giant. They were as dazed as though a stunning electric current had unexpectedly caroused through their bodies.
There had been no time for Doc to be gentle. He had hurled both his men clear of the levee and followed himself—all in an instant so fractional only a finely calibrated stopwatch could have caught it.
The roadster had not yet hit the upraised stick.
But now the car skewered into it. There was a terrific roar. A hideous tongue of flame leaped magically into being and tore the levee apart. The burst mangled the entire front off the roadster. It spouted smoke, sparks, dirt and rent fragments of the car.
Had the roadster been moving a little faster, it would have been completely annihilated. As it was, only the fore part met destruction.
Chapter XII. HUMAN SACRIFICE
HAM and Long Tom plunked into the water in one-two succession. They collided as they kicked in the depths. Together, they stroked to the top.
Doc's bronze head was not in evidence.
Dйbris from the dynamited levee still rained. The stuff ranged from steel splinters to clods as large as pork barrels. The rear half of the roadster dived beneath the surface with a loud gurgling.
Ham and Long Tom sank hastily to keep from being brained by dropping wreckage. They realized now that the roadster, in hitting the raised stick had closed an electrical contact which released the blast.
Swimming under water, Ham and Long Tom reached the concealment of canes which grew along the levee edge.
'Where's Doc?' Ham groaned. 'He should have come to the top before now!'
'Maybe—' Long Tom shivered and didn't finish. Maybe a flying missile, driven by the explosive, had pierced Doc's giant bronze form! It was possible!
Racing feet spatted the levee. Hoarse commands were gobbled in the jargon the swamp men spoke. A machine gun vomited a string of concussions.
Long Tom and Ham sank wildly as copronickel bullets scored the water about their heads. They arose deeper in the gloom beneath the canes.
Over where the blast had occurred, great bubbles were arising. They made gruesome
'Ugh!' shuddered Ham. 'Why don't Doc come up?'
Long Tom gave a hoarse gasp. 'Look! As if the devils above us weren't enough!'
Perhaps three score feet distant, two knots had projected from the bayou surface. They resembled a pair of black fists held close together.
''Gator!' Ham muttered. 'The infernal things feed at night, too!'
The eyes of the alligator sank.
'Yo' come on out!' rasped one of the swamp men from the levee.
Ham and Long Tom made no answer. They fingered their compact little machine guns.
Suddenly a storm of slugs from the aircraft type weapons above them poured downward. The rank canes were chewed and split as by the fangs of an invisible, wood-devouring monster.
Ham and Long Tom saw they were at a hopeless disadvantage. They held their fire, not wishing to start a fight to the finish.
'Yo' no be keeled if yo' come out!' called the swamp man. 'Gray Spider ees want to talk to yo'!'
The speaker swore at the machine gunners, silencing them. Then he waited to see what Ham and Long Tom would do.
'Doc!' Ham croaked. 'He hasn't shown up yet!'
'We've got to do somethin'!' Long Tom hissed. Desperate, he called up to the swamp men. 'We will surrender if you'll let us dive a few times in search of our leader!'
The answer came promptly. 'Go ahead an' dive!'
'You promise you won't shoot us?' Long Tom asked.
'Yo' won't be shot. Me—I geeve yo' de word of Buck Boontown on eet!'
The leader of their attackers was Buck Boontown!
Swiftly, Ham and Long Tom swam out and dived. They groped repeatedly in the depths, seeking the giant bronze form of Doc Savage. Horror closed swiftly upon their hearts as they found no trace of Doc. Only mud and foul water plants lay on the bayou bottom, perhaps a dozen feet down.
A loathsome gurgling of bubbles still came from the sunken roadster. It was as though the car were a living thing and life was slowly departing from it.
Long Tom and Ham searched around the machine several times. Their spirits, weighted like lead, they stroked listlessly to the surface.
'Maybe he swam away,' Long Tom mumbled hopefully. 'He can stay under water for many minutes.'
'I hope so,' Ham agreed.
But a horrible sight was soon to drive even this faint hope from them.
'Yo' climb up here!' commanded Buck Boontown harshly.
THERE was nothing else to do. Long Tom and Ham crawled up the steep side of the levee. The swamp men seized upon them. Their arms were taken. Many an admiring gasp went up at sight of the tiny, superefficient machine guns. A monkey man appropriated Ham's sword cane.
'We should've fought it out!' Ham gritted.
'They'd have gotten us!' Long Tom assured him. 'They must have at least twenty of those aircraft machine guns. And with that metal-reлnforced leather harness they wear, I'll bet they can hold the weapons on a target without trouble.'
Now came the ghastly incident they were to witness. It was by far the most shocking thing their eyes had ever beheld. Seeing it turned their very blood to water and left them despondent and crushed.
— look!' shouted a swamp man.
All eyes went to a point a few score of feet out on the bayou. At this spot, the water was boiling. A great, hideous form was threshing only a foot or so down. A tapering, ridged tail squirmed into view for an instant.
'Gator!' croaked Ham. 'The infernal thing has got something!'
The jaws of the alligator abruptly appeared. Moonlight glistened on the repulsive, sand-colored teeth.
Affixed in the teeth was a mighty bronze human arm!
The 'gator seemed to be worrying the limp body to which the arm was attached.
It sank from sight, leaving nothing but a turmoil of water to show where it had been.
Ham shrieked like a madman. He clutched at one of the swamp men's machine guns. He was driven to madness by the awful thing he had just seen. He wanted the rapid firer to slay the alligator.
He didn't get the gun. A swamp man nearly shot him. Buck Boontown's angry roar was all that saved Ham's life.
Long Tom also put forth a short struggle. A machine gun barrel swept against his head and stunned him. When he revived, his wrists were lashed.
Ham was also bound.
'Walk!' commanded Buck Boontown.
The cavalcade moved down the road. Soon they turned into the swamp. A labyrinth of palmettos, swamp maples, tupelo gums, cane, vines and creepers and loathsome aлrial moss closed in upon them.
