armor. Neither did anybody  else.
  "He must have gone down another passage," one of the others offered.
  De Soto was in no mood for speech. His face was white with rage.  Without a word, he led the way. Once
  more his guard trailed after him.  They went to the pressroom.
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  The figure in the Maltese−crossed armor was on the floor. It was  trying to get up as De Soto and his retainers
  swept in. They all jumped  on him at once. He groaned. He had about half a ton of armor, plus the  men inside
  of it, on top of him. They were all slugging.
  Then they jerked him to his feet, ripped off the helmet
  The man was Fletcher Carter!
  "THAT bronze man is a devil!" Carter moaned. "He found me just after  I phoned you, and gave me some
  kind of gas. Then he must have lugged me  here and put me in the armor he was wearing."
  Carter was practically one hundred percent right. Doc had followed  Carter without difficulty, had listened to
  his telephone call. Then the  bronze man acted. He had seen a way to get to his aides.
  Doc did not know the location of the torture room. But he knew all  he had to do was trail De Soto and he
  could find out. He had put his  armor on Carter, taken him to the pressroom, then followed the bearded  man.
  And it had been the bronze man who played the part of an excited  guard, who had started De Soto and his
  guards on their futile trip to  the pressroom.
  Doc waited only until the group disappeared. Then he went to the  switch box outside the torture room where
  De Soto had paused. It was  the box with two levers. De Soto had pulled the one on the right. Doc  pulled the
  one to the left.
  A big masonry door began to swing open. It didn’t look like a door  at all. It seemed just part of the wall.
  Monk’s high−pitched voice came  to Doc’s ears.
  "Now, Pettybloom, you rat!" Monk shrilled. "I’m going to cut your  ears off! You went out to trap Doc, didn’t
  you? You tried to lure him  in here to save your lousy hide."
  Pettybloom protested that he hadn’t, that he really made up his mind  to tell Doc everything, even if he died.
  The reporter was sitting on  the floor in a very undignified position. Monk held him by the hair.
  Doc stepped quietly into the room.
  "The reporter is telling the truth," he said softly. "He tried his  best to tell all he knew."
  Monk whirled around and his mouth dropped open.
  "Doc!" he gasped. "How’d you get here?"
  Doc Savage didn’t answer Monk. He spoke rapidly for several minutes,  giving new instructions to his aides.
  "It is important that we capture the castle," he said. "The swamp  men outside have been inflamed to a point
  where they may become  dangerous on their own account. There may be unnecessary bloodshed if  we do not
  act promptly."
  Doc paused briefly.
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  86
  
  "Also," he said quietly, "if we do not act promptly it may be too  late for us to act at all. They know I have
  found the way to the  torture chamber."
  Renny opened and closed his big fists. He didn’t say anything. But  his actions showed how much he would
  really like to tear into some of  the ancient Spaniards who had had him hurled into the moat of alligator  gars.
  Ham sprang forward.
  "I’ll eat half a dozen of those guys!" he rapped.
  Gerald Pettybloom was still weak, but he decided it was high time he  did some fighting instead of just writing
  about it.
  But Monk howled. He gave forth a battle cry that would have done  credit to a Comanche. It was with
  difficulty that Doc kept Monk behind  him as they filed down the steps and out toward the main corridor. If
  they encountered trouble, it would be Doc who absorbed the first shots  that were fired.
  They encountered plenty of trouble as they emerged into the main  corridor. The trouble was equipped with
  modern machine guns, even if it  wore obsolete armor. Doc leaped back into the niche they had left.  There
  was another lever in a switch box there. De Sato hadn’t touched  it at all. Doc did�and the lights went out.
  But De Soto screamed instructions and they went on again. Doc moved  quickly, made scattering motions
  with his hands.
  "Holy cow!" Renny grumbled. "I’m going blind again." 
  "Join hands," Doc called. "Follow me. I will lead you." 
  "Attaboy, Doc!" Monk piped. "Blind ‘em again." 
  Monk knew that Doc had pulled the same trick he had used earlier in  the swamp. But he also knew that the
  chemical didn’t last long. Without  weapons, they would have to be out of sight before sight returned to De
  Soto and his men, or it would be just too bad.
