The Land of Terror

'Eh?' said Ham.

'Two drinks and the birds are after you!'

'Furthermore,' Doc continued, 'they claim they sighted such a flying devil only yesterday. Questioned closely, they admit it did not flap its wings, and that it made a loud and steady groaning noise. That means they saw a plane. And what craft could it be but Kar’s?'

Renny growled, 'Kar is — '

'Already at Thunder Island! The man you just wiped out was landed here by Kar for the specific purpose of stopping us in case we visited this atoll. He has been hiding from the natives. No doubt, Kar intended to pick him up later.'

'But where did Kar get a plane — '

'Honolulu, New Zealand, or even Australia. They had time. Remember, the storm delayed the Sea Staron which we came. It is possible Kar evaded that storm, and his boat was faster.'

Ham slanted his sword cane at the sun. 'What do you say we fly over and have a look at Thunder Island? There’s barely time before dark.'

'We’ll do that very thing, brothers,' Doc said swiftly. 'Every one of you will put on parachutes. Kar’s plane might attack us and have the good luck to slam an incendiary bullet into our gas tank. In such event, ‘chutes would be pretty handy.'

* * *

PREPARATIONS were quickly completed. The big speed plane skimmed down the glassy lagoon and took the air, watched by an awed crowd of natives. Doc opened the throttles wide and boomed for Thunder Island at better than two hundred miles an hour. Night was not far off.

The volcanic cone gathered majestic height as they flew nearer. Its vast size was astounding, impressive. The steaming clouds piled like cotton above it. It was as though the world was hollow and filled with foam, and the foam was escaping through this gigantic vent.

'One of the most striking sights of my life!' said the artistic Ham.

Even the prosaic Monk was impressed, agreeing, 'Yeah — hot stuff!'

Doc’s mighty bronze hand guided the plane around the stupendous cone of bleak stone that was Thunder Island. Nowhere was there a blade of green growth. The titanic, rocky cliffs could not have been more denuded had they been seared with acid. The lifeless aspect, the baldness of the waste, was depressing.

'Even a goat couldn’t live there!' Renny muttered.

'Unless he formed an appetite for rocks,' snorted the irrepressible Monk.

Nowhere did they see sign of Kar!

'That’s queer!' Ham declared. 'There are no canyons or great caves in which he could hide his plane. If he was here, we certainly would have seen him.'

'Do you think he has secured a fresh supply of the element from which the Smoke of Eternity is made, and gone back to civilization?' asked Oliver Wording Bittman. 'He most naturally wouldn’t tarry here.'

'Impossible to tell — except that I doubt he would have deserted his man on the atoll,' replied Doc. 'There is one chance — we’ll try the crater.'

'Into that terrible steam!' Bittman wailed. 'We shall perish!'

Bittman looked terrified at the prospect. He even moved for the plane door as though to take to his parachute. But Renny’s great hand restrained him.

'You’ll be safe enough with Doc,' Renny said confidently.

'We shall be scalded — '

'I think not,' Doc assured him. 'The top of that cone is many thousands of feet above sea level. Indeed, you will notice traces of snow near the rim. At that height, it takes little more than moist, warm air to make a cloud like this ‘steam’ over the crater.'

'You mean we may be able to fly down into the crater?' Monk asked.

'We’re going to try just that,' Doc smiled.

* * *

UP and up climbed the powerful speed-plane, motors moaning an increasing song of effort. The first wisps of steam whipped grizzled pennants about the craft. Doc opened the cockpit windows and kept an accurate check on a thermometer.

'This is nothing but cloud formation caused by very warm and moist air lifting out of the crater!' he called, raising his voice over the motor howl — for opening the windows nullified the soundproofing of the cabin.

The vapor thickened. It poured densely into the cabin. The very world about them seemed to turn a bilious gray hue. Visibility was wiped out, except for a few score yards, beyond the wing tips.

'Long Tom,' Doc’s energetic voice had little trouble piercing the engine clamor, 'set the danger alarm for five hundred feet!'

Long Tom hastily complied. This danger alarm was simply an apparatus which sent out a series of bell-like sounds very distinctive from the motor uproar, and another sensitive device which measured the time that ensued until an echo was tossed back by the earth. If this time interval became too short, an alarm bell rang.

With it in operation, if the plane came blindly within five hundred feet of the crater bottom or sides, an alarm would sound. Doc had perfected this device. It was little different from the apparatus all modern liners use to take depth measurements.

Deeper into the crater moaned the plane. It spiraled tightly, as though descending the thread of an invisible screw in the crater center. It might have been a tiny fish in a sea of milk.

'Let’s go back!' wailed Oliver Wording Bittman. 'This is a horrible place!'

'It does kinda give a guy the creeps!' Monk muttered.

' Ye-e-ow-w! Look at that thing!'

Monk’s squawl of surprise was so loud it threatened to tear the thin metal sides off the plane. Every eye focused in the direction both his great, hairy arms pointed. What they saw was little, but it chilled the blood in their veins.

A black, evil mass seemed to bulk for an instant in the gray domain of vapor. It might have been a tortured, sooty cloud from the way it convulsed and changed its shape. Then it was gone, sucking after it a distinct wake of the pigeon-colored vapor.

'I c-couldn’t h-have s-seen what I d-did!' Monk stuttered.

'What was it?' Ham shouted. 'What was that thing in the cloud? It looked big as this plane!'

Monk panted like a runner. His eyes still protruded.

'It wasn’t quite that b-big!' he gulped. 'But it was the ugliest thing I ever saw! And I’ve seen plenty of ugly things!'

'If you own a mirror, you have!' Ham couldn’t resist putting in.

Monk made no reference to pigs — which was in itself demonstration of what a shock he had just received.

'I saw one of them flyin’ devils the natives on the atoll told Doc about!' Monk declared. 'And what I mean, flyin’ devil is the name for it.'

'You must have had a swig of that caterpillar liquor,' Ham jeered.

'Quick!' Doc Savage’s mighty voice crashed through the plane. 'The machine guns! Off to the right! Get that thing! Get it! Shoot it!'

Every one gazed to the right.

'It’s comin’ back — the flyin’ devil!' Monk bawled.

The black, evil mass had appeared in the misty world again. It convulsed and altered its shape, as before. But now the aviators had the opportunity to see what it really was — they could drink in the awful horror of the monster with their eyes.

* * *

THE thing was flying along — keeping pace with the plane! Terrible eyes appraised the ship, as though deciding whether to attack.