would be something, in itself alone, worth all the perils and hardships Doc Savage had undergone.
The fight astern was coming closer. Automatics hammered fiercely. Machine guns tore off long strings of reports. Men shrieked in the frenzy of combat. Not a few of them were screaming from their hurts, too.
'We'd better drift away from here!' Doc declared.
They ran down a passage.
An amazing thing happened to a stateroom door ahead of them.
The panel jumped out of the door, literally exploding into splinters. An object came through which resembled a rusty keg affixed crosswise to the end of a telephone pole.
Such a hand and fist could belong to only one man on earth.
'Renny!' Doc yelled.
Big Renny leaped out, somber face alight.
A GREASY Eskimo now popped through the shattered door. His eyes were wells of terror, and his mouth was a frightened hole. He headed down the passage. He made two jumps.
Through the door after him came two hundred and sixty pounds of red-fuzzed man-gorilla.
Monk! He overhauled the Innuit as though the greasy bag of fright were standing still. Both his hands grasped the Eskimo and yanked backward. Simultaneously, his knee came up. The Innuit landed on his back across that knee. He all but broke in halves.
Doc looked into the stateroom.
Ham, not quite the fashion plate he usually presented, was there. Long Tom was astride another Eskimo. The oily native was twice the size of the pale electrical wizard. But he was getting the beating of his life.
Johnny, the gaunt archaeologist, was dancing around with his glasses, which had the magnifying lens on the left side, askew on his bony face.
Doc groped for something that would express his happiness, for he had given these five friends of his up as dead men. The proper words refused to come. His throat was cramped with emotion.
'What a bunch of bums!' he managed to chuckle at last.
'We've been praying for the sun to come out,' said Ham. He pointed at a porthole. A strong beam of sunlight slanted through it. 'Johnny used that magnifying lens to burn his bonds apart. It's lucky for us our captors stink like they do — they can't smell anything but themselves. They couldn't smell the smoke from the thongs as Johnny burned them through.'
The group ran for the stern. Renny secured an automatic pistol from the Eskimo whom Ham had skewered with his sword cane. Long Tom carried another he had seized from his opponent. Monk had obtained a third from his own victim.
'I had written you guys off my books,' Doc's expressive voice rumbled pleasantly. 'How'd you escape from that burning plane?'
'What d'you think we had parachutes for?' Monk inquired in his tiny murmur.
'But I flew over the ice, and saw no sign of you,' Doc pointed out.
Monk grinned widely. 'I'm tellin' you, Doc, we didn't linger after we landed. We come down in the middle of a gang of wild and woolly Eskimos. They started throwin' things at us — harpoons mostly. Our ammunition was gone. We'd wasted it all on the plane that shot us down. So we made tracks. We thought the Eskimos was cannibals, or somethin'.'
Ham scowled blackly at Monk.
'And you, you missing link, suggested leaving me behind as a sort of pot offering!' he said angrily.
Ham wasn't mad, though. It was just the old feud starting again. Things were back to normal.
'Listen, you overdressed little shyster!' Monk rumbled. 'You were knocked cold when your parachute popped you against an iceberg, and I had to carry you. Next time, I'll sure-enough leave you!'
'The Eskimos set a trap for us,' Renny finished the story for Doc. 'They were too many for us. They finally got us.'
THE BOW of the lost liner Oceanic was deserted. The fight at the stern had drawn everybody. And a bloody fray that was, for the noise of it had become more violent.
Doc halted near an ice-crusted, dangling cable which offered safe, if somewhat slippery, transit to the ice below.
'Half a mile north of here, an ice finger juts out into the sea,' Doc said rapidly. 'Go there, all of you! Roxey Vail and her mother should be there already. Wait for me.'
'What are you going to do?' Ham questioned.
'I'm staying behind for a short time,' Doc replied. 'Over the side with you, brothers!'
Rapidly, they slid over the rail.
Monk was last. His homely face showed concern over Doc's safety. He tried to put up an argument.
'Now listen, Doc,' he began. 'You better — '
Doc smiled faintly. He picked up the argumentative two hundred and sixty pounds of man-gorilla by the slack of the pants and the coat collar, and sent him whizzing down the icy cable.
'Beat it!' he called down at them, then sank behind a capstan.
They ran away across the ice.
One of the battlers on the derelict liner saw the group. He threw up a rifle and fired. He missed. He ran forward to get a better aim.
The man was one of Ben O'Gard's thugs. He crouched in the shelter of a bitt and aimed deliberately. He could hardly have missed. Squinting, he prepared to squeeze the trigger.
Then, instinctively, he brushed at something which had touched his cheek. It felt like a fly. It was no fly — although the rifleman toppled over senseless before he realized it.
Doc retreated as soundlessly as he had reached the man's side.
Rapidly, Doc removed metal caps from the ends of his fingers. These were of bronze. They exactly matched the hue of Doc's skin, and they were so cleverly constructed as to escape detection with the naked eye. However, one might have noticed Doc's fingers were a trifle longer when the caps were in place.
These caps each held a tiny, very sharp needle. A potent chemical of Doc's own concoction fed through glands in those needles. One prick from them meant instant unconsciousness.
This was the secret of Doc's magic touch.
Doc now saw men gathering astern. They were Ben O'Gard's thugs. Victory had evidently fallen to them.
A captive was hauled up from below. He squealed and whimpered and blubbered for mercy.
Two pirates held him. An automatic in Ben O'Gard's hand cracked thunder. The prisoner fell dead.
The man they had murdered was Keelhaul de Rosa. His proper deserts had at last reached the fellow. As an unmitigated villain, he had been equaled only by the devil who now slew him so cold-bloodedly — Ben O'Gard.
Doc Savage suddenly yelled loudly. His great voice tumbled along the ice-coated deck.
Ben O'Gard saw him, shrieked: 'Get the bronze guy, mateys!'
Doc whipped over the rail.
This was what he had remained behind for. He wanted Ben O'Gard and the rest to follow him!
Chapter 18
THE THAWING DEATH
Doc Savage sped away from the lost liner Oceanic. Bullets jarred showers of ice flakes from hummocks behind which he dodged. Other slugs ran about in the snow like little moles that traveled too fast for the eye.
Doc was careful not to offer too good a target. But he showed himself often enough to lure his pursuers on.
Yelling excitedly, huge Ben O'Gard led the pack. The walrus of a pirate was careful not to get too far ahead