  THEY were out of sight. In another corridor, Doc found a hidden  niche. He reached in it and took out four of
  his own machine pistols.
  "I hid these when I first came in," he explained. "I feared that I  might be captured and the weapons
  discovered, if I did not."
  Monk’s look of admiration showed how foresighted he thought that was.
  The five men moved cautiously along the corridor. Many rooms opened  from it. Some of them were large,
  some of them small. Most of them held  one or another type of device for torture. Monk grunted in disgust.
  "These guys must live on torture!" he rapped. "I suppose it’s just  an old Spanish custom."
  That made Ham perk up.
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  "Do you suppose this Fountain of Youth business is on the level,  Doc?" he queried.
  The bronze man did not answer directly.
  "There are many strange things going on in this castle," he said. "I  don’t think we have quite scratched the
  surface yet."
  Ham subsided. But for only an instant. An ear−splitting scream rent  the air. It was the voice of Consuelo
  Manresa.
  "O−o−o−o−ohh! You fiends! I weel not tell you how much information I  have gotten to my employers." The
  scream choked off in agony.
  Ham jumped. "That girl!" he snapped. "They’re torturing her!"
  Monk grumbled. "Let ‘em torture," he snorted. "She’s got us into  enough trouble. This is probably another
  phony."
  Doc Savage’s gold−flecked eyes whirled strangely. He moved forward  with smooth, even speed.
  "Come," he said simply. "We are needed. Get your mercy pistol ready."
  Ham danced with rage. "See, you overgrown chimpanzee?" he barked.  "Doc knows she’s on the level. You
  weren’t ever right about a woman in  your life!"
  DOC SAVAGE gave no indication of whether he believed Consuelo  Manresa to be on the level. His aides
  knew that, on the level or not,  the bronze man would not leave a woman to suffer, if her pain was real.
  "I bet she’s faking," Monk squawked.
  The scream came again. It was fear and terror.
  "That is genuine terror," Doc said quietly. "And this time it is not  on a phonograph record."
  That shut Monk up. He crowded ahead, made menacing motions with his  mercy pistol. He inspected it
  carefully.
  "Got any explosive slugs, Doc?" he queried.
  "No," the bronze man replied. "I had room for only one round of  bullets."
  If Doc had room for but one drum of slugs per gun, it would have to  be mercy bullets. Otherwise, he might be
  unnecessarily endangering  life. The bronze man would sacrifice his own before he would permit  needless
  slaughter.
  Consuelo Manresa’s scream came again. This time it was very close.  Another door gave onto one of the
  numerous torture rooms. Consuelo  Manresa was in it. She was suspended by wires from the ceiling. The
  wires ran through pulleys and were attached to a counterweight. The  counterweight was somewhat lighter
  than the girl.
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  She was steadily dropping downward. Two feet beneath her raged a  fire of some chemical composition. The
  heat was so great that it  scorched the faces of the men coming in the door. There was no one else  in the room.
  "Holy cow!" Renny barked. "There’s no faking about that one."
  Renny was correct. There was nothing to prevent the girl from  dropping into the flames. The fire pit was too
  wide for a man to reach  her from the edges. The wires and counterweight were also beyond their  grasp.
  "Ham!" Doc snapped. "Jump!"
  The bronze man stood at the edge of the fire pit. Ham jumped and Doc  caught him by his feet. He held him
  like a powerful stage acrobat. A  sharp pair of wire cutters snipped the strands that held her.
  Her eyes were filled with thankful tears. The look she gave Ham made  him turn his head.
  A harsh laugh brought Doc’s head around sharply. There was a  clanging noise as a door swung shut. They
  were trapped in the torture  room! Another grating noise sounded in the walls. Narrow slits showed  in the
  masonry.
  Through each slit was poked the muzzle of a submachine gun. De  Soto’s voice was harsh in triumph. "I
  thought that would work!" he  snarled. "Try to get out of this one, Savage! I’ve got you all at once!"
  Chapter XIX. DOOMED!
  THERE was no place to find concealment in the room. All were under  the deadly menace of the submachine
  guns. At a sharp order, Doc and his  men dropped the mercy pistols they held.
