Chapter 17

THE CAPTIVES

IT WAS midnight, but the sun shone brightly. The storm had abated as swiftly as it had arisen. Snow no longer swirled. Such drifts as had gathered glittered like tiny, ridged diamonds in the solar rays.

Around the uncharted arctic land, the short, terrific gale had made a startling change. It had pushed the ice pack away. For miles in every direction, comparatively open water could be seen. This was spotted with a few vicious-looking blue growlers, but no ice floes of any size.

In the main lounge of the lost liner Oceanic. Keelhaul de Rosa walked angry circles, kicking chairs out of his path.

"Keelhaul me!" he bellowed. "The bloody treasure has gotta be somewhere!"

He came over and planted himself in front of pretty Roxey Vail. He glowered at the young woman. He had a face that mirrored indescribable evil.

Two rat-faced thugs held Roxey Vail. Their bony claws dug painfully into her shapely arms.

"Where's the swag?" Keelhaul de Rosa roared at her.

"I don't know anything about any treasure!" the girl replied scornfully.

It was perhaps the fiftieth time she had told her captors that.

"You an' your maw swiped the gold an' diamonds!" snarled Keelhaul de Rosa.

Roxey Vail made no answer.

"The Eskimos told me all about you an' your maw," the hulking pirate chief informed her. "Where's she hidin'?"

The young woman gave him a look of scorn. If she had practiced all her life squashing mashers on New York streets, she couldn't have done it better.

"C'mon — cough up!" the man hissed in her face. "Where's your old lady hangin' out? I'll bet she's sittin' right slap-dab on the bloomin' treasure! Keelhaul me if I don't think that!"

"You're wrong!" the girl snapped

"Then where is she?"

Roxey Vail tightened her lips. That was something she would never tell. No horror they could inflict upon her would bring the information from her lips.

"You'll spill the dope, sister, or I'll cut that swab of an ol' man of yorn to pieces right here in front of you!" gritted Keelhaul de Rosa. "I'll start by puttin' out the ol' geezer's bloody eyes again!"

Roxey Vail said nothing to this. What could she say? Her cheeks became pale as damask, though.

Keelhaul de Rosa kicked over a couple of additional chairs. He picked up a book that had lain on a table for more than fifteen years, and threw it at a greasy Eskimo.

Coming back the pirate chief tried softer arguments.

"Listen, sister," he purred, "gimme the swag an' I'll see that you an' yer ol' man gets safe passage back with me an' my crew."

"How can you escape?" Roxey Vail questioned curiously. "Your plane is destroyed. You have no submarine."

"I'm makin' the Eskimos haul the swag to Greenland for me."

"Then you'll kill them, I suppose," the young woman said coldly.

The way Keelhaul de Rosa gave a guilty start showed the young woman's guess had been close to the truth.

"Will you spare the life of the bronze man, also?" Roxey Vail asked tentatively.

Keelhaul de Rosa scowled.

"That swab is already dead," he lied, hoping it would help break the nerve of the beautiful girl.

THE STATEMENT had an effect exactly opposite. Roxey Vail sprang forward so suddenly that she eluded the pair holding her. She clawed Keelhaul de Rosa's villainous face. She handed him a haymaker that completely closed his left eye.

"Lay aboard her!" he howled in agony. "Pull her off, you swabs! Keelhaul me, but she's a bloody wild cat!"

His two men secured fresh hold on Roxey Vail, but not before one of them collected a flattened nose. Her arctic life had made a very hard young woman out of Roxey Vail.

The pretty girl now broke into sobs. The reason for her grief was easily understood — she believed Doc Savage was dead. It was incredible that the bronze man, mighty as he was, could cope with such odds as confronted him now.

Suddenly a bellowing voice filled the lounge.

"Boarders!" it roared. "Ben O'Gard and his swabs! They're comin'. aboard by the stern!"

Every eye in the lounge went toward the source of that roaring voice. It seemed to come from a small companionway which led off in the direction of the purser's office.

"It's Ben O'Gard, I tell yer!" crashed the voice. "They're crawlin' up some lines danglin' near the stern!"

Any doubt which might have been arising was dispelled by the loud clatter of a machine gun on deck. The sound came from the stern!

