which less and less sunlight penetrated. The growing darkness, the remorseless progress of the mud flood, the antics of the grisly reptilian giants, gave the tableau the aspect of another Judgment Day.
'Talk about your sights!' Monk muttered.
Then they fell silent. They were thinking of that arch-fiend, Oliver Wording Bittman, who had deceived them. The fellow was responsible for their recent capture. He had signaled his men where to attack.
From the very first, he had misled them. From the moment when he came to them with a scratch on his chest which he must have made himself and a clever story of being shot at!
They were amazed at the cunningness of Bittman’s acting. The man had been a master to deceive them as he had.
Even Doc had not seen through Bittman’s fiendish double-dealing until they had reached this crater. But that was understandable. The affection between Doc and his father was extremely great. And Bittman, as a man who had saved the life of Doc’s father, had received Doc’s gratitude. It had been hard for Doc to look to such a man as an evil villain.
'What about the Smoke of Eternity?' questioned Monk suddenly.
For answer, Doc leveled a bronze beam of an arm. They followed his gesture with their eyes.
The region of strange rocks, where Kar must have mined the unknown element or substance to make the Smoke of Eternity, had already been buried by the hot mud flow. It would never be mined now!
Monk looked curiously at Doc Savage.
'Do you know what that stuff — the Smoke of Eternity — was?' he inquired.
N='JUSTIFY'
Doc did not answer immediately. But at length, 'I have the theory which grew out of my analysis of the metal which was impervious to the dissolving substance. That theory, I am sure, is near the truth. And that is why I deliberately released the flood of mud.'
'Huh?' Monk was puzzled.
'The Smoke of Eternity can never be made without the rare substance which Kar mined here. And the supply of the stuff is now buried hopelessly. As for what the substance was, no one shall ever know. I intend to keep my theories to myself.'
Monk nodded. 'Guess I see the reason for that.'
'The world can get along without the Smoke of Eternity!' Doc’s voice seemed to fill all the plane.
The ship rammed its howling propellers into steam. Up and up, it climbed. The heat nearly took off their skin. But only for a while; it became cooler at last.
So suddenly that it was like a gush of flame into their faces, they were in brilliant sunlight. Their eyes, becoming adapted to the glare, picked up the coral atoll some fifty miles distant.
'No need of even landing there!' Doc decided.
He banked the plane for New Zealand. Ample fuel for the flight sloshed in the gas tanks, thanks to Kar’s foresight.
'From New Zealand to San Francisco by steamer will just about give us time to get the prehistoric reptiles out of our hair!' grinned the irrepressible Monk. 'And maybe somethin’ else will turn up soon.'
