AN OFFER
It was mid-afternoon of the following day. Things were pretty much at a status quo. Nothing had happened; nothing had been discovered that was of value. And it was still foggy.
Renny was off continuing his mapping, using the old plane. Johnny and Long Tom were still prospecting. They had found nothing the day before.
Monk was dividing his time between scowling at Ham, who was enjoying himself entertaining Patricia, and dabbling with his chemical equipment.
Doc Savage was just completing his exercise routine. He had been at it without pause for two hours. From the cradle, he had never missed a day of this ritual.
They were unlike anything else in the world, those exercises. Doc’s father, a great surgeon and adventurer, had started him taking them. They were solely responsible for Doc’s amazing physical and mental powers.
He made his muscles pull one against the other, straining until a fine film of perspiration covered his mighty bronze body. He juggled a number of a dozen figures mentally, extracting roots, multiplying, dividing.
In a small case, Doc carried an apparatus which made sound waves of frequencies so high and low that an ordinary ear could not detect them. Through a lifetime of practice, Doc had perfected his hearing to a point where the sounds were audible. He named several score of different odors after a quick olfactory test of small vials racked in the case which held his exercising equipment.
He read pages of Braille printing—the writing for the blind, which consists of tiny upraised dots. He did this as rapidly as another would peruse ordinary type. This attuned his sense of touch.
The whole exercise routine was pushed with an unbounded vigor. Five minutes at the clip would have prostrated an ordinary man—and an ordinary man would have found it impossible to do most of the work.
Monk came outdoors to get a breath of air. The chemical analysis he was conducting at the moment was giving off a most unpleasant odor.
The sight of Ham and Patricia together seemed painful to Monk. He turned his gaze away, letting it rove the brush surrounding the cabin. Suddenly, his little eyes almost popped from their sockets.
Monk emitted a yell! The howl had tremendous volume. It scared birds off their limbs almost a mile away.
“A hand!” Monk bawled.
Ordinarily, Monk’s voice was small, weak as a baby’s. But it underwent a startling change when he was excited. It became tremendous, bawling, and made even Renny’s thunder seem puny by comparison.
As he shouted, Monk pointed with both hands.
The others followed his gesture. They saw—nothing!
* * * *
“What is it?” Patricia gasped, racing to Monk’s side.
“You’ll have to get used to him,” Ham said, jerking his thumb at Monk. “He’s part ape. You can never tell how he’ll act.”
Ignoring this pleasantly, Monk charged for the clearing edge. He hit the brush like a bull moose. He had, he was mortally certain, seen a hand projecting from the brush. A slender, white hand, it was. It looked like a woman’s.
The hand had been visible for only a fractional moment, but Monk was certain it had been there. As he searched through the brush, however, he became less positive. There was no sign of any young woman.
Monk studied the ground. As a woodsman, he was no amateur. But in this tangle of rocks and shrubs, not a track could he discover.
Disgusted, he returned to the cabin.
“Don’t get excited at what the missing link does,” Ham told the attractive Patricia. “Just look at his monkey face, and you’ll understand. There couldn’t possibly be good sense behind a mug like that.”
“Oh, yeah?” Monk grinned. “Listen, you shyster, where has Doc gone to?”
The men glanced about hastily. Monk’s words had prepared them for what they found. Doc Savage was not around.
“He’s gone!” Patricia gasped. “What on earth can that mean?”
A grin on his homely face, Monk began: “Well, you see, Doc has a habit of——”
“Shut up!” Ham snapped. “I’m doing guard duty here. Go play with your test tubes!”
Monk rambled off, Habeas Corpus at his heels.
* * * *
There was hardly a mystery about Doc’s disappearance. He had simply glided away while the others were watching Monk’s wild charge. Once in the brush, he quickened his pace and swung in a wide circle.
Doc had seen the hand which had excited Monk. In fact, the hand had been gesturing at Doc when Monk chanced to glimpse it.
The hand had been feminine, and its owner unquestionably wanted to talk with Doc.
Doc had not gone far when he found a leaf crushed on a rock. A bit farther on, a creeper dangled, torn from its anchorage. There was no breeze here in the undergrowth, yet the creeper swung slowly from side to side. Below it were feminine footprints.
“Señorita Oveja!” Doc called softly.
There was no answer. The swayings of the creeper, however, gradually became shorter and shorter.
“There’s no one with me, Miss Oveja,” Doc called.
This secured results. Attractive, dark-haired Señorita Oveja appeared in the shrubbery some distance ahead.
“Buenos dias,” she greeted. “Good morning. I wanted to talk with you, Señor Savage.”
“I recognized your hand,” Doc told her.
“Your man—the big, hairy one—frightened me away,” Señorita Oveja smiled.
“Monk makes a lot of noise,” Doc agreed. “But he wouldn’t hurt a fly—unless the fly bit him.”
