He crashed headlong into a set of mighty bronze hands. He saw them closing over his face. They looked bigger, more terrible than the whole crater of Thunder Island. The golden eyes behind them were even worse. They radiated death.
The man sought to use his gun. He got a few wild bullets out of it.
Then his neck unjointed! He died quickly. His actual going was painless, whatever the terror of the moments before might have been. For Doc’s sinewy hands had brought a merciful end.
Renny, Ham, Monk, Johnny, and Long Tom — all five howling their pleasure — piled out of the cavern prison in a hurry.
'Did you get Kar?' Ham clipped.
'No.' Doc put a sharp question. 'Have you seen Kar yet?'
'Not yet. They took poor Bittman off to Kar. Or that’s what they said. I don’t know — '
Doc’s uplifted arm stopped Ham’s flow of words.
Then, as they all heard what Doc’s sensitive ears had been first to detect, horror seized them.
Kar’s plane was starting. The engines were already tossing salvos of sound against the gigantic cliff wall of the crater.
Doc Savage left the spot as from a catapult. No word did he speak. None was needed. His men knew that, should the plane get off, their lot would be very hard indeed. It might take them years to escape the innards of Thunder Island.
Renny, Ham, Monk, Long Tom, Johnny — all five trailed in his wake. But from the way they were left behind, they might have been at a standstill in the rear of the bronze master of speed.
Seemingly gifted with unseen wings, such fabulous leaps did he take over boulders, Doc bore down on the makeshift hangar between the two masses of stone that were larger than skyscrapers. He caught sight of the plane.
It was in motion.
Already, the tail was lifting. Another two hundred yards for speed, and the craft would be off. Doc could see the features of the man in the control cockpit.
DOC veered left. He put on speed — although he had been traveling faster than it seemed a human could.
He was trying to intercept the plane! Kar saw his purpose. He kicked rudder. The ship veered a little. But it couldn’t turn enough to evade Doc. The runway was rather narrow. Great rocks spotted the sides. The plane could easily crash among these.
For a moment, though, it did seem the ship would escape the mighty bronze man. But a great leap sent his herculean figure sailing upward.
Doc seized a strut which braced the empennage — the rudder and elevators. The plane must have been going forty miles an hour. The wrench would have torn loose the grip of lesser fingers. But the bronze giant held on.
Kar now began to shoot with an automatic pistol. He was excited. He had to aim from a very difficult position. He missed with all his slugs — then had to devote his attention to getting the plane off the crater floor, before it reached the runway end.
The craft lurched. With a moan, it took the air!
Chapter 22. A LOST LAND DESTROYED
THE plane climbed over the great boulders and the high fern trees. It circled once. Then Kar lifted his pistol to shoot at Doc Savage once more. The plane could fly itself for a time.
Doc had been making good use of the respite. He had mounted to the main tail struts, which extended to the upper wing. He was swinging with a simian ease along these.
Kar’s first bullet missed. His second also — for Doc had twisted in a miraculous fashion and gotten atop the wing.
A hollow
The roof hatch whipped open. A mighty bronze form dropped inside. It towered toward Kar.
In a frenzy, the master villain sought to get just one bullet into his empty gun. But the weapon was flicked from his shaking fingers. It was flung through the plane windows.
Kar’s voice lifted a screech, 'Please — I did not know — '
'Talk will do you no good!' Doc Savage’s remarkable voice, although not loud, was perfectly audible amid the engine roar. 'Talk will never save you! Nothing can save you!'
Kar looked at the plane windows, longingly.
He had donned a parachute before taking off.
Next, the master villain stared at a large leather suitcase which stood in the rear of the cabin. But he dared not make a move to jump out of the plane or reach the suitcase. He feared those bronze hands that were more terrible than steel.
'I was deceived for a time,' Doc Savage’s vast voice said grimly. 'Your method of deception was clever. It was bold. It worked because you hit me in one of my soft spots. Perhaps I should say in one of my blind spots.'
Kar began, 'You got me all wrong about — '
'Silence! Your lies will serve you nothing! I have too much proof. I suspected who you were last night, when I saw you signaling from the top of a tree fern with a lighted cigarette.
'You were ordering your men to decoy the big prehistoric beavers to the attack. You had carefully chosen a tree from which you could reach safety.'
Doc’s face was set as metal; his golden eyes ablaze with cold, flaky gleamings.
'I became suspicious before that,' the bronze man continued. 'When I was shot at! When you pretended to faint! Actually, you hoped I would come to your motionless body and your man would shoot me.'
'I didn’t — '
'You did! After the prehistoric beavers had been frightened away last night, I climbed your tree and removed the skinning scalpel you carried on your watch chain. That scalpel was poisoned. I put it on a spear tip and tested it on the ancestor of a common porcupine. The animal was killed by a scratch. You hoped to use that weapon on me, but could not muster the courage, and failed at the last minute.'
Kar was now trembling from head to foot. He quailed from each word as from a knife stab.
The plane, no hand at the controls, was flying itself — proof it was excellently made. Straight across the crater, it boomed.
'You had many chances to slay me,' Doc continued. 'But you did not have the nerve to do it with your own hand. Like all criminals, however clever, you are a coward. You are like a rat. You remained with me, cannily checkmating my moves when you could, and seeking always to have your men kill me. But you dared not to do the deed yourself.
'Your craven nature was shown when we landed in the crater. You became a sniveling coward.'
KAR was a sniveling coward again now — probably to a greater degree than ever before.
'Your lies were ingenious!' Doc’s relentless voice went on. 'It was not alone Jerome Coffern who came to Thunder Island with Gabe Yuder. You came also. You and Gabe Yuder found this crater. Jerome Coffern never knew