Another rapid-firer joined it. A white man — one of Keelhaul de Rosa's small gang — shrieked a warning.

"Ben O'Gard — " The howling of Eskimos drowned out the rest.

Ben O'Gard was indeed making his attack. "One of you hold her!" rasped Keelhaul de Rosa. "Keelhaul me — I gotta look into this!"

He sprinted out of the room. One of the pair who had been holding the young woman followed him.

Roxey Vail promptly engaged in combat with the single rat who now pinioned her arms. She stamped his toes through his soft mukluks. She did her best to bite him.

Although strong and agile for a woman, Roxey Vail would have been overpowered by the man.

But from the spot where that great voice had first roared a warning, there glided a form that might have been liquid bronze. Nearing the struggling man and girl, this became a giant, Herculean man of hard metal. Hands floated out.

They were hands which could have plucked the very head from the rat now belaboring the poor girl with his fists. Yet those hands barely stroked the man's face.

The thug fell senseless.

ROXEY VAIL stared at her rescuer. It was apparent she could hardly believe her eyes.

"You — oh, thank — "

"Listen — here's what you're to do!" Doc interrupted. He didn't like the tearful business of receiving thanks from young women whether they were pretty or not.

"You are to go and get your mother!" Doc told her. "You know where the finger of land juts into the sea half a mile to the north of this spot?"

"Yes."

"Take your mother there. The storm left a floe of ice attached to the point. It is long and narrow. It protrudes out into the sea fully half a mile. The tip is rather rough where ice cakes were piled upon it by the force of the gale. You are to hide, with your mother, among those ice cakes."

Roxey Vail nodded. But she wanted to know more.

"What — "

"No time to explain!" Doc waved an arm in the general direction of the stern. A bloody fight was going on back there, judging from the bedlam.

Doc now grasped the girl. He shook her like a child but not very hard.

"Now get this!" he said sharply. "I don't want any more disobeying my orders just because you think something has happened to me!"

She sniffed at him. Tears were in her eyes.

"I won't," she said. "But my father is — "

"I'll attend to him." Doc gave her a shove. "Scoot, Roxey. And be on the end of that ice neck with your mother as soon as possible. Things are going to happen fast around here."

Obediently, the young woman raced for the bows. These were deserted, due to the fight at the stern. She should have no trouble escaping.

Doc disappeared down a companionway as though in the grip of a great suction. He knew where he was going. He had overheard a chance remark, while skulking aboard the lost liner a few minutes ago, which told him where to look.

He shoved a stateroom door inward. A long leap and he was working over tough walrus-hide thongs which bound Victor Vail.

"They told me you were dead!" Victor Vail choked.

"Have you seen your daughter yet?" Doc grinned.

Victor Vail's long, handsome face now became a study in emotions. His lips trembled. Big tears skidded down his cheeks. His throat worked convulsively.

"Isn't she — a wonderful girl" he gulped proudly.

He had seen her, all right.

"She's swell," Doc chuckled. "She's gone to get her mother. They'll meet us."

At this, Victor Vail could not restrain himself. He broke into open sobs of delight and gratitude and eagerness.

It would be a strange reunion, this of father and mother and daughter, after more than fifteen years. It 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 of his men, though. Once, Doc saw him stumble deliberately so as to permit the others to catch up with him.

The man was cautious. He had felt the frightful strength of Doc Savage once. In fact, he still wore bandages on his hands from that occasion.

Doc's golden eyes ranged ahead. They held anxiety. Had his friends reached the neck of ice?

They had. Doc could see Monk jumping up and down like the gorilla he resembled as he watched the exciting chase. Monk's yells even reached Doc's ears. They sounded like the noise two fighting bulls would make. For a man with such a mild voice, Monk could emit the most blood-curdling howls.

Doc quickened his pace. No doubt the pirates thought he had been going at full speed — for a chorus of surprised shouts arose as they saw the bronze man was leaving them as though they stood still.

"Shake out your sails, mateys!" Ben O'Gard bellowed. He waddled out ahead of his killer gang like an elephant. Then, seized with caution, he was careful to let them catch up.

Doc reached the headland. The ice pack had piled up here. Passing through it was laborious business. It was as though the houses of a great white city had been shoved into one huge pile.

