Both men snored as though asleep.
Doc retreated noiselessly down the second-floor corridor.
Liang-Sun droned words up from below. Receiving no answer from his two men, he mounted the stairs, flanked by three guardsmen and a machine gunner.
The outburst of cries as the two unconscious men were found sounded like the clamor that comes when a hawk flies into a flock of guineas.
A whispered consultation followed. Doc could not catch the words. The Orientals retreated to the lower floor, apparently to consider the situation.
'What manner of thing could have overcome our brothers?' Liang-Sun repeated over and over.
Suddenly, at the opposite end of the house, came a terrific uproar. Furniture overturned. Men gasped, cackled profanity.
'The bronze devil! He is here!' a man sang excitedly.
There was a loud clatter as the Mongols made for the noise.
Doc was puzzled. But it was too good a chance to pass up. He eased down a rear stairway, intent on quitting the place.
The stairs he chose let him into the lower floor library, a room walled with bookcases and floored with rich rugs.
The moment he stepped into it, he knew he had made a mistake. A dozen shadowy, slant-eyed men flung upon him.
THE noise at the other end of the house had been a trick to draw him down from upstairs.
The first leaping Mongol seemed to meet a bronze wall in mid-air. He was hurled back, and was impaled on the blunt sword of one who followed.
A second slant-eyed man got an open-handed slap that turned him over in the air like a Fourth-of-July pinwheel. Another found himself grasped about the chest. He shrieked, and the piercing shrillness of his voice was punctuated with the dull crack of breaking ribs.
The Mongols had not expected an easy fight. But they had not dreamed it would be like this. The giant bronze man moved with a speed that defied the eye. Sword slashes, delivered point-blank, sliced thin air. And when they did lay their hands on him, it was as if they had grasped living steel.
'He is not human!' wailed the man who had had his ribs broken.
More Orientals joined the fray. They blocked the doors. Flashlights came on. Time after time, light beams found the bronze giant, only to lose him.
A machine gun opened up, making a deafening gobble of sound in the room.
'Idiot!' Liang-Sun howled at the gunner. 'Stop shooting! Do you want to kill us all?'
It was Liang-Sun who put a finish to the fray. He caught a momentary glimpse of Doc. The bronze man stood in the center of a large rug. Dropping swiftly, Liang-Sun seized the rug and yanked. Doc was brought down.
Liang-Sun flung the rug over Doc in a big fold.
'Are you snails that you cannot help me!' he squawled at his men.
A brisk twenty seconds followed — and they got Doc rolled up like a mummy in the rug. They brought tire chains from the garage and tied them securely about the rug.
Liang-Sun was proud of himself. He beat his chest with a fist.
'Single-handed, I did more than the rest of you dogs!' he boasted.
He plucked open one end of the rug roll and threw his flash beam inside.
He could see Doc's face. The bronze features bore absolutely no expression. But the cold fierceness in the strange golden eyes made Liang-Sun drop the rug folds and stand up hastily.
'Half of you go outside, my sons,' he commanded. 'Should any one be drawn here by sounds of the fighting, kill them. This house stands alone, and probably the sounds were not heard. But if any one comes, show them that curiosity is indeed a fatal disease.'
A part of the Orientals hurried out into the moon-bathed court.
'Watch the prisoner closely!' Liang-Sun directed the others. 'If he should escape, I can promise there will be heads lopped off. I am going to call the master to see what he wants to do with the bronze devil.'
LIANG-SUN strode through rooms, playing his flash beam about, until he located a telephone. He swept the instrument up with a flourish.
When the phone operator's voice came, Liang-Sun spoke in English. He handled the language well enough, except that, Chinese fashion, he turned all the 'R's' into 'L's.'
'Give me numbel Ocean 0117,' he requested.
It was almost a minute before he got his party. He recognized the singsong voice at the other end of the wire. Without delay. he launched rapid words in his native tongue.
'We have secured the merchandise after which we came, oh lord,' he said. 'We now have it rolled in a rug and bound securely. This lowly person wishes to know how you want it delivered.'
'In two pieces, dumb one!' rasped the voice in the receiver. Cut the merchandise in two in the middle. Then you may leave it there. I have other work for you to do.'
'My understanding of your wishes is perfect. What is this other wok?'
'The sugar importer, Scott S. Osborn, has a brother who lives up on Park Avenue. We are holding merchandise which this brother might be greatly interested in buying.'
'I understand, oh lord. No doubt, Scott S. Osborn's brother will indeed want to purchase our merchandise.'
The two were speaking in vague terms, lest a phone
operator be listening. But they understood each other perfectly. They had Scott S. Osborn prisoner, and were going to try to ransom him to his brother.
'This sale of merchandise is not extremely important,' continued the voice over the wire. 'But since we are holding the goods, we might as well take a profit. You will visit the brother and seek the best price you can obtain.'
'I comprehend most clearly, oh lord. Exactly where does Scott S. Osborn's brother live, that I may find him without trouble.'
'Get the address from the phone book, dumb one!'
'I shall do that.'
'Returning to the subject of the merchandise you have wrapped in the rug — you are perhaps aware there are five others of a similar pattern, although of lesser importance; We may find it desirable to seek them also. But I shall discuss that with you at a later time. Cut the goods you have in two pieces. Do so at once.'
Liang-Sun singsonged that he understood. He hung up the receiver, drew his sword, and swung into the room where Doc Savage had been captured.
The rolled rug had not moved. The slant-eyed guards sat about the room, lost in the shadows. But their flash beams blazed upon the rug.
Liang-Sun sprang forward, sword uplifted.
'Behold, dogs!' he shouted. 'I will show you how a master swings his blade.'
The sword hissed down.
Rolled rug — the body within it — were chopped neatly in halves.
A ghastly crimson flood spurted from the rug and washed over the floor.
LIANG-SUN callously wiped his blade. 'Never, my sons, will you see a man cut in halves in more expert fashion!' he addressed his men.
He got no answer.
The half-caste leader stared about. He seemed to lose inches in height. His eyes bloated out from behind their sloping lids.
'Have your tongues been eaten, that you do not answer?' he gulped.
Leaping to the nearest Mongol, Liang-Sun shook him. The man toppled out of his chair. Liang-Sun jumped to