  Monk deflated. He looked angrily at the girl. Ham also looked at the  girl, but his glance was sorrowful, not
  angry. He realized she had been  used unwittingly to draw them into the snare. She was not to blame.
  Pettybloom shrugged. The crime reporter had had two close brushes  with death. He had decided he wouldn’t
  be frightened any more. The girl  was still dazed.
  Renny’s severe features were drawn.
  Only Doc showed no emotion. The bronze man gazed calmly at the slot  through which De Soto’s voice had
  come. His gold−flecked eyes were  flashing strangely.
  "You’ve made a lot of trouble, Doc Savage," came Fletcher Carter’s  voice. "This time there is no help for it.
  You all must die."
  "Did you really think you might fool us otherwise, might make us  believe some of the scenes you had staged
  were true?" Doc asked quietly.
  Fletcher Carter chuckled briefly. He appeared to have regained his  self−assurance.
  "You must admit that we did a good job," he said boastfully. His  voice swelled with pride. "That Fountain of
  Youth stunt was my idea. I  think it was a beauty."
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  "Yuh mean that was a fake?" Monk rasped.
  "Of course," Doc said quietly.
  "But that Indian�the one who became young�" Monk blurted.
  "He is really a quite excellent actor," De Soto put in coldly. "Had  you and the one called Ham believed your
  eyes and accepted as fact what  you saw, you might all have lived. Now it is impossible."
  "I told you, Monk, you hairy monstrosity!" Ham snapped angrily. "If  you’d just kept your big mouth shut, we
  would have gotten out of here."
  Doc was apparently paying no attention. The bronze man was getting  out of the armor he had worn while
  playing the part of a guard. His  features also changed, became natural again as he quickly removed the
  make−up he had used.
  "But what’s it all about?" Monk howled. "I don’t know yet. Isn’t  that bearded mug really a descendant of De
  Soto?"
  "Of course not," Ham put in bitterly.
  Fletcher Carter chuckled again. "Your lawyer friend is right. De  Soto here is not a descendant of the original
  explorer. But you must  admit our set−up here is good. It has served to keep the swamp dwellers  fooled�and
  frightened, as well. The show is not entirely for your  benefit. It has been going on for years."
  Monk sighed. "I can guess the rest of it, then. So�"
  "Enough," De Soto’s voice crackled harshly. "The time for  conversation has ceased. If we could have used
  you, we would. We do not  want this swamp flooded. We do not intend to move. I do not think it  will be
  necessary for us to move.
  "With you out of the way�and you already are considered dead�no one  else will ever get in here to
  investigate. By stirring up the swamp  dwellers some more, we will make it so hot that the government will be
  forced to change the location of that flood−control dam."
  There was a moment of silence. Doc Savage broke it. "And now?" he  asked casually.
  "Now you are to die!" De Soto snarled. "You are to die by the  Crimson Serpent!"
  SILENCE followed. Footsteps could be heard outside the ring of  loopholes that covered the torture chamber.
  The submachine guns  menacing those within did not waver.
  The air seemed clammy suddenly. Ham was quite surprised to find that  he was covered with perspiration. He
  decided that it wasn’t all caused  by the heat.
  Monk looked hopefully at Doc. The bronze man appeared resigned to  his fate. He was leaning indolently
  against one wall of the torture  chamber. Once again he appeared to be rubbing his sides. Then his big  fists
  went up behind his head, seemed to massage the back of his neck.
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  Renny’s breath came in softly. The severity of his features relaxed  slightly.
  "It is all my fault. I should have told you what I knew," Consuelo  Manresa said suddenly. The black−haired
  girl appeared to have recovered  somewhat, although her large, dark eyes were drawn.
  "Yes?" Ham said sympathetically. Monk snorted disdainfully.
  "I’m sorry I called you a gigolo," the girl told Ham pointedly. Monk  snorted again. Consuelo Manresa
  ignored him.
  "Georges Douter and I were working together," she said simply. "He  was a member of the French Sûreté. I
  am a member of the Spanish Secret  Service."
  Renny grunted. Even Monk’s piglike eyes widened. Ham was smiling  fatuously. Gerald Pettybloom’s jaws
  were slack. Here was the story of  the ages unfolding before him, and he’d never be able to write it. Many
  things were becoming clear to him. They were clear to the others, also.
