Doc Savage: Phantom Lagoon (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) (27 page)

The green-haired girl began wringing out her seaweed-hued tresses. “I am sure that I do not know. I’m stuck in the same boat as you shipwrecked stiffs.”

It was not a satisfactory response, and the expression on the bronze man’s face mirrored that judgment.

Reaching down, Doc Savage lifted the woman to her feet. They were bare. Fresh cuts laced them, obviously from climbing the sharp obsidian walls.

Doc Savage scrutinized her formerly blonde hair, saw that the green hue was running, turning her face and neck into a splotchy chlorophyll wash.

“Dye,” he concluded.

“I trust so,” quipped Hornetta. “I would hate to think I was stuck with green hair the rest of my days—however long or short that may be.”

Doc demanded, “Who did that to you—and why?”

“What makes you think I didn’t do it to myself?” she countered.

“We seem to be at an impasse,” said Doc Savage.

“How so?” retorted the other.

“You cannot speak freely for fear of your sister’s life. We are inhibited from taking overt action, lest we risk my cousin’s safety.”

The erstwhile adventuress said flatly, “That’s about the size of it. And it’s a pretty miserable package.”

Everyone stood around in silence, lost in their individual thoughts.

DOC SAVAGE showed no further inclination to dive into the blue hole, which promised to contain many of the answers to the mysteries which had engulfed them so thoroughly.

After a bit, their captive wondered, “Anything to eat around here? I’m famished.”

“Coconuts,” advised Doc.

Hornetta sighed. “As long as it isn’t conch. Take me to these monkey fruits.”

They walked down the slope to where a few scattered coconut palms waved in the breeze. Morning was full on, and the air seemed fresher. Lingering smoke haze still nipped at their nostrils.

Picking her way along the charred and blackened ground, skirting the fire-ravaged Philodendron roots, she asked a natural question.

“Did your campfire get out of hand?”

Monk mumbled, “We woke up in this charcoal pit. Doc says lightning started a blaze.”

“I don’t know any different, so don’t look at me,” returned Hornetta.

When it came to gathering coconuts, all eyes turned to Monk Mayfair. He had the general physique for it. So the simian chemist began going up one coconut palm after another, uprooting the dark shells and dropping them to earth.

Doc repeated his amazing stunt of cracking them open with the sharp edge of his hands.

Hornetta’s eyes went wide in spite of herself. “You must really be made out of metal,” she said wonderingly. Her fire seemed to have gone out.

Firm-lipped, Doc offered her the dribbling coconut shell.

Hornetta drank it greedily, tossed the husk aside, and wiped her mouth clean.

“Got another?”

Doc Savage repeated the procedure. The woman drank her fill.

When she was done, she looked at them all with a mixture of concern and confusion.

“What do we do now?”

No one offered any idea. So Hornetta asked, “I don’t suppose any of you have a deck of cards in your pockets? I’m a shark at poker.”

Their stony expressions wiped the patently fake grin off her face.

“In that case, I’m going for a walk,” she told them flatly.

If she expected anyone to stop her, Hornetta Hale was vastly disappointed. She walked down to the beach and pretended to be looking for seashells.

They were not plentiful, as she discovered during her perambulations. So when the green-haired girl exhausted all opportunities offered by the white pearly sand, she drifted inland.

Doc Savage directed, “Monk, keep an eye on her.”

“Gotcha, Doc.” Monk ambled off.

Before the hairy chemist could get more than a few yards, a strange sound rippled out in the morning air.

It was preceded by a clatter that made them think that Hornetta Hale had tripped over one of the charred pieces of wood that lay strewn about as if Hell itself had exploded. This was followed by the convincing thud of a body tumbling to earth.

Then came an uproarious peal of laughter. Very feminine laughter—even if it had a bit of a hard edge to it.

There was no doubt but who was emitting the maniacal mirth.

Doc Savage’s voice crashed out, “Monk, do not approach her.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice!” the homely chemist returned. He came charging back, his healthy respect for the laughing phenomenon uppermost in his mind.

Doc Savage put on his transparent helmet, buckled it tight, and went in search of Hornetta Hale.