“We have been thinking things over—my father, El Rabanos, and myself,” said the girl.
She came closer. Doc noted her olive cheeks were flushed from running.
“You haven’t decided you and I may have the same enemies?” Doc asked dryly.
“Then it is that way?” the girl gasped.
“It looks very much like it,” Doc admitted. “Our common enemy is a fellow who uses a likeness of a werewolf for his mark.”
The beautiful Spanish woman shivered from head to foot. “That is what my father and El Rabanos decided after we talked it over.”
“This enemy seems to be after an ivory cube,” Doc offered.
Cere started. “You know that, too?”
“Yes,” Doc replied. “My cousin, Patricia Savage, has the cube—or did have it.”
At this, the Castilian girl showed every evidence of unbounded surprise.
Doc was an expert at reading human character. He was watching her closely. As far as he could tell, her astonishment was genuine. Doc had a suspicion, however, that the man did not live who could read a young woman’s mind unfailingly by looking at her pretty face.
“Patricia Savage has it?” gasped Cere.
“Had it,” Doc corrected. “The cube seems to have complicated things by disappearing.”
“Suppose you tell me——”
“Suppose you tell me,” Doc interposed. “We’ll start off with: What gave you the idea that I was your enemy?”
The girl said promptly: “More than a week ago, your uncle, Alex Savage, shot at us from the woods, saying he would kill us unless we left the vicinity.”
“Did you see Alex Savage at that time?”
“No. Nor did we see him two days ago when he came again and said that he had sent for you, and that you would come and kill us for not leaving the vicinity.”
“Alex Savage warned you again two days ago?”
“Yes.”
“It was not Alex Savage!” Doc said flatly.
“But he said his name was Alex Savage!”
“Alex Savage has been dead more than a week.”
Cere placed a hand over her heart. “In that case we have been terribly mistaken. This other man was a fake!”
“Any one can be misled,” Doc assured her. “Now, suppose you tell me exactly what is behind all this.”
The girl nodded. “You have heard of Sir Henry Morgan?”
“The pirate?”
“That is the one,” Cere replied. “In the year 1670 he started across the Isthmus of Panama with twelve hundred men. The Spaniards received warning of his coming. Treasure from the Panama City cathedral, and wealth belonging to merchants, was loaded onto a galleon. This craft fled out to sea, carrying some of the owners of the treasure besides the crew.”
“That incident is a matter of history,” Doc told her. “The pirate Esquemeling, who was with Morgan at the sacking of Panama, wrote of the galleon in his book. Shortly after he had captured Panama, Morgan heard of this treasure craft. He knew the treasure to be of more value than all else the expedition had secured put together. He seized several Spanish boats, and sent them out in pursuit of the galleon. But they did not find the craft.”
“And for a very good reason, Señor Savage,” Cere resumed. “Part of the galleon crew had mutinied, murdered the merchants and the others aboard, and seized the treasure.”
“There is no historical record of such an occurrence!” Doc told her.
“In a moment I’ll explain how I know it is true,” Cere retorted. “These men who mutinied and seized the galleon loaded with treasure, were not very intelligent. One of them had heard that there was a water passage around North America. He converted his companions to his belief. They sailed north.
“The journey was long and full of hardship. The coast became bleak, and the climate cold. Finally, it was necessary to anchor in a small bay, careen their boat, and make repairs to the hull. They pulled the galleon up on the sandy floor of a small, canyonlike inlet. Bad luck plagued them. An earthquake caused the gulley side to topple over, burying the boat in a sort of cavern.”
The Castilian beauty paused to stare steadily at Doc. “The spot where the boat met disaster was only a few miles from here!”
“How do you know that?” Doc demanded.
Señorita Oveja shrugged. “My story will bring that out, Señor Savage. To get back to what happened hundreds of years ago: not all the crew were on the galleon when it was entombed. About a dozen had camped near by. They dug a tunnel to the tomb where their fellows lay. That took many days. Their comrades were dead when reached. No doubt, by now, only their skeletons remain.
“The survivors thought to remove the treasure from the boat, but hostile Indians made that impossible. They determined to leave it and travel southward until they found men of their own race. Later, they would come back by sea.
“One of the men was an expert carver of ivory. He took six small flat pieces of ivory and made a relief carving of the vicinity where the boat lay. He fitted these ivory pieces together, carved portions inward, and made a box. This he packed with clay. Due to the cleverness of his construction, and the clay packing, the box seemed solid.”
“The ivory cube!” Doc said understandingly.
“Si, si!” Cere assured him. “Even when opened and spread flat, the relief map inside the box would be apparent only to a close observer.”
“Go ahead with your story,” Doc directed.
“The men closed up the hole which led to the buried ship,” Cere resumed. “They started south. Almost at once, they were attacked. Several were slain, including the one who carried the box. The massacre took place under a rock ledge in this vicinity. Those who escaped had to leave the box behind.”