  "Stolen goods?" Ham asked.
  The girl nodded. "Many of the ancient Spanish relics you see here  were stolen, stolen by unpatriotic persons
  who took advantage of our  time of trouble. I was on the trail of them. Douter was on the trail of  some of the
  famous paintings that have disappeared from France in  recent years."
  "And they are here!" Pettybloom breathed.
  "Yes," the girl nodded. "They are here.
  "We received a tip through a criminal caught in Paris. We came to  the United States. Douter came directly
  here. I remained in New York.  Then Douter telephoned, told me what a terrible job we were up against.  He
  said Doc Savage had to become involved, and it was up to us to help  create a mystery so that he would
  become involved. The Crimson Serpent  helped."
  Ham nodded. That explained many things, explained why the girl had  been so evasive, why she had refused
  to answer questions.
  "In some way, Douter was spotted," the girl went on. "He was seized  and taken to Chicago, just as Renny was
  taken to Chicago. These  criminals operate their own airplane service. They do not land here,  but at a field not
  far away where they have an autogyro, then they use  that to drop right down on the roof."
  Renny nodded. He knew he had been taken to Chicago to try to keep  Doc there. Renny’s escape had balked
  that.
  "We tried to fool the gang in Chicago. Evidently we didn’t succeed.  We found the gang’s landing field, all
  right, and were on our way here.  But they knew we were coming. Douter was killed." She shuddered  slightly.
  Doc’s aides said nothing. They knew how Douter had looked.
  "Since then, I’ve been kept a prisoner, until such time as they  could use me." Her voice became bitter. "And
  they did use me. I’ve got  us all trapped now."
  "Ah, don’t worry about that," Ham tried to make his voice  comforting. A look of acute disgust passed over
  Monk’s face.
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  Then the look of disgust faded. He jumped three feet.
  Brr−r−r−r−r−r−r−r−r!
  A machine gun roared suddenly over their heads.
  THE machine−gun bullets plowed into the pile of weapons which Doc  and his aides had been forced to drop.
  Monk looked at them regretfully. Now he had nothing but his fists  left, and they were no match for guns.
  A solid block lifted in the far wall. A heavy, barred gate stood  behind it. Peering through, face merciless, was
  the bearded De Soto.  Standing at one side was Carter.
  "Strip!" De Soto barked savagely.
  Monk blushed. The others also turned crimson. No one moved.
  De Soto gave a sharp order. The muzzle of a machine gun turned  squarely on the small form of Consuelo
  Manresa.
  "I have had too many evidences of your trickery, Savage," he rapped.  "Get out of those clothes, strip to your
  shorts, or the girl will be  killed instantly."
  Strange rumbling came from Monk. The hairy chemist still wasn’t  impressed by Consuelo Manresa. But that
  had nothing to do with the  indignity of having to take off his clothes.
  The five men obeyed unwillingly and slowly. Even Doc’s equipment kit  had to come off.
  Another door opened suddenly, an armored guard slipped through,  reached for the clothes.
  Renny appeared coiled for a leap. He glanced at the gun pointed at  Consuelo Manresa�and stood still.
  Ham looked at Monk, chuckled suddenly. "The man that looks like a  monkey. The ape man." he gibed softly.
  Monk said a lot of words. He tried to cover his hairy chest with his  long arms. That just made him look more
  like a baboon than ever.
  "I have listened to your conversation with pleasure," De Soto said  sulkily. "All of you are smart, I will
  compliment you on that. But that  is why you are here�even Mr. Pettybloom. This has been our hide−out for
  many years. We could not afford to have anyone alive on the outside who  might be too suspicious."
  Pettybloom swallowed hard. The crime reporter spoke with a visible  effort. "I−I’ll get you to write your
  obituary yet," he blurted.
  Doc’s gold−flecked eyes had narrowed. The bronze man had resumed his  indolent position against a wall of
  the torture chamber.
  Renny watched him anxiously. The big engineer’s features were drawn.  Doc’s hands were behind his head
  again. Those hands were near one of  the slots in the wall from which the strange, phosphorescent light came.
