It had a ghastly set of jaws — nearly as long as a man’s body, and spiked full of foul, conical teeth. The body had neither hair nor feathers — it was like the skin of a dog denuded by the mange.
Most awesome of all were the wings, for they were membranous, like those of a bat. As they folded and unfolded in flight, the membrane fluttered and flapped like unclean gray canvas. On the tip of the first joint of the wings were four highly developed fingers, armed with fearful talons.
The appalling monster suddenly gave vent to its cry. This was an outrageous combination of a roaring and gargling, a sound of such volume that it reduced the pant of the plane motors to insignificance. And the noise had an ending as ghastly as its note — it stopped in a manner that gave one the sickening impression that the noise itself had choked to death the gruesome thing.
'A prehistoric pterodactyl!' screamed Johnny. 'That’s what it is!'
'A what?' grunted Monk.
'A pterodactyl, a flying reptile of the Pterosauri order. They were supposed to have become extinct near the end of the Mesozoic age.'
'They didn’t!' snorted Monk. 'You can look for yourself!'
'Use those machine guns!' Doc directed. 'The thing is going to attack us!'
The hideous flying reptile was slowly opening its huge, tooth-armed jaws!
Rapid-firer barrels poked through the plane windows. They spewed. Empty cartridges rained on the floorboards. Bullets found their mark.
The aлrial reptile started its blood-curdling cry. The sound ended in a drawn, piercing blare. The thing fell, bones broken, foul canvas like wings flapping. It was like a dirty gray cloth somebody had dropped.
Monk grinned. 'What a relief that it — '
The plane lurched madly as Doc whipped the controls about.
A second of the prehistoric pterodactyls had materialized out of the vapor. A gigantic, eerie thing reminiscent of a mangy crocodile clad in a great gray cape, it plunged at the plane.
Its horrid, conical teeth closed upon the left wing. A wrench, a gritty scream of rending metal — and the plane wing was ruined! The ship keeled off on a wing tip and began a slow spin.
The pterodactyl hung to the wing it had grabbed, like a tenacious bulldog.
'The parachutes!' Doc barked. 'Jump! We may crash any instant!'
Chapter 16. THE AWFUL NIGHT
IN quick succession, Doc’s five men piled through the plane door, hands on the ripcord rings of their backpack parachutes.
Renny was first to go. Monk paused to grab his can of tobacco out of a seat, then followed. Long Tom, Ham and Johnny dived after him.
Only Oliver Wording Bittman held back, trembling.
'I don’t want — ' he whined.
'Neither do we!' Doc said firmly. 'There’s no choice!' Then, before it should be too late, Doc swept Bittman up in bronze arms of vast power and sprang with him into space.
As calmly as though he were on solid ground, Doc snapped open Bittman’s ‘chute, then dropped down a few hundred feet and bloomed his own mushroom of silk. A jerk, and he floated gently. He had time to view the astounding domain about him.
The vapor, as he had half suspected would be the case, was becoming less dense. At the same time, the warmth increased. The hot, moist air, suddenly striking the cool strata above the crater, formed the steamlike clouds, which had curtained whatever additional shocking secrets the place held.
A stutter of machine-gun shots below drew Doc’s golden eyes. He hastily plucked his own compact rapid- firer from its belt holster.
The pterodactyl had released its silly hold on the falling plane and had attacked Johnny. The lanky archaeologist’s bullets had driven its first dive aside. But it was coming back. The repellent jaws were widely distended. Each of the many odious, conical teeth could pierce through a man’s body.
Doc’s machine gun clattered. He knew where to aim. Greater even than the learning of Johnny, whose profession was knowing the world and all its past, was Doc Savage’s fund of knowledge on prehistoric reptiles and vegetation. Doc realized this pterodactyl probably had little or no brain. He shot for the neck bones and shattered them.
The air reptile tumbled away. Johnny lifted a grateful face.
'My shots didn’t seem to do much good!' he called.
'Try for the neck or eyes!' Doc replied.
Strong air currents now made themselves felt. The parachutes were swept rapidly to one side, away from the edge of the crater.
Directly below, Doc’s gaze rested upon a remarkable sight. It would have been a fearsome sight, too, except that his practiced eye told him they were going to be carried clear of danger by the wind.
A mud lake, narrow, but spreading for thousands of rods along the crater side, was below. A crust, resembling asphalt and apparently very hard, covered the lake. This must be nearly red-hot, judging from the heat of the moist air which rushed upward.
Probably this amazing mud lake reached in a horseshoe shape halfway around the crater. Certainly, the ends were lost to sight.
A natural lava wall confined it to the crater side, well above the floor.
The ruined plane fell into the mud lake. Its weight broke the crust. Instantly, there was a great eruption at that point. A geyser column of scalding, lavalike mud shot hundreds of feet upward, driven by steam pressure gathered beneath the crust. Steam itself now exuded. It made a deafening roar.
A thunderous crackling swept over the mud lake as the crust settled. From countless points came minor eruptions. The steam, squirting outward and upward, enveloped the falling parachutes.
They could not see where they were landing!
THE parachutes pitched like leaves in the disturbed air. Not only did the gushing, superheated winds carry them clear of the mud lake, but they were flung far out on the crater floor.
Doc, compact machine gun in hand, waited. His golden eyes sought to pierce the steamy world. The air was so hot as to be near sickening. It possessed a weird, unusual fragrance.
It was like the atmosphere within a greenhouse — impregnated with the odor of rankly growing plants.
The thunderous crackling from the mud lake subsided as quickly as it began.
Suddenly a shocking din arose below. A piercing, trumpetlike cry quavered. A coarse, beastly bawling joined it. Tearing of branches, the hollow pops of green timber breaking, the dull reverberations of great bodies thumping the earth, made a nightmarish discord. It was a sound to make the flesh creep.
'Renny! Monk! The rest of you!' Doc’s resonant tones pealed through the hobgoblin clamor. 'Spill air from one side of your ‘chute and try to avoid the vicinity of that noise!'
From below the abyss of steam, where his men were lost from view, came replying shouts. But there was little time to comply.
The frond of an immense plant brushed past Doc’s mighty bronze form. The plant was of colossal size. It seemed to be something on the order of a tree fern. So towering was it that there elapsed a distinct interval before the parachute reached the ground.
Doc landed in a tangle of creepers and low trees which looked like ordinary evergreens. More ferns, these much smaller, made a spongy mat of the whole. It was like descending in a pile of enormous, coarse green cobwebs.
Shucking off the parachute harness, Doc sprang to less tangled footing. The ground was a soft mulch underfoot — as though fresh plowed.
