"They’re liars!" Monk grinned. "Or else the bumblebees here are made out of lead."
"They’re wrong, of course," Doc replied thoughtfully. "But I’m sure they did not know there was a rifle here. There was apparently but one gun, at that."
"We’d better stop gabbing and hunt for the sniper!" Ham clipped waspishly. "In case you’ve forgotten, he nearly winged me!"
"Keep your shirt on, Ham." Doc indicated natives who were prowling off through the tropical growth. "They’re instituting a search for the hidden marksman."
THE sniper was not located, though. The natives searched briskly for a time, but the natural languidness common to tropical folk soon caused them to lose interest when they found nobody. Standing around in groups and staring at the white men, especially their mighty leader of bronze, was much more interesting.
"It never fails!" Monk chuckled. "Doc is a sensation wherever he goes!"
Ham cast his eyes over the crowd surrounding Monk. This was only slightly smaller than the group about Doc. Monk’s incredible homeliness and titanic, apelike frame had them utterly agog.
"You don’t do so bad!" Ham jeered. "They figure you’re the missing link!"
But he regretted the insult a moment later when Monk cornered a native and gravely explained, by gestures, that the tribe must watch the many pigs running about, or Ham would steal them. It didn’t help matters when fully thirty natives ran up with squealing porkers in their arms and tried to thrust the gifts onto Ham.
Renny was entertaining and overawing the islanders by the amazing feat of crushing hard coconuts in one vast hand.
Johnny and Long Tom, well-armed and alert, moved into the jungle to get breadfruit which weighed several pounds apiece and were pitted on the surface like a golf ball. Delicate, beautiful orchids were like varicolored butterflies in the shadowed, luxuriant growth. The hunters also gathered coconuts, so as to make feikai, or roasted breadfruit mixed with coconut-milk sauce.
Oliver Wording Bittman wandered alone into the jungle, but returned soon and kept close to Doc, as though for protection.
Doc busied himself performing a minor operation upon an ill native. He was thus engaged when an exciting development occurred.
A machine gun blatted a procession of reports. By the terrific swiftness of the shots, Doc knew it was one of the guns he had himself invented.
A man screamed with a mortal wound.
Kar-o-o-m!
A tremendous explosion brought a tremor to the hut in which Doc was operating upon the native. He and Bittman rushed out.
Near the plane, a sooty cauliflower of smoke had sprouted. Bits of dйbris still swirled in the air. It fell about a gruesome, torn thing upon the lagoon edge. The dismembered body of a man!
"It was one of Kar’s gunmen!" Renny called. Renny held a smoking machine gun. "The fellow had a bomb, with the fuse already lighted! He was running to throw it in the plane when I saw him and shot."
"Sure it was one of Kar’s men?" Doc inquired.
"You bet. One of the four we hoped to trap on the Sea Star!"
"
That is too bad," Doc declared regretfully. "It means the yacht which took them off the Sea Starwas speedy enough to get here ahead of us."
"You think Kar is right here on this coral atoll?"
Instead of replying, Doc proceeded to question what his accurate judgment told him were the most intelligent of the natives. What he learned cast an important light on the situation.
"Listen to this!" he translated for his friends. "I asked the natives if they had seen a ship, but they haven’t. Then I asked them if they had sighted a man-made bird that flies, such as ours. And the answer explains their terror at our arrival."
"You mean Kar came around in a plane and bombed or machine gunned them?" Ham queried.
"Nothing so simple as that! The reply they gave me was utterly fantastic. They claim great, flying devils nearly as large as our plane sometimes come from Thunder Island to seize and devour members of the tribe. They thought we were such a flying devil."
"They must drink caterpillar liquor!" Monk snorted.
"Eh?" said Ham.
"Two drinks and the birds are after you!"
"Furthermore," Doc continued, "they claim they sighted such a flying devil only yesterday. Questioned closely, they admit it did not flap its wings, and that it made a loud and steady groaning noise. That means they saw a plane. And what craft could it be but Kar’s?"
Renny growled, "Kar is — "
"Already at Thunder Island! The man you just wiped out was landed here by Kar for the specific purpose of stopping us in case we visited this atoll. He has been hiding from the natives. No doubt, Kar intended to pick him up later."
"But where did Kar get a plane — "
"Honolulu, New Zealand, or even Australia. They had time. Remember, the storm delayed the Sea Staron which we came. It is possible Kar evaded that storm, and his boat was faster."
Ham slanted his sword cane at the sun. "What do you say we fly over and have a look at Thunder Island? There’s barely time before dark."
"We’ll do that very thing, brothers," Doc said swiftly. "Every one of you will put on parachutes. Kar’s plane might attack us and have the good luck to slam an incendiary bullet into our gas tank. In such event, ‘chutes would be pretty handy."
PREPARATIONS were quickly completed. The big speed plane skimmed down the glassy lagoon and took the air, watched by an awed crowd of natives. Doc opened the throttles wide and boomed for Thunder Island at better than two hundred miles an hour. Night was not far off.
The volcanic cone gathered majestic height as they flew nearer. Its vast size was astounding, impressive. The steaming clouds piled like cotton above it. It was as though the world was hollow and filled with foam, and the foam was escaping through this gigantic vent.
"One of the most striking sights of my life!" said the artistic Ham.
Even the prosaic Monk was impressed, agreeing, "Yeah — hot stuff!"
Doc’s mighty bronze hand guided the plane around the stupendous cone of bleak stone that was Thunder Island. Nowhere was there a blade of green growth. The titanic, rocky cliffs could not have been more denuded had they been seared with acid. The lifeless aspect, the baldness of the waste, was depressing.
"Even a goat couldn’t live there!" Renny muttered.
"Unless he formed an appetite for rocks," snorted the irrepressible Monk.
Nowhere did they see sign of Kar!
"That’s queer!" Ham declared. "There are no canyons or great caves in which he could hide his plane. If he was here, we certainly would have seen him."
"Do you think he has secured a fresh supply of the element from which the Smoke of Eternity is made, and gone back to civilization?" asked Oliver Wording Bittman. "He most naturally wouldn’t tarry here."
"Impossible to tell — except that I doubt he would have deserted his man on the atoll," replied Doc. "There is one chance — we’ll try the crater."
"Into that terrible steam!" Bittman wailed. "We shall perish!"
Bittman looked terrified at the prospect. He even moved for the plane door as though to take to his parachute. But Renny’s great hand restrained him.
"You’ll be safe enough with Doc," Renny said confidently.
"We shall be scalded — "
"I think not," Doc assured him. "The top of that cone is many thousands of feet above sea level. Indeed, you will notice traces of snow near the rim. At that height, it takes little more than moist, warm air to make a cloud like this ‘steam’ over the crater."