He found her sprawled atop a strange earth formation, entirely unconscious.

It appeared to be a shattered dome about the size of a human hand. Doc Savage recognized it as an old lava bubble. Hornetta had evidently struck it with her foot, shattering it.

Doc picked up the green-haired woman, and bore her back to the shore. There, he laid her carefully on the white sand.

The others drew near.

“What happened?” asked Ham Brooks.

“Miss Hale discovered one of the sources of the laughing fits,” explained Doc.

They looked at him in perplexity.

Doc Savage elaborated, “There are pockets of volcanic gas fumes trapped here and there in cavities in the caldera. Places where bubbling lava cooled long ago, forming thin domes that are easily broken. Some of those bubbles contain pockets of gas. Miss Hale evidently encountered one, and in breaking it, released a small quantity of the gas that causes uncontrolled laughing fits, followed by swift unconsciousness.”

Long Tom murmured, rubbing his jaw, “So now we know where the Count found his concoctions.”

“Yeah,” added Monk. “I’ll bet there’s a lot of other valuable stuff to be found on this dang island.”

Recognizing that the woman would be unconscious for some hours, Doc Savage said, “She cannot interfere with anything we do.”

Ham asked, “What makes you think she would be of such a mind?”

“She believes she is protecting her sister with her silence.”

“Is she?”

“That,” said Doc Savage, his golden eyes flashing to the moonlit rim of the nearby volcanic cone, “remains to be discovered.”

They all understood what the bronze man meant by that statement. He was going to dare the volcanic pool, regardless of the risk.

Chapter XXVI

GREEN HOLE

DOC SAVAGE DID not ordinarily deceive his men. Nor was it his nature not to reveal his plans when it was essential for them to know his intentions.

As the inflamed sun climbed higher into the sky, hurling a chaotic array of splendor over the heavens and across the sea, the bronze giant picked up his diving helmet and told them a half-truth.

“Guard the girl while I return to the cruiser to look into its seaworthiness.”

Monk said, “Sure, Doc. How long do you think you’re going to be?”

“Difficult to say,” said Doc, tucking his helmet under his muscular arm. He cleared his throat rather noisily, doing so twice, as if in anticipation of going for a dive.

Monk and the others swapped strange looks, but said nothing.

Without any further comment, the bronze man went down to the water and waded out toward his waiting ship. He set the helmet on the stern landing stage, and clambered aboard.

Carrying the transparent thing into the cockpit, he seem to be looking around it for something in particular.

Apparently not finding what he searched for, the bronze man disappeared below.

He took the fantastic-looking helmet with him.

Anyone watching from the shore would assume that Doc Savage had become preoccupied with the condition of the
Stormalong.

From time to time, Monk and the others glanced in the direction of the stationary vessel.

Ham remarked, “I wonder what Doc is doing down there?”

Monk shrugged, saying, “Beats me.”

To which Long Tom added, “One thing’s for sure, he’s not taking a nap. We’ve all had so much sleep we won’t need any shuteye for a week.”

They spoke rather loudly, the way men do when they find themselves in uncomfortable circumstances and feel the strong need to keep up their courage.

Had Doc Savage’s men possessed eyes with the penetrating properties of an X-ray machine, they would have been slack-jawed in amazement.

For the bronze man was no longer aboard the
Stormalong.
He had donned his transparent helmet and gone down the diving well.

With his lungs charged with chemical oxygen, Doc Savage swam slowly underwater, circumnavigating the weird volcanic cay. He kept himself close to the sandy ocean bottom, the weight of the helmet and its harness rig assisting him in that operation.

Swimming in toward shore, Doc investigated the mangrove tangle that dipped its weird woody roots into the water to feed off the ocean currents in the fashion of such swamps.

It took some time, but the bronze giant found a spot where reef coral formed a very large maw. This proved to be an underwater cave, apparently entirely natural. Long ago molten lava had streamed out into the sea and deposited itself on the ocean floor, forming a strange cooled surface. It was this solid magma which gave the bronze man his first clue.

Doc eeled into the tunnel, using his flashlight sparingly.

