The Man of Bronze (16 page)

King Chaac was all for expelling the troublesome chief warrior from the Valley of the Vanished. He saw the undesirability of this, though, when Doc pointed out that Morning Breeze would only disclose to the world the existence of the golden pyramid.

“Give him a chance to cool off there in the cell,” Doc suggested. “A chance to think over the error of his way has done wonders for many a criminal.”

The Mayan sovereign concluded to follow that course.

Such was the simple temperament of these golden-skinned Mayans that Doc and his friends now found themselves generally accepted in defiance to the red-fingered men’s solemn warnings. The influence of the latter was deflated to such a degree that the other Mayans refused to even listen to their sinister propaganda—for the warriors quickly tried to talk themselves into power again.

“We’re sitting pretty!” Monk declared, rubbing his big, furry hands together.

“Knock on wood, you lunk!” Ham muttered somberly. Monk grinned and tried to knock on Ham’s head. “I wonder why his nibs, the king, is making us wait a month before he concludes arrangements about this gold?”

“I have no idea,” Ham admitted. “But you recall he mentioned it might not be thirty days.”

Monk stretched and yawned tremendously.

“Well, this ain’t a bad place to spend a month’s vacation,” he decided. “It’ll probably he quiet around here now.”

T
HAT night, in the Valley of the Vanished, darkness lay everywhere with the black intensity of drawing ink. Impenetrable clouds massed above the great chasm caused this. The air was a bit sultry. Even a novice forecaster could have told one of the tropical downpours common to Hidalgo was on its way.

Doc and his friends took the precaution of posting a guard and keeping a light burning. They alternated on guard, but nothing eventful came to their notice.

At the stone hut where Morning Breeze was incarcerated, two Mayan citizens kept alert vigil. From time to time the surly Morning Breeze called them uncomplimentary names and promised them the wrath of the gods if they didn’t release him at once. But the watchmen had been promised the wrath of Doc Savage if they let Morning Breeze escape, and they feared that the greater. To them, also, the night gave nothing portentous.

In one spot in the Valley of the Vanished, however, a devil’s cauldron of evil simmered and stewed.

This was near the lower end of the egg-shaped valley, where the stream cut through the great chasm. In a tiny pock of a hole among the boulders had congregated most of the red-fingered warriors. There they lighted a fire and offered a chant to the fire god, one of their principal deities. There were also prayers to Quetzalcoal, the Sky God; and to Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent.

They seemed to be waiting for something, these villainous ones, and killing the ensuing time with chants calculated to redeem their sadly depreciated standing. They launched into a ritual devoted to the Earth Monster, another pagan deity.

This was interrupted by a low rustling of the leafage that edged the recess where the red-fingered men had gathered. An amazing figure clambered down and joined them.

A man it was, but he wore a remarkable masquerade. The body of the garment consisted of an enormous snakeskin, the hide of a giant boa constrictor. The head of the reptile had been carefully skinned out, and probably enlarged by some stretching process until it formed a fantastic hood and mask for the one who wore it.

The man’s arms and legs, projecting from the masquerade garment, were painted a gaudy blue, the Mayan holy color. Starting on the forehead and down the middle of the back, and nearly to the dragging end of the snake tail, were feathers. They resembled the trains on the feather headdress of an American Indian.

The newcomer was obviously made up in some weird likeness of the Mayan god, Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent.

The gathering of red-fingered warriors were greatly impressed. To a man they sank upon their knees and kowtowed to the hideous apparition in snakeskin and feathers. They undoubtedly knew there was a man inside the rigmarole, but they were overawed anyway, such superstitious souls did they possess.

HALTINGLY, with the greatest of difficulty, the snake man began to speak Mayan. A large proportion of his words were so poorly uttered as to convey no meaning to his listeners. At such times the blank expression of the warriors warned him to go back and repeat. The snake man was plainly an outsider.

But the red-fingered men were completely under his sway.