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  The big engineer understood what that light was. It was far from  mysterious. It was merely a form of
  concealed neon−gas illumination.  There must be electric wires near it. Evidently that was why Doc was
  staying in that spot.
  Renny’s brain worked swiftly, but the more he thought, the less he  could understand. Undoubtedly, Doc
  could short the wires, could throw  the chamber in darkness. But what good would that do!
  Those watching them through the loopholes had flashlights as well as  guns. In any event, they could sweep
  the entire chamber with a rain of  bullets that would leave nothing living behind. And now not even Doc or  his
  aides had the protection of the bullet−proof underwear they  ordinarily wore.
  Renny thought he understood. Doc was waiting in hope that De Soto  and Carter would step inside the
  chamber with them. In the darkness,  the guards would not fire for fear of hitting their chiefs.
  The big engineer sighed. Even that would not save them, he knew.  They still would have to get out of the
  castle. And unarmed, with  killers on all sides of them, that would be impossible.
  Then Renny stopped thinking. Carter was speaking, and there was  deadly malice in his tones.
  "Enough," the sleek man snapped. "You are reserved for the Crimson  Serpent, but before then�"
  "�we will have a show," De Soto cut in.
  One of the two must have pressed a control switch. A slab of stone  reared up suddenly in the center of the
  floor.
  There was a terrific spitting and howling. A bobcat, lean and  starved, eyes gleaming madly, bounded into the
  torture chamber.
  A BOBCAT is not so large. But it is concentrated dynamite. Its claws  can tear to threads the tender flesh of
  humans.
  The bobcat landed on the floor in one gigantic leap, paused for a  fraction of a second, then leaped again. It
  leaped directly toward  Consuelo Manresa.
  Ham screamed. It was probably the only time in his life that he ever  felt fear. And he wasn’t feeling fear for
  himself, even now. His lean  body shot forward to get between the wild cat and the girl.
  Ham was fast. Monk was faster. And Monk had no intention of seeing  his dapper friend torn to shreds. One
  long arm shot out, caught the  wild cat under the throat in midair, knocked it back.
  Monk tried to leap after the cat. He was spun aside by a bronze  flash. Doc Savage had gone into action.
  Only a perfect athlete, with perfect timing, could have done what  Doc did then. He paused, just an instant, as
  the cat drew powerful legs  under it for another spring, then he had it from behind and by the  throat.
  The cat slumped to the floor. There had been a gas pellet in Doc’s  hand. That pellet had been saved for
  emergencies. The emergency had  arrived. The bobcat was unconscious.
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  A strange, hoarse laugh came from outside the barred door. De Soto,  his eyes wild and glaring, was showing
  all the deep cruelty of his  nature.
  "Carter, you were right," he roared. "I did not think it possible.  But each of these would give his life for
  another. And they are as good  as they were touted."
  Reaction held those in the torture chamber. All but Doc were weak  with sudden release from the experienced
  peril. The girl would have  fallen, if Pettybloom had not caught her. Ham looked more than mildly
  disappointed at that.
  Pettybloom had tried to go into action also. But his speed had been  slow compared to the others. The crime
  reporter appeared to be trying  to say many things to the girl. His face was strangely white.
  Fletcher Carter’s face was white also. The self−assured man did not  appear to relish quite the cold venom that
  De Soto displayed.
  Deliberately, Carter opened the barred door. Renny stirred, started  to move. A warning burst from a machine
  gun came from overhead.
  Then Carter stood just inside the door. There was a strange  implement in his hand.
  The implement was something like a huge trap. It was large enough to  fit around a human body. Right now,
  the trap was wide. One side of it  was perfectly smooth.
  The other side was filled with scores of tiny knives. The knives  were set in the form of a coiled snake.
  Ham gasped. The secret of the Crimson Serpent had been disclosed. It  was a modified version of the old
  Spanish "iron maiden."
  The trap would be extended about a man’s body. Then the trigger  would be kicked. Strong springs would
  drive the knives into the  victim’s body. The wound would remain in the form of a Crimson Serpent.
  "One at a time," Carter said hoarsely, "One at a time. Call for them  one at a time, De Soto. As each steps
  through the door, the Crimson  Serpent will strike."