The girl made a somewhat shamefaced gesture. “One of those men who escaped was an ancestor of mine. He left a written account of the incident. It was handed down in our family for centuries.”
“This clears the situation a lot,” Doc told her. “You and your father came for the treasure, eh?”
“Myself, my father, and El Rabanos,” Cere corrected. “El Rabanos is financing us.”
“You hoped the ivory block would still be under the ledge where the men were massacred?” Doc questioned.
Cere bobbed her attractive head. “Yes. But we were disappointed, señor. It was gone.”
“Then you began searching for the galleon itself?”
“Si, si! But on this rugged coast, that is a hopeless task.”
“And then this fake Alex Savage appeared with his lies, eh?”
“Si, si!”
“One thing puzzles me,” Doc said.
“Quien sabe?” said the girl. “What is that?”
“How did you happen to be on the train?”
The young woman smiled archly at Doc. Obviously she was captivated by the bronze man’s manners and unmistakable character. For the last few minutes she had hardly taken her eyes off him.
Doc realized this, but carefully kept his bronze face expressionless. To Doc, young women were something of a problem. There was no provision in his perilous existence for feminine company. It was necessary for Doc to ignore all eligible girls—for the personal safety of the young things, if for no other reason.
Doc’s enemies were legion. They would not hesitate to strike at him through a girl whom they thought he liked.
The prettier the young women were, the harder Doc found it to gently repulse them. The more beautiful the girl, the more stunned she was when the bronze man failed to bow before her charms; and the more vigorous her renewed efforts to ensnare him.
“You have not answered my question,” Doc reminded her.
Señorita Cere Oveja colored prettily. “We were on the train to get rid of you, so that you would not give us trouble.”
“I trust you didn’t contemplate a murder, señorita?” Doc said dryly.
“Gracias, no!” the Castilian beauty ejaculated.
Doc Savage nodded slowly. “I can see now why you suspected me,” he said. “It was the work of the prowler—the fellow who said he was Alex Savage.”
Dark-eyed Cere said eagerly: “He told us he had sent for you to come and take our lives. Naturally, when we got upon the train, we looked upon you as a sort of ogre. We had heard that you were famous for deeds of violence.”
“Violence against those who have it coming to them,” Doc corrected the pretty señorita.
“My first sight of you brought doubts, Señor Savage,” said Cere.
Doc hastily headed her off.
“On the train, some one tried to choke you to death with a leather strap,” he said. “Naturally, you thought that was my work.”
“Si, si,” said Cere. “That is, father and El Rabanos did.”
She paused expectantly, as if inviting Doc to ask what her own opinion had been. Doc passed up the opportunity.
“It looked suspicious when you fled the train,” he reminded.
“Father and El Rabanos were in terror of you,” said the girl. “When the train stopped we decided to flee.”
“That brings us down to the present moment, I believe,” Doc told her. “Now, what is the purpose of this conversation?”
Cere’s entrancing dark eyes dropped.
“Father and El Rabanos are still a little doubtful of you, I regret to say. But they have agreed to talk with you. I wish you would do that.”
“You came to persuade me to meet them?”
Señorita Oveja nodded. “Si, si! Please do.”
“I shall be delighted to accommodate you.”
“Buenos, señor!” Cere exclaimed. “You make me so happy!”
Doc looked like a fellow who had taken a big swallow of too-hot coffee. He asked: “Shall I go with you now and meet them?”
“Oh, no!” the young woman said hastily. “We are away from our camp now, searching the coast for the buried galleon. You must meet them to-night. Let us say—shortly after sundown. Come alone.”
“Alone?” Doc asked sharply.
“Please! If you bring your men, father and El Rabanos will be suspicious of you.”
Lifting on tiptoe, Cere pointed through the trees. There was a line of cliffs perhaps a quarter of a mile distant. She seemed to be indicating a gap in these. The opening was like a knife slash.
“Our camp is just beyond that,” she smiled. “You can come there?”
“Just through the gap in those cliffs,” Doc said. “I’ll come—and alone, too.”
Usually Doc was an extraordinarily quick mover. There were men who claimed the bronze giant could dodge a bullet. This was a rank exaggeration, of course, but it gave an idea of the speed with which Doc could maneuver himself.
Nevertheless, he now got kissed full on the lips—before he could avoid it. The kiss was clinging, and quite ardent. The Señorita Oveja’s lips were entirely delicious, Doc decided.
As if appalled by her act, pretty Cere turned and fled. However, she paused before she was out of sight, and looked back.
Doc Savage had vanished.
Cere turned hastily and went on. She did not head for the gap in the cliff beyond which, according to what she had told Doc, her camp lay. Instead, she angled off to the right.
Unexpectedly, her father and El Rabanos appeared before her.