“I am the son of Kukulcan, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh,” the serpent one told his awed audience. “Did you seize such of the white invaders as you could and throw them into the sacrificial well? Did you change the color of the white devils’ blue plane, painting marks of the Red Death upon it? This I commanded. Did you do it?”

“We did,” muttered a warrior.

The brain back of the snake mask sensed something wrong. The hideous head jerked, surveying the assembled Mayans. “Where is your commander, Morning Breeze?”

“He is imprisoned.” The information came reluctantly.

A great rage shook the masked figure. “Then Savage and his men are still in the good graces of your people?” he grated.

Slowly the serpent one extracted the story of what had happened from the humiliated gathering. The information seemed to stun him. He sat in morose silence, thinking.

A warrior, bolder than the rest, inquired: “What, O master, became of the two of our number we sent with you into the outer world to slay this Savage and his father?”

That disclosed who the snake man was. The murderer of Doc Savage’s father! The master of the Red Death! The brains behind the Hidalgo revolution movement!

Words of answer were slow coming from the evil mask. The fiendish brain was racing. It would not do to let these red-fingered men know their two fellows had succumbed to the power of that supreme adventurer, Doc Savage. It might wipe out some of their faith in the impostor who was pretending to be the son of the sacred Feathered Serpent.

He needed all his power now, did the snake man. His plane and pilot destroyed by Doc Savage! This was a blow! He had intended to use that machine-gun-equipped plane in his revolution against President Carlos Avispa’s government of Hidalgo.

And Savage and his friends were soundly intrenched in the Valley of the Vanished. Soon all chance to secure the vast sum needed to finance the revolution would be gone.

“Has Savage gained access to the gold?” asked the snake man.

“No,” replied a well-posted Mayan. “He does not know but what the pyramid contains all the yellow metal in the Valley of the Vanished. King Chaac has not told him the truth yet.”

None of the red-fingered ones heard the words next breathed into the serpent mask. They were: “Thank Heaven for that!”

The collected warriors began to stir uneasily. This son of the Feathered Serpent had been full of egoism and orders on other occasions. Now he was silent. And he had not explained what had happened to their two comrades. One Mayan repeated the question about their two fellows.

“They are alive and well!” lied the snake man. “Listen! Hear me well, my children, for here are my words of wisdom.”

The warriors came under the spell again.

“The Red Death shall strike very soon!” rumbled the voice back of the serpent mask.

GENUINE terror now seized upon the Mayans. They shuddered and drew together as if for protection. Not a one voiced a word.

“The Red Death strikes soon!” repeated the snake man. “It is the way of Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent, my father, to show you he will not have these white men in your midst. You have sinned grievously in letting them stay. You were warned to destroy them. I, the voice of my father, the Feathered Serpent, warned you.”

A warrior began: “We tried—”

“No excuses!” commanded the voice from the mask. “By doing two things only can you avert the Red Death, or stop its progress after it has descended upon you. First, you must destroy Savage and his men. Second, you must deliver to me, son of the Feathered Serpent, as much gold as ten men can carry. I will see the gold gets to the Feathered Serpent. ”

The Mayans muttered, squirmed, shuddered.

“Destroy Savage—and bring me all the gold ten men can carry!” repeated the one they feared. “Only that will cause the Feathered Serpent to take back his Red Death! I have spoken. Go.”

With steps driven to haste by their terror of this feathered snake of a thing, the red-fingered men took their departure. They would sit in their huts and talk about it the rest of the night. And the more they talked, the more likely they would be to do as they had been commanded. For it is a strange fact that a crowd of men are less brave in the face of threat than a single individual. They add to each other’s fear.

The snake man did not linger after they had gone. He quitted the rendezvous, walking furtively, wincing as his bare feet were mauled by the sharp rocks.

Reaching a low bush, he drew from under it two ordinary gallon fruit jars. One of these was filled with a red, viscous fluid. The other contained a much thinner, paler fluid.