  "The girl first!" De Soto snarled.
  A deep sigh came from Ham. He glanced desperately at the waiting  guns�and poised for a leap. Monk’s
  muscles already were tense. Renny,  his huge fists knotted, raised one big foot. Gerald Pettybloom swung  the
  limp body of the girl behind him.
  Only Doc, back against the wall, did not appear to move.
  "The girl!" roared De Soto.
  It was then that all hell broke loose.
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  Chapter XX. SECRETS EXPOSED
  A BLASTING, as from a half dozen big guns came from outside the  castle. The sound penetrated loudly,
  even through the massive stone  walls.
  Coupled with the roar of the big guns came the rattle of smaller  weapons, and over it all rose a high,
  thin−pitched screaming, as if a  thousand attackers were yelling madly.
  De Soto froze. Fletcher Carter stood as if paralyzed. Startling  yells came from the guards at the loopholes.
  Another huge explosion came. Immediately afterward, the castle  rocked with earthquake force.
  In the same instant, the phosphorescent lights went out! It seemed  as if they had been blown out by the force
  of a cannon shell.
  Fletcher Carter screamed.
  Then the voice of De Soto rose loud and clear over the din. "Guard  the walls!" he roared. "Use the weapons
  there. Whether it is the  natives or really a National Guard force that has attacked, open fire."
  "But the prisoners?" a guard yelled frantically.
  The barred gate into the torture chamber slammed shut
  "I’ll tend to the prisoners. They will not escape alive. Do as  you’re told. Use those guns!"
  Most of those who had been at the loopholes obeyed. One didn’t. He  was the same one who had detected
  Doc’s deception with the swamp men.
  Frank suspicion was in his eyes. He reached for his flashlight. Then  he dropped it. Suspicion died.
  Carter could be heard arguing with De Soto. An instant later came  the slap of stone blocks, then the
  screaming howl of angry bobcats.
  Where only one cat had been released in the torture chamber before,  now it seemed that a half dozen were
  there.
  Consuelo Manresa screamed. Howls of pain and terror were coming from  others in the pit.
  Above it all roared the hoarse, half−mad laughter of De Soto.
  A wide grin split the guard’s face. He would have preferred to stay,  to turn on his flashlight and watch the
  scene he knew must be taking  place beneath him. Of course, he had seen the cats work on Indians, but  to see
  them tear a girl to pieces would really be something.
  He hesitated only for a moment. Then he sighed, and reluctantly  turned toward the sounds of the fighting
  outside. De Soto was not one  to be disobeyed. Disobedience brought death, a horrible death. And De  Soto
  had said to man the guns on the walls.
  Very modern artillery was hidden on those walls. The guard felt  certain that any attack would be beaten off.
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  Of course, they might have  to move, but they would have time to transfer the treasure the castle  contained,
  before a new assault could be made.
  Slowly at first, then more rapidly, the man raced toward the sounds  of the fighting. The last thing he heard
  behind him was what sounded  like a dying shriek. He laughed.
  TWO others were laughing also. The bearded figure of De Soto stood  outside the barred gate. Beside him
  was the more slender form of a  self−assured man with a red carnation in his coat lapel.
  All sound died away inside the torture chamber. The two outside  turned, made their way swiftly along a
  corridor. Lights came on. One of  the guards, on his own initiative, had evidently repaired the damage.
  Outside the battle noise was dying away. Strangely, no shots had  been fired from the guns on the castle walls.
  Groups of puzzled, armor−clad men greeted De Soto and Carter as they  reached the walls.
  It was instantly apparent why.
  Lights from the walls showed that several trees had been blasted  down. There was a hole in one corner of the
  castle, but it appeared to  have been caused by explosives, not by a shell.
  "A trick!" De Soto shrilled loudly.
  Others joined in. They were remembering now the scene Doc had put on  to impress the swamp dwellers. It
  didn’t seem possible, but he must  have worked some such magic again.
  "He coulda planted dynamite with time fuses!" one guard bellowed.
  Others yelled assent. They didn’t see just how that would explain  the shouts and other noises they had heard,
  nor would it explain how  that dynamite had gone off just when it did.
