He was entering the most remote section of the swamp. Even the folk who lived in the great morass seldom came here. The region was forbidden to all but the inner circle of the Cult of the Moccasin. It held the Castle of the Moccasin—the headquarters of the king of the voodoo cult. The lair of the Gray Spider!
Buck Boontown climbed a cypress to make sure of his bearings.
Not a mile distant lay the Castle of the Moccasin!
NO doubt airplane pilots flying over the vast swamp and bayou district had noted the peculiar knot of trees and shrubs projecting over the surrounding territory. Probably they mistook it for a tiny clump of very tall trees.
Should they have chanced to fly low, they would have seen that these trees, strangely enough, were growing out of a great, boxlike knob which was covered completely by vines.
It had never occurred to any one that the knob was in reality a huge stone building, the roof and walls of which were cunningly camouflaged with growing vegetation.
Buck Boontown neared the strange, concealed castle of a structure.
He was challenged by a heavily armed guard, and permitted to pass. Soon he met a second guard.
It was well nigh impenetrable to the casual wayfarer, this Castle of the Moccasin. Years had been spent in its building. Labor had been furnished by the members of the voodoo cult.
The Gray Spider's campaign of wholesale looting of the great lumber companies of the South was no snap-of-the-finger scheme. It had been years in the conceiving and preparation.
Buck Boontown was admitted to the Castle of the Moccasin through a secret door.
The passage into which he came was stone-walled. Electric bulbs lighted the way. The air inside, contrasting greatly with the malodorous and steaming vapor of the swamp, was clean and pure. Buck Boontown knew nothing of such things as air-conditioning machines, so he attributed the sweetness of the atmosphere to some magic about the presence of the Gray Spider.
He entered a large room. The color scheme looked like it had been conceived by a futuristic artist who had gone crazy among his paint pots. Streaks and spots and daubs of green, red, blue, yellow, white, aluminum, gold—it all made neither sense nor beauty. Concealed colored lights dancing off and on added to the garish effect.
The whole thing was deliberately conceived to impress the near-barbaric minds of the swamp dwellers who worshiped the heathen deities of voodoo.
In the center sat a throne of gold—gold paint on a wooden foundation, although Buck Boontown didn't know it. To him, the throne alone represented limitless wealth.
The Gray Spider occupied the throne. He wore robe and mask. The repulsive, ash-colored tarantula crawled continually over one of his hands.
"Vat yo' want?" asked Buck Boontown in an awed whisper.
The Gray Spider mouthed a few low, meaningless sounds before he answered. This was merely to add to the supernatural atmosphere created by his weird surroundings.
"You are becoming one of my most trusted and efficient servants," he told Buck Boontown.
"Oui!"
mumbled the swamp man, highly pleased. "Tank yo'!"
"I now have a most important task for you to perform."
"Oui!
I do heem fo' yo'!" At the moment, ignorant Buck Boontown was so impressed he would have laid down his life at a mere word from the sinister devil who held sway over him.
The Gray Spider now produced a chamois poke of the type used by stores to deliver their cash to the banks. This was weighty with silver coin.
It held exactly one hundred dollars!
Buck Boontown clutched the poke eagerly. In common with most barbaric folk, a pile of silver coins gave him a bigger kick than ten times the sum in crisp bank notes.
"This is your reward," said the Gray Spider. "It is your pay for what you are to do. Later, if you serve me properly this time, there will be other tasks for you—and more rewards such as this!"
Buck Boontown could only mumble his gratitude.
The Gray Spider held up the hand on which the hideous tarantula constantly crawled.
In answer to the signal, two swamp men now carried in a box the size of a small trunk.
"Do you know what these are?" asked the Gray Spider.
Buck Boontown stared at the box contents. He seemed puzzled and disappointed.
"Flies!" he muttered. "Dey ees plain beeg o' flies!"
THE swamp man's disappointment gave the Gray Spider great delight. An explosive chuckle fluttered the silk folds of his mask.
"They look perfectly harmless, eh?"
"Oui!
Dey like a bite a man. But dey no do heem any harm."
A fresh guest of hideous mirth emanated from the Gray Spider.
"There's where you're wrong, swamp boy!" he declared. "These are very special flies. If one of them should bite you, it'd kill you instantly."
Buck Boontown looked as if he found this hard to believe.
"These look like ordinary swamp flies because they were just that—before I got hold of them," the Gray Spider explained. "I have sprayed a very powerful poison upon them. The bodies of the flies have absorbed this poison, which has no effect on them. But their bites are now highly venomous. They will bring instant death to a man."
"
Sacrй!"Buck Boontown gulped.
The Gray Spider leered. "Making these flies poisonous is a very special secret of mine. It took me a long time to figure out a way of doing it. But I'm telling you, it works!
"Furthermore, I have starved these flies until they're famished. They live by sucking blood. They'll go after any living thing that's handy when they're let out of that box. And whatever they bite will die!
"You are to release them near the bronze devil and his five men."
Buck Boontown wrinkled his forehead. "Oui! But won't de flies bite and keel me, too?"
"You'll set a clockwork so it'll open the lid," explained the master fiend. "You merely take the box near the bronze man's trenches and dugouts, and set the clockwork to open the box at dawn. Then you have all the swamp men clear of the vicinity. The poison flies will do the job for us. You savvy?"
"Oui!"
Buck Boontown agreed.
He received detailed instructions on how to operate the clockwork. Then he departed from the Castle of the Moccasin, carrying the box of venomous flies on his back.
The journey back to where Doc Savage and his five men were beseiged was a tedious one. It took Buck Boontown until long past midnight.
He exchanged a word with his men, telling them to quit the vicinity.
"Yo' keed, Sill, ees come back," offered the one to whom he talked. "Hees wit' yo' wife."
Buck Boontown was overjoyed at this news.
He quickly placed the box of deadly flies. He set the clockwork. At the hour of dawn, the venomous insects would be freed.
Doc Savage and his men would not suspect the innocent swamp flies of being poisoned. They would be bitten by the famished horrors. And death would come!
Buck Boontown hurried away to meet his wife. He wanted to see his son, Sill, whom he loved deeply. Poor, unfortunate Sill! Perhaps, some day, when they went to the wondrous New Orleans to live, a great doctor could do something for Sill.
The swamp man did not know that he had just sentenced to death the man who had already, by his magical skill, made Sill a normal youth.
Chapter XVI. THE PAY-OFF
BUCK BOONTOWN paused several times to question such retreating swamp men as he encountered. He made sure all were getting away. None had been missed in spreading the word to quit the vicinity.
Doc Savage and his five men, Buck Boontown was assured, did not suspect a general exodus was under way.
"At dawn, dey weel die!" the swamp man leered.
He went on. The women and children of the voodoo clan had been moved to a spot a mile distant. He reached the place.
Every one was gone.
He spent twenty minutes learning the women and children had moved on a couple of miles. He tramped after them.
Somewhere in the distance, a rooster was crowing in a swamp henhouse. The hooting of owls had died. The eastern sky was showing ruddy color. Already, the higher clouds were being tinted like patches of gore by the first rays of the sun.
Dawn was not far off.
Buck Boontown joined his wife and son.
"How ees de keed?" he asked his wife.
"I'm all right, dad," said Sill Boontown.
Something in the lad's tone gave the swamp man an inkling of the truth. A great elation came into his wizened face. The shining happiness in his wife's features convinced him that what he had hoped for had come to pass.