On one jar was written:

Germ culture which causes Red Death

On the other was inscribed:

Cure for Red Death

These the man in the serpent masquerade carried most carefully as he made his way in stealth toward the gilded pyramid.

WITHOUT being observed or arousing any slumbering Mayans, the snake man reached the pyramid. As he came near the monster pile of fabulously rich gold ore, he could not control his breathing, so strong was his lust for the yellow metal. The noisy purling of the stream of water down the pyramid side eliminated any chance of his being heard, though.

Up the steps the man felt his way in the intense darkness. The water raced by at his side. He reached the flattened top of the structure. There he felt about in the sepia murk until he found what he sought—a small, tanklike pool.

It was this pool that fed the racing brook down the pyramid side. Just how the pool was kept continuously supplied with water, in spite of its position high atop the pyramid, the man did not know or care.

He furtively lit a match.

The contents of the jar labeled
Germ culture which carries Red Death
, he emptied into the pool.

From experience, the fiend in the serpent mask knew the deadly germs would be fed down the pyramid water stream for about two days. And the entire clan of Mayans obtained their drinking water from that stream!

Two days and every person in the valley would be a victim of the gruesome Red Death. Only one thing could save them—treatment with the stuff in the other jar. Previously—for he had obtained many offerings of gold from this valley—the man in the snake mask had administered the cure exactly as he had the disease, by dumping it into the Mayan water supply.

It was because he saw the end of the golden offerings once Doc Savage appeared on the scene that the man had sought to keep Doc from reaching the Valley of the Vanished.

Carrying the empty jar, and the full jar of the cure, the man retreated down the pyramid. He made his way in silence to the remote end of the valley, where he had his hiding place. It was here he had concealed himself alter his plane pilot had dropped him by parachute into the valley the previous night.

En route, the man paused to smash the empty jar.

The clatter of the breaking glass instilled an ugly thought in his brain. He toyed with it.

“I will never learn the source of this gold from old Chaac,” he growled. “And no one else knows the secret. So why should I trouble with curing them after they get sick?”

He made angry noises with his teeth. “If all in the valley were dead, I could take my time hunting the gold. And there is a fortune in that pyramid for the taking.”

A mean grin crooked the lips back of the snake-head mask. “They will make many gold offerings before they find out I am not going to cure them!”

He had reached a decision that showed how evil and cruel he was. He had no regard at all for human life.

He crashed the bottle of Red Death cure against a rock, destroying it.

He intended to let the Mayans perish!

D
OC SAVAGE, up ahead of the sun, spent the usual time at the exercises which kept his amazing bronze body the wonderful mental and physical thing it was. From force of habit he liked to go through his ritual while alone. Bystanders were always asking questions as to what this and that was intended to do, pestering him.

Morning Breeze was still a prisoner. Doc paid the cell hut a visit to be sure. The guards on duty eyed Doc’s bronze form in open wonder, marveling at its perfection. Doc had not as yet donned his shirt.

Doc’s bared arms looked like those of an Atlas. The muscles, in repose, were not knotty. They were more like bundled piano wires on which a thin bronze skin had been painted. And across his chest and back great, supple cables of tendon lay layer upon layer. It was a rare sight, that body of Doc’s. The Mayans’ eyes popped.

Some of the morning Doc spent in conversation with King Chaac, considering the elderly sovereign had never heard of a modern university, be had some remarkably accurate knowledge about the universe.

Pretty Princess Monja, Doc discovered also, would pass in any society as a well-educated young woman. All she lacked was a course in the history of the rest of the world. It was amazing.

“We lead a life of leisure here in the Valley of the Vanished,” King Chaac explained. “We have much time to think, to reason things out.”

A little later King Chaac made an unexpected—and pleasant—revelation.

“You may have wondered why I said I would delay thirty days or possibly less before I disclosed to you the location of the gold supply?” he asked.

Doc admitted he had.

“It was my agreement with your father,” smiled King Chaac. “I was to satisfy myself you were a man of sufficient character to put this fabulous wealth to the use to which it should be put.”