There were tropical fish darting around in the underwater passage, but not many of them. Their colors were a riot of neon.

Doc Savage swam with powerful strokes and, while the helmet was cumbersome, it had the advantage of not releasing air bubbles which might give away his approach, should he slip and exhale unnecessarily. It had been specially constructed for use with the chemical oxygen pills.

The tunnel did not run in a direct line, but twisted at one point, devolving into a fork in the passage. Doc kicked backward, arresting his progress, and showed every indication that he was uncertain which way to go.

The bronze man checked the illuminated dial of his wrist compass, and this helped his decision-making. Doc swam to the left.

From time to time, Doc grasped the sides of the tunnel, and pulled himself along on the theory that this produced less noise and turbulence than swimming and kicking with hands and feet. Sound carried far underwater, and the bronze giant was cognizant of the fact that he was swimming into the unknown.

This way, he approached the crater-bound body of the so-called blue hole, which was almost entirely landlocked, other than this reservoir tunnel.

Doc pulled himself out of the passage and found himself suspended in a great emerald pool. The waters were not as clear as he would have liked. There were a lot of algae and seaweed strands—enough to discolor the water in the direction of greenishness. No doubt erosion created by rainwater and storms washing silt and debris down the inner walls of the cone had also polluted the naturally pure body. Caribbean waters have a reputation for crystalline beauty. Not so here.

Doc swam about, no longer needing the flashlight. Brilliant sunlight charged the water with a measure of jade-green clarity.

Below, he spied something moving with a sinuous, serpentine fashion. A deeper green than the surrounding waters, it all but blended with the murky bottom of the crater.

It was a moray eel, about four feet long, opening and closing its mouth lazily so that its rows of vicious needle teeth could be counted. It moved away, like an undulating green ribbon waving in an underwater current.

Here and there, Doc Savage saw what appeared to be other passages or possibly underwater caves on the inner side of the caldera.

He swam toward one of those, taking care not to inhale or exhale at any time.

The oxygen tablets were a wonderful aid to underwater exploration. They freed a diver from such encumbrances as an oxygen hose or other artificial breathing apparatus. But the lifelong habit of respiration is not one easily suppressed. The instinct to draw life-giving air into the lungs runs very deep. Over time, minute quantities of carbon dioxide gas tended to seep from the mouth and nose, filling the diving helmet. To inhale too much of this, Doc discovered through experimentation, interfered with the action of the oxygen tablets.

So Doc had to focus on the unnatural discipline of holding his breath, lest he draw into his lungs pure carbon dioxide.

As he approached, the bronze man restricted his movements to the minimum swimming effort necessary to propel him along. Barracuda dwelt in underwater dens such as these and, if disturbed, could inflict a nasty bite.

Instead, out of one cave came a great turquoise-and-tan thing like a disembodied bladder, but possessing many whipping arms. A tropical octopus. Many roamed among the coral reefs.

Doc recognized the species as not dangerous, although its many-suckered arms could create complications if they wrapped themselves around him.

On the boat, Doc had donned a belt of many pockets which he had unearthed from a concealed compartment known only to him, which had escaped the raiding party. This was the equipment kit he wore whenever his gadget vest was impractical. He reached into one pocket now.

From it came a tiny device with attached nozzle. Doc pointed the nozzle in the direction of the approaching octopus, whose hooded eyes appeared inhumanly curious.

Octopi are infamous for squirting clouds of sepia ink into the faces of any potential predator that approaches them. Perhaps this was on the mind of the aquatic creature.

If so, this particular octopus must have been startled—for it was Doc Savage who squirted a cloud of sepia potion in its direction!

The billowing black pall struck it full in the face. The octopus suddenly convulsed, propelling itself back into its warren via a jet of violently expelled water.

This told Doc that this particular cave was probably otherwise untenanted.

The bronze man moved onto another cave, which was much larger, and consequently more interesting to him.

DOC SAVAGE had been accused in the past of possessing clairvoyant abilities. Nothing could be farther from the truth. But he did have a strong sense of caution, and the wariness that came from walking danger trails all over the world.