Chapter 14

HUNTED MEN

MONK, big and furry, clothes practically torn off, crouched in the how of a near-by lifeboat. He was shackled with heavy chains and metal bands.

The pale electrical wizard, Long Torn, and the bony, archaeologist, Johnny, were seated on a thwart in front of Monk. They were braceleted with ordinary handcuffs.

Other lifeboats and some launches swarmed the vicinity. Yellow men gorged them to the gunwales. Gun barrels bristIed over the boats like naked brush.

Every slant eye was fixed on the spot where the Malay Queen had gone down. The sea still boiled there. Wreckage drifted in confusion, deck chairs, some lounge furniture, a hatch or two, and lesser objects such as shuffleboard cues and ping-pong balls. A pall of steam from the blown boilers hung above Mantilla Bay.

Doc sank and stroked toward the small craft which held his three friends.

He was hardly under the surface when a terrific explosion occurred in the water near by. It smashed the sea against his body with terrific force.

Swiftly he let all the air out of his diving hood. He scooted into the depths.

He knew what had happened. Some of the corsairs had glimpsed him and hurled a grenade.

Doc swam with grim, machinelike speed. Rifle bullets wouldn't reach him below the surface. But the grenades, detonating like depth bombs, were a grisly menace. He'd have to give up the rescue of his three men. He had no way of getting them ashore.

Chun-n-g!

Then a second grenade loosened. It couldn't have been many feet away. The goggles of Doc's (living hood were crushed inward. Gigantic fists seemed to smash every inch of his bronze frame.

Not missing a stroke in his swimming, Doc shook the glass goggle fragments out of his eyes. No serious damage had been done. He would merely have to keep the mouthpiece-nose-clip contrivance of the "lung" between his lips as long as he was beneath the surface.

His remarkable ability to maintain a sense of direction under all circumstances enabled him to find the three he had left beneath the waters.

Grenades were still exploding beneath the surface. But the blasts were so distant now as to be harmless.

Leaning far over against the water, the four men strode shoreward. Coming to a clear patch of sand, Doc halted, and, with a finger tip, wrote one word.

"Sharks!"

Doc had seen a pilot fish of a shark-following species. After that warning they kept alert eyes roving the surrounding depths. Fortunately, however, they were not molested.

The bottom slanted upward; the water became translucent with sunlight. They were nearing shore. A roaring commotion passed over their heads, evidently a speed boat.

Upright wooden columns appeared suddenly, thick as a forest, shaggy with barnacles — the piling of a wharf.

Doc led his men into the forest. They rose cautiously to the top.

NO one observed them in the shadowy thicket of piling.

Out on the bay, boats scurried every\where. Some were motor driven, some propelled by stringy yellow oarsmen.

Doc removed his diving hood. The other three followed his example.

"I know a spot ashore where we will be safe," Mindoro declared. "It is one of the rendezvous used by my secret political society."

"Let's go," said Doc.

Shoving themselves from pile to pile, they reached a hawser end which chanced to be dangling. Doc, tugging it, found the upper terminus solid.

He mounted with simian speed and ease. The wharf was piled with hemp bales. Near by yawned a narrow street.

Now the others climbed up. They sprinted for the street and stopped.

A squad of Mantilla police stood there. They held drawn guns.

"Bueno!" exploded Mindoro in Spanish. "We are safe!"

Ham and Renny scowled doubtfully. The police did not look friendly to them. Their doubts were justified an instant later.

"Fire!" shrieked the officer in command of the squad. "Kill the dogs!"

Police pistols flung up — targeted on the vital organs of Doc and his three companions.

Ham, Renny, Mindoro — all three suddenly found themselves scooped zip and swept to one side by Doc's bronze right arm.

Simultaneously a small cylinder in Doc's left hand spouted a monster wad of black smoke. The cylinder, of metal, had come from the bundle Doc was carrying. The smoke pall spread with astonishing speed.

Police guns clapped thunderously in the black smudge. Bullets caromed off cobbles, off the building walls. The treacherous officers dashed about t, searching savagely. Some had presence of mind to run up and down the street until clear of the umbrageous vapor. They waited there for the bronze giant and his companions to appear.

But they did not put in an appearance.

Not until the smoke was dissipated by a breeze, fully ten minutes later, did the would-be killers find an open door in one of the buildings walling the street. By that time Doc, Ham, Renny and Mindoro were many blocks away.

MINDORO was white with rage. From time to time he shook his fists in expressive Latin fashion.

"That group of police was composed of Tom Too's men!" he hissed wrathfully. "That explains their action. The devil must have enough of his followers, or men whom he has bribed, on the police force to take over the department when he decides to strike."

Doc replied nothing.

Ham and Renny exchanged doubtful glances. It looked as if they had stepped from the frying pan into the fire. Tom Too's plot was tremendous in scope. If the police were under the domination of the buccaneers, Doc would be in for some tough sailing.

They entered thickly crowded streets. The excitement in the bay seemed to be attracting virtually every inhabitant of Mantilla. Many, curious, were making for the bay at a dead run.

A tight group, Doc and his men breasted this tide of humanity. They avoided such of the Mantilla constabulary as they saw.

Mindoro soon led them into a small shop. The proprietor, a benign-looking Chinese gentleman, smiled widely at Mindoro. They exchanged words in Mandarin.

"To have you back is like seeing the sun rise after a long and dark and horrible night," murmured the Celestial. "This lowly person presumes you wish to use the secret way."

"Right," Mindoro told him.

In a rear room a large brass gong hung. It was shaped like a gigantic cymbal, such as drummers hammer. This was moved aside, a section of the wall behind opened, and Doc and his companions entered a concealed stairway.

This twisted and angled, became a passage even more crooked, and finally turned into another stair flight.

They stepped into a windowless room. The air was perfumed faintly with incense. Tapestries draped the walls; thick rugs matted the floor; comfortably upholstered furniture stood about. There was a cabinet laden with canned and preserved foods. A well-stocked bookcase stood against one wall.

A very modern radio set, equipped for long and shortwave reception, completed the fittings.

"This is one of several hidden retreats established by my secret society," Mindoro explained.

Ham had carried his sword cane throughout the excitement. He used it to punch the soft upholstery of a chair, as if estimating its comfort.

"How did you come to organize your political society in secrecy?" he asked. "That has been puzzling me all along. Did you expect a thing like this Tom Too menace to turn up?"

"Not exactly," replied Mindoro. "Secrecy is the way of the Orient. We do not come out in the open and settle things in a knock-down-and-drag-out fashion, as you Americans do. Of course, the secrecy was incorporated for our protection. The first move in seizing power is naturally to wipe out those who are running things. In the Orient, secret societies are not regarded as the insidious thing you Yanks consider them."