“We were watching, hija mio!” Señor Oveja chuckled. “It was excellently done!”
“As the Americans would say,” Cere smiled proudly, “he fell for it—hook, line, and sinker.”
* * * *
“That bronze caballero is no fool,” El Rabanos reminded seriously. “Are you sure that he did not suspect he was being tricked?”
“He was like a lamb in my hands,” Cere said loftily.
El Rabanos shrugged. “He will be a lion on our hands, if he suspects, señorita.”
“What did you tell him?” Señor Oveja demanded.
“As you say, he is clever,” the pretty Castilian girl replied. “I did not trust myself to lie to him, so I told the truth. I told him all about our ancestor, and the galleon of treasure from Panama. He claimed to know none of the story.”
“He has a tongue tied in the middle—loose at both ends to tell lies!” Señor Oveja snarled. “It was he who made the attempt on the train to kill us.”
Cere looked doubtful, “I am not so sure about that, padre.”
The father eyed his daughter severely. He made a tongue-clicking sound of disapproval.
“This bronze caballero is very handsome,” he said. “A young woman’s opinion of such a man is not to be trusted.”
Señorita Oveja stamped her foot. “I knew you would say that! But Señor Savage is not to be harmed!”
“Of course he will not be harmed,” El Rabanos put in sharply. “We will merely seize him and hold him as a hostage to insure our securing the ivory cube. We will trade the bronze man for the cube.”
“I could slit the big hombre’s throat!” Señor Oveja growled.
“There must be no violence!” El Rabanos rapped. “I insist on that.”
“Si, si!” the older man mumbled. “As you wish.”
They walked off in the direction of their camp.
The camp was nowhere near the cliff, but nearly a mile to the northward. It nestled in a forest of large boulders near a rather rocky stretch of level ground.
At one end of the comparatively level field stood a plane. It was canted over on one wing. A landing wheel was smashed, and the rocks had damaged the wing tip.
El Rabanos stared at the plane and growled in Spanish:
“It is unfortunate that the ship had to hit a rock while I was landing it. We are virtually marooned here in this wilderness.”
For shelter, the party had tents. These were small, and of a leaf-green in color.
Cere entered a tent and busied herself improving her appearance. The woods country, she had discovered, was hard on complexions. Moreover, it was difficult for a young woman to be captivating in hobnailed boots, corduroy trousers, and a flannel shirt. This was the garb Cere was wearing, because it was the only raiment which would withstand the rigors of her surroundings.
Señor Oveja and El Rabanos retired to their tents. They were city men, not used to hardship, and each period of exertion called for a corresponding rest.
The woods were quiet. The fog rolled like smoke. It was an altogether dreary day. Faintly, from the distance, came the mushy noise of the waves on the rocky shore line.
* * * *
Possibly an hour later, in a gloomy stretch of timber something over a mile from the Oveja’s camp, a sinister meeting occurred. It was a convention of evil conducted with a furtive caution. It began with the appearance of eleven men. They were swarthy fellows, and they skulked along as if afraid of being seen. Their visages were anything but pleasant to look on.
These were the men who had kidnaped pretty Patricia Savage.
The ominous little caravan of men progressed to a spot where the timber was particularly dense. They clustered together and waited, making no disturbing sound.
“Cere led Doc Savage into the trap for us,” a hollow voice said suddenly.
The portentous words were spoken slowly. This, and the fact that the voice was dull and resonant, gave the impression of an exotic drum beating.
Obviously, it was a disguised voice. The speaker was fifty feet or so to the left. He was thoroughly hidden from the group of men by the trees.
The men showed no surprise at the voice. They had been expecting it. Several peered furtively in the direction from which it had come. It was as if they were trying to get a glimpse of the speaker.
“There is no chance of a mistake?” asked one of the men nervously. “This man Savage has an uncanny way of avoiding traps.”
The drumlike voice boomed a hollow laugh. “It was a woman who tricked Savage this time. He was too dizzy to suspect anything. You should have seen how still he stood after she kissed him.”
“It was clever—using the woman,” a man muttered.
“The beauty of it is that she does not know she is being used,” said the concealed voice.
A man began sharply: “But I thought that——”
“Oh, the señorita knows she is drawing him into a trap,” said the concealed man. “But she does not know that he is to be killed.”
“How will we manage it?” questioned one of the group.
“Look off to your right. Do you see that gap in the line of cliffs?”
There was no need of an answer. The rent in the cliffs was plainly distinguishable through an opening in the trees.
“You will post yourselves just inside that opening,” said the unseen voice. “You have your machine guns?”
“Si,” one fellow muttered, “we have them.”
“Set them up just inside the opening in the cliff,” their hidden chief ordered. “When Savage appears, you will turn them on him instantly.”
“Si, si. It will work.”
“That is all. Go! Vamos!”