  But they had to have some explanation. Their own nerves were shaken.
  Suddenly Carter turned, looked intently at the big figure beside  him. He shrieked loudly.
  "This isn’t De Soto!" he shrilled. "It is the big one they called  Renny!"
  Everyone was frozen for a moment. Then the bearded man turned. He  fled back into the castle.
  That broke the spell. Scores of armor−clad figures raced after him.  Guns barked, but good shooting was
  impossible. There were too many  pursuers, for one thing. For another, the big figure ahead was twisting  and
  weaving, turning corners frequently.
  Carter led the chase. The self−assured man appeared beside himself  with rage. "Now I understand," he yelled.
  "I thought I heard a whisper  in the torture chamber. It was Doc Savage. He told those with him to  run for the
  dungeon, that no one would ever look for them there."
  "The dungeons!" came the cry. "To the dungeons!"
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  "They must have got De Soto!" Carter yelled. "But I know Doc Savage  is down. I saw him go down."
  The mob swept on. Somehow, it seemed they passed Carter. Others took  the lead.
  A few moments later, Carter turned off in a side corridor. Only one  guard noticed that. His evil, twisted
  features became horrible  suddenly. He, alone, decided that there might be a trick within a trick.
  Somehow "Carter" had not spoken just right. The guard turned, raced  after the slender figure wearing a red
  carnation in his lapel.
  The armored men no longer saw the big bearded figure ahead of them.  But that made no difference. They
  knew where the dungeons were. They  roared on down winding passageways. Dampness showed on the stone
  blocks  beneath them.
  They came to a narrow passageway. Those behind forced the leaders  ahead. They crammed onward, into a
  series of narrow cells.
  It was then the bearded man appeared again. He appeared behind them.  Calmly his fingers sought, found a
  button. They pressed the button.
  Stone blocks groaned and dropped. The only entrance to the dungeons  was blocked. All the armor−clad men
  were trapped inside.
  Doc Savage’s gold−flecked eyes flickered above the false beard he  had donned.
  THE bronze man had known a moment of real peril might occur inside  the castle. He had prepared for that
  moment.
  Even before he started his round−up of the swamp dwellers, he had  placed explosives outside the castle wall.
  And, he had placed duplicate  sound−apparatus, to simulate the noise of an armed attack.
  To operate that explosive and sound−apparatus from a distance, it  had been necessary to use a radio impulse.
  Setting a radio robot on the  machinery had been simple enough. It had been more difficult to locate  electricity
  inside the castle to send the radio flash that would start  the explosives and sound equipment.
  That was why Doc had stayed near the wires of the phosphorescent  lights. Working carefully, he had spliced
  a small radio−sending unit to  those wires. He had waited until the proper moment, then started the  apparent
  attack on the castle.
  After that he had shorted the lights. Renny had gone into action.  With the big engineer’s assistance, De Soto
  and Carter had been  overcome almost instantly. Then Doc and Ham had traded places with  them. Doc’s
  ventriloquism and marvelous ability to imitate voices and  animals accounted for the sounds the guard had
  heard.
  Monk, Renny, Consuelo Manresa and Gerald Pettybloom had been  instructed to seek a hiding place until Doc
  and Ham could decoy the  armored guards to the dungeon.
  That was now accomplished. Doc turned, started back toward the upper  level of the castle.
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  It was then the screams came. There were two of those screams. They  were made by different men.
  The bronze man flashed upward. He knew the castle now. He wasted no  time. Only seconds later, he reached
  the torture chamber. It was there  De Soto and Carter, temporarily unconscious, had been left.
  De Soto and Carter were still there. They would never leave alive.
  They were lying on their backs. Across the bare chest of each  crawled the gory Crimson Serpent!
  At the far end of the room were two other figures. One was that of  the guard. The guard had just been
  knocked cold. Over him stood Ham.
  "H−he got here before me, Doc," said Ham, and the dapper lawyer’s  voice was oddly shaken. "He thought
  one of those two was you, and the  other another of us. H−he used the Crimson Serpent on them before I
  could stop him."
