The Mayan mumbled words, and there had suddenly come into his voice a religious fervor. Monk caught the name "Kukulcan" a time or two, and recognized it as the name of an ancient Mayan deity. The fellow was going to offer them as a sacrifice to his hideous little idol!
Monk heaved against the wires, but only bruised his huge muscles and started crimson running from torn skin. Numberless turns of the wire held him.
The Mayan concluded his paean to the idol. A wild light inflamed his nigrescent eyes. He was slavering like an idiot.
Faint light scintillated from the knife as it uplifted once more.
Monk shut his eyes. He opened them instantly — it was all he could do to stem a yell of utter joy.
For into that unsavory room had penetrated a low, mellow sound that trilled up and down the scale like the song of some rare bird. It seemed to filter everywhere. The sound was strengthening, inspiring.
The sound of Doc!
The Mayan was puzzled. He looked about, saw nothing. The idol-worshiping fervor seized him again. The knife poised.
The blade rushed down.
But no more than a foot did it travel. Out of the narrow black doorway flashed a gigantic figure of bronze. A Nemesis of power and speed, Doc Savage descended upon the devilish but luckless Mayan.
Doc's hand seemed hardly to touch the Mayan's knife arm before the bone snapped loudly and the knife gyrated away.
The Mayan twisted. With surprising alacrity, his other hand darted inside his green shirt and came out with a shiny pistol. He aimed at Ham, not Doc. Ham was handiest.
There was only one thing Doc could do to save Ham. He did it — chopped a blow with the edge of his hand that snapped the Mayan's neck instantly. The fellow died before he could pull trigger.
It took only a moment for Doc to free Ham and Monk of the wires.
A swarthy native — one of the Mayan's hirelings — popped through the door with a long-bladed knife that resembled nothing so much as an ordinary corn knife. In fact, it was a corn knife, with "Made in U.S. A." on the handle. But the native would have called it a machete.
His precipitous arrival was just his hard luck. A leap, a blow so swift the native probably never saw it, and the fellow was flying head over heels back the way he came.
Doc guided Ham and Monk outside They turned left. Doc seized Ham and gave him a toss that lifted him to a low roof. Monk managed the jump unassisted, and Doc followed. They leaped to another roof, another.
On that one lay the silken folds of a parachute.
"That's how I got here," Doc explained. "News of that fight you had spread fast. I heard it and took off in the plane. Two thousand feet up I touched off a parachute flare. That lighted the whole town. I was lucky enough to see the gang haul you into that joint. So I simply jumped down to help you."
"Sure!" Monk grinned. "There wasn't nothin' to it, was there, Doc?"
Chapter 10. TROUBLE TRAIL
Doc, Ham, and Monk strolled through the moonlight to the spot on the lake shore where they had pitched camp. A crowd of curious natives were there inspecting the plane, talking among themselves. Aircraft were still a novelty in this out-of-the-way spot.
Doc, a bronze giant nearly twice as tall as some of the swarthy fellows, mingled among them and asked questions in the mixture of Spanish and Indian lingo they spoke. He wanted to know about the blue plane which had attacked him at Belize
The blue plane had been seen a few times by the natives. But they did not know from whence it came or where it went.
Doc noticed some of the swarthy little men were very superstitious about the blue plane. These would give him little information. In each case the features of such men showed they were of Mayan ancestry.
Doc recalled then that blue was the sacred color of the ancient Mayans. It only added to this mysterious thing confronting him.
Renny and the others had erected a silken tent. But they had also dug inside the tent a deep hole, sort of a dugout in which to sleep. From the outside, the excavation would escape detection. They were taking no chance on a sudden machine-gun burst in the night.
Monk and Ham, completely recovered from their narrow brush with death, decided to sleep in the plane cabin, alternating on keeping guard.
Doc himself set off alone through the night. Thanks to the marvelous faculties he had developed by years of intensive drill, he had little fear of his enemies attacking him successfully.
He went to the presidential palace. To the servant who admitted him, Doc gave simply his name and a request to see the President of Hidalgo.
In a surprisingly brief interval, the flunky was back. Carlos Avispa, President of Hidalgo, would see Doc at once.
Doc was ushered into a great, sumptuously fitted room. The chamber was in twilight, and a small motion-picture projector was throwing shifting images onto a white screen. However, the film being run off was one concerning military tactics instead of a mushy love drama.
Carlos Avispa came forward with a warmly outstretched hand. He was a powerful man, a few inches shorter than Doc. His upstanding shock of white hair lent him a distinguished aspect. His face was lined with care, but intelligent and pleasant. He was near fifty.
"It is a great honor indeed to meet the son of the great Senor Clark Savage," he said with genuine heartiness.
That surprised Doc. He was not aware his father had known Carlos Avispa. But Doc's father had many friends of whom Doc was not aware.
"You knew my father?" Doc inquired.
Carlos Avispa bowed. There was genuine esteem in his voice as he replied: "Your father saved my life with his wonderful medical skill. That was twenty years ago, when I was but an unimportant revolutionist hiding out in the mountains. You, I believe, are also a great doctor and surgeon?"
Here was a break, Doc reflected. He nodded that he was a doctor and surgeon. For that was the thing he knew more about than all others.
In the course of a few minutes Doc had told his story and mentioned that Don Rubio Gorro, the Secretary of State, had refused to honor his grant to the territory in interior Hidalgo.
"I shall remedy that at once, Senor Savage." declared President Carlos Avispa. "Anything I have, any power I control, is yours."
After he had thanked the elderly, likable man properly, Doc inquired whether President Avispa had any idea what made the tract of land so valuable that many men were anxious to do murder to prevent him reaching it.
"I cannot imagine," was the reply. "I do not know what your father found there. He was bound for the interior of Hidalgo when he came upon me ill in camp twenty years ago. He saved my life. And I never saw him again. As for the region, it is very near impregnable, and the natives are so troublesome I have given up trying to send soldiers to explore."
President Carlos Avispa reflected deeply, then went on.
"It worries me, this action of my Secretary of State, Don Rubio Gorro," he said. "Some sneak has destroyed the records of this heritage your father left you. They should be in our archives. But I cannot understand why Don Rubio should act as he did. Your papers were enough, even though ours had vanished. He shall be punished for his impertinence."
Doc was silent. The moving-picture machine was still running off the reel of military maneuvers — the type of picture shown at war colleges.
With a smile, President Avispa indicated the cinema machine. "I must keep myself advised of the latest fighting methods. It is indeed regrettable. But it seems we can never have peace here in the south. There is always a revolution brewing.
"Just recently I have heard strong rumors that an attempt is to be made to assassinate me and seize power. Many of my people of Mayan ancestry are involved. But I do not know the ringleaders. I understand they await only money to buy arms before making the attempt."