Noon came. The fourth of stricken Mayans had risen to a third. And with the increased rate of collapse, the temper of the besiegers was getting shorter. The red-fingered warriors had them believing that the death of the white men would solve their problem, vanquish the malady.

"I think I've got it!" Doc said at last. "The cure!"

"I'm out of gas," Monk muttered. "How are we going to get out of here to treat them?"

For answer, Doc pocketed vials of the thin pale fluid he had concocted. "Wait here," he directed.

He shoved the stone door ajar suddenly, stepped inside. The Mayans saw him, rumbled. A couple of spears sped through the air. But long before the obsidian spear tips shattered against the stone house, Doc had vaulted to the roof and was gone.

Furtively he prowled through the strange city. He found a Mayan who had been stricken and forcibly administered some of the pale medicine. At another home he repeated the operation on an entire family.

When molested by armed Mayans, he simply evaded them. His bronzed form would flash around a corner — and all trace would be gone when the Mayans reached the spot. Once, about mid-afternoon, he did show resistance to three red-fingered man who happened upon him treating a household of five Mayans. When Doc left the vicinity, all three warriors were still unconscious from the blows he had delivered.

Thus, as furtively as though he were a criminal instead of the angel of mercy he was in reality, he was forced to skulk and give by main strength the treatment he had devised.

By nightfall, however, his persistence began to tell. Word spread that the bronze god of a white man was curing the Red Death!

Doc's concoction, thanks to its unique medical skill, was proving effective.

By nine o'clock Long Tom could venture forth without danger and treat unfortunates with his health-ray apparatus. This had remarkable properties for healing tissue burned out by the ravages of the Red Death.

"Doc says the Red Death is a rare tropical fever," Long Tom explained to the greatly interested Princess Monja. "Originally it must have been the malady of some jungle bird. Probably similar to an epidemic known as 'parrot fever' which swept the United States a year or two ago."

"Mr. Savage is a remarkable man!" the young Mayan woman murmured.

Long Tom nodded soberly. "There is not a thing he can't do, I reckon."

Chapter 18. FRIENDSHIP

A week passed. During that time, Doc Savage's position among the Mayans not only returned to what it had been before the epidemic of the Red Death, but it far surpassed that.

As man after man of the yellow-skinned people recovered, a complete change of feeling came about. Doc was the hero of every stone home. They followed him about in droves, admiring his tremendous physique, imitating his little manners.

They even spied upon him taking his inevitable exercise in the mornings. By the end of the week, half the Mayans in the city were also taking exercises.

Renny, who never took any exercise except to knock things to pieces with his great fists, thought it very funny.

"Exercise never hurt anybody, unless they overdid it," Doc told him.

The red-fingered warriors were a chagrined lot. In fact, Morning Breeze lost a large part of his following. His erst while satellites scrubbed the red stain off their fingers, threw their blue maxtli, or girdles, away, and forsook the fighting sect, with King Chaac's consent.

Less than fifty of the most villainous remained in Morning Breeze's fold. These were careful not to make themselves noticed too much, because there was some talk among the upright Mayan citizens of seeing if there wasn't enough warriors to fill the sacrificial well.

Things seemed to have come to an ideal pass. Except, possibly, in the case of pretty Princess Monja. She was plainly infatuated with Doc, but making no headway. She was, of course, well bred enough not to show her feelings too openly. But all of Doc's friends could see how it was.

Doc removed all firearms to their stone headquarters house. He locked the weapons in a room. Long Tom installed a simple electrical burglar alarm. Monk made up more of his paralyzing gas. He stored this with the arms. In the face of the peace, such preparations seemed unnecessary, though.

Every one noted Doc was inexplicably missing from the city at times. These absences lasted several hours. Then Doc would reappear. He offered no explanation. Actually, he had been ranging the jungle sections of the Valley of the Vanished. He was seeking his father's murderer. He traveled, apelike, among the trees, or silent as a bronze shadow on the ground.

Near the lower end of the valley he found what his keen senses told him was the camp of his quarry. But it was a cold trail. The camp had been deserted some time. Doc tracked the killer a considerable distance. The scent ended at the trail out of the valley.

There came the day when elderly King Chaac decided things were normal enough to adopt Doc and his men into the tribe. There was to be a great ceremony.

After they would be shown the gold source.

The ceremony got under way at the pyramid.

Since Doc and his friends were to become honorary Mayans, it was needful that they don Mayan costume for the festivities. King Chaac furnished the attire.

The garb consisted of short mantles of stout fiber interwoven with wire gold, brilliant girdles, and high-backed sandals. Each had a headdress to denote some animal. These towered high, and interwoven trams of flowers fell down their backs.

Ham took one look at Monk in this paraphernalia and burst into laughter. "If I just had a grind organ to go with you!" he chuckled.

Because pistols did not harmonize with this garb, they left them behind. No danger seemed to threaten, anyway.

The entire populace assembled at the pyramid for the ceremony. The Mayan men wore the same costume as Doc and his friends. In addition, some wore a cotton padlike armor, stuffed with sand. These resembled baseball chest protectors. Those attired in the armor also carried ceremonial spears and clubs.

Doc noted one thing a little off color.

Morning Breeze and his red-fingered followers were nowhere about!

Doc gave some thought to that. But there seemed no serious harm Morning Breeze could do. His fifty men were hopelessly outnumbered in case they started trouble.

The rituals got under way.

Doc and his men first had their faces daubed with sacred blue. Mystic designs in other colors were painted on their arms.

They were next offered various viands to which ceremonial significance was attached. They each drank honey — honey by the strange bees of Central America which store it in liquid in the hive, not in combs. Next was atole, a drink made from maize, and kept in most elaborate and beautiful jars.

Atop the pyramid, native incense was now burning in an immense quiche, or ceremonial burner. The fumes, sweeping down the great golden pyramid in the calm, bracing air, were quite pleasant.

Seated in orderly rows about the pyramid base, the entire Mayan populace kept up a low chanting. The sound was rhythmic, certain musical words repeated over and over. There were a few musical instruments, well handled.

The affair moved rapidly toward the climax. This would be when Doc and his friends were led up the long flight of steps bearing offerings of incense for the great burner and little stone images of the god Kukulcan to place at the feet of the larger statue

It was necessary, King Chaac had explained, to mount the steps only on their knees. To do otherwise would not be according to Hoyle.

The Mayan women were taking an equal part in the ritual with the men. Most of these were very attractive in their shoulder mantles and knee-length girdles.