Rifle and submachine-gun bullets swarmed like unseen hornets through the ice hummocks.

Doc finally gained the finger of ice. He sprinted. The footing was only moderately rough here, offering correspondingly less shelter.

There was one point where the ice neck narrowed. Thirty or so steps would have spanned it from one side to the other.

In the middle of this narrow place stood a slightly unnatural-looking drift of snow.

Doc sped past this snow pile without giving it a glance. A rifle slug made such a noise in his ear that he thought he was hit. But the hood of his parka had only been torn.

He doubled low, zigzagged a little — and reached cover.

Here, the ice finger widened again. Doc joined his friends.

Victor Vail stood to one side. He was doing his best to hug both his wife and pretty daughter simultaneously.

"1 hope you got a deck of aces up your sleeve, Doc," Monk said, his voice again mild. "If you ain't, we're in a pretty pickle."

AS MONK hinted, they were indeed trapped. For it seemed Doc had led them to a spot from which there was no escape. Ben O'Gard and his blood-thirsty pirates had already passed the narrow part of the ice finger. Regaining the shore was now impossible.

To continue their flight in boats, even should Doc have a craft concealed in the rugged ice near by, was also unfeasible. The pirates would have a perfect chance to riddle them with their machine guns.

Doc Savage showed no concern.

"Keep your shirt on, Monk," he suggested. Then, as a burst of rapid-firer slugs all but parted Monk's bristling red hair, he added: "And your head down!"

"Let the missing link get a lead haircut!" Ham clipped. "He needs barbering."

Monk leered at Ham as if he was trying to think of something — got it, and made his inevitable "Hoinck! Hoinck!" of a porker grunting.

Ham subsided.

Doc was now introduced to Victor Vail's long-lost wife. The introduction lacked something in courtliness, considering that it was made with all of them lying as flat as they could, with flocks of bullets passing but a few inches over their backs.

Mrs. Vail was a tall woman, fully as beautiful as her entrancing blond daughter, although in a more mature way. She showed little effects of her long years of isolation on this barren arctic spot.

Doc turned hastily to his men to avoid the heartfelt gratitude Victor Vail's wife sought to express, as well as the adoring look in pretty Roxey's eyes.

"Let me have a pistol!" Doc requested.

His friends were surprised. It was rarely that Doc used firearms on his human foes.

Renny handed over an automatic he had taken from one of his Eskimo guards.

Doc left them. In an instant. he was lost completely to their sight, so expertly did he conceal himself.

They heard his automatic crack once — then four times more.

They stared at the oncoming pirates. Not a man dropped. This was little short of astounding to the five who knew Doc well. Doc was one of the finest marksmen they had ever seen, even if it was seldom that he fired a shot. They had seen him toss up twelve pennies in a single handful, and using two pistols, touch every one with lead before it fell to earth.

Yet he seemed to have missed the easy targets the pirates offered.

"Hey — look!" Monk howled suddenly.

Behind the pirates, where the finger of ice narrowed, a surprising phenomena was in progress.

The ice was melting at great speed!

MONK WAS first to comprehend. "My chemical mixture for dissolving ice!" he chuckled. "Doc put a supply of it under that snow drift. He simply punctured the containers!"

Ben O'Gard and his pirates came to a stop. They had discovered the melting ice. That worried them. But their thirst for blood got the better of them. They resumed their charge.

"Come!" Doc called. "And keep down low!"

He led them for the end of the ice finger.

It became noticeable that the whole formation of ice was now in motion. Enough of the narrow neck had dissolved to permit the rest to break free. The whole thing was now an ordinary floe, plaything of the currents of the polar sea.

Doc reached his objective. He pointed.

"How does that look?" he questioned.

Monk grinned from ear to ear. "Heaven will never look any better to this sinful soul!"

The under-the-ice submarine, Helldiver, lay before them. It was moored to deadman anchors which had obviously been sunken in the ice by depositing a bit of Monk's remarkable chemical concoction.

They threw off the moorings, then dived down the main hatch.

Doc started the electric motors — there was no time to get the Diesels going. The Helldiver surged away from the floe.

"How'd it happen to be here?" Monk questioned.