  Doc’s shoulders rose and fell. But he said nothing. De Soto and  Carter had been responsible for many
  slayings. They probably deserved  to die. And again, as so often happens, Doc’s foes had been slain by  the
  very weapons they used on others.
  THE round−up of all the dangerous criminals was complete. Only a few  ancient, harmless Indians were
  found when Doc and his men searched the  castle.
  Pettybloom was anxious to get his story out. Doc didn’t tell him of  the well−equipped radio room he had
  found. He thought the story could  wait until all details were complete.
  Search of the castle completed those details.
  "This undoubtedly is the storehouse of more so−called ‘hot’ goods  than the world has ever known before,"
  the bronze man explained. "De  Soto�and I imagine we will find he was at least partly Spanish�must  have
  been a very educated, if misguided, man.
  "Loot has been accumulated here for years. Some of it had to be held  for years before it could be sold."
  The others nodded. Priceless paintings, gems of all kinds, even  ransom money, had been discovered.
  The printing presses explained the clanking sound that had been  heard in the castle. It explained the reason
  the armored men had always  been accompanied by a clanking sound also. They had wished to impress  on the
  natives that the clanking sound must always be associated with  danger. That would keep them away from the
  castle.
  Counterfeit bills were being turned out on the presses. But that  wasn’t all. Hundreds of thousands of
  counterfeit lottery tickets, fake  revenue stamps and labels also were being turned out. The place was  capable
  of supplying almost everything criminals wanted.
  That explained the tie−up with the Chicago gang. And it explained  Fletcher Carter’s part, also. Undoubtedly,
  he had been the contact man,  the one the underworld knew. His apparent execution, a magician’s easy  trick,
  had been staged so that it would seem he was innocent. De Soto  had stayed in the castle. He had had every
  comfort, he had servants and  guards.
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter XX. SECRETS EXPOSED
  98
  
  The guards, it was learned by questioning, had been chosen  carefully. All had been required to speak Spanish.
  They had carried on  their masquerade at all times, so that the swamp dwellers would believe  there really was
  something mysterious about them.
  "Holy cow! No wonder they didn’t want the swamp flooded, and wanted  the location of the dam changed!"
  Renny breathed.
  "What a story. What a story," contributed Pettybloom. The reporter,  however, kept his eyes on Consuelo
  Manresa.
  Doc made his arrangements swiftly. The captured criminals would go  to his upstate New York hospital, a
  hospital where they would undergo  an operation that would blot out all memory of their past lives, would
  give them a chance to become honorable citizens.
  Federal officers and Secret Service men of a dozen countries must be  notified, so that they could remove the
  millions of dollars’ worth of  loot, see that it was restored to its rightful owners.
  Renny was helping Doc in this.
  Monk went to the dungeon door, asked a question that had been  puzzling him. He was more puzzled when he
  left.
  The castle, he was told, had been built long before it was ever  taken over by the criminals. Swamp rumor said
  it had been there before  the memory of the earliest settlers. It was of Spanish design. Could  there have been
  some truth in the entire thing? Could this really have  been erected by the real Do Soto and some of his men,
  hundreds of years  before?
  The hairy chemist shook his head. He didn’t know.
  Then Monk forgot all about his question. He rounded a dark corner  and suddenly drew back.
  Ahead of him, standing close together, were Ham and Consuelo  Manresa. The dapper lawyer appeared trying
  to put his arms around the  slender, dark−eyed girl.
  "B−but you will let me see you later? You will let me call on you,  won’t you?"
  Monk had never heard such pleading in Ham’s voice outside a  courtroom.
  Consuelo Manresa’s dark eyes rolled upward coquettishly, then she  shook her head.
  "I−I’m afraid I’d better go now," she said, shyly. "Gerald . . .  Gerald might not like it. And we�"
  A muffled groan came from Ham.
  Monk puckered his lips. It was difficult to do so and keep from  laughing, but he managed it.
  He strode down the corridor, whistling. He was whistling "Just a  Gigolo."
  THE END
   THE CRIMSON SERPENT
  Chapter XX. SECRETS EXPOSED
  99
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Vault2.0.-.Fiction-and-audiobooks/Books/R/Robeson, Kenneth/078 The Crimson Serpent.pdf