Then the little man waited. He waited for some time before the answer came. His evil features showed sharp disbelief at first. Then he laughed; he laughed a long time.
DOC SAVAGE wasn"t laughing. For one of the few times in his life the bronze man was showing emotion.
And the emotion he was showing was embarra.s.sment.
The surrender of the captured submarine had been expected. Not only could Doc destroy the other craft from below, but he could, if necessary, hold it beneath the surface until all life on it was extinguished.
That had been explained. Surrender had followed.
Then had come the message that had caused embarra.s.sment. The captured submarine wasn"t the mystery raider.
It was a British underseas craft, itself hunting for the pirate ship!
AN interchange of messages convinced Doc of that fact. But he insisted on seeing for himself.
The bronze man donned one of the self-contained diving suits. He left his sub, moved up to the surface.
At the same time, the British ship was slowly eased upward until the conning tower was barely awash.
The British captain appeared.
Doc no longer had any doubts. He returned to his sub.
It was the first time the bronze man"s aids had ever seen him fl.u.s.tered.
Doc had often admitted to himself that he could make mistakes. In fact, he knew he had made them. But his aids had always thought that impossible.
There was more than a mistake to consider now.
"We seem to have a lion by the tail," Doc admitted wryly. "I naturally offered to release their submarine at once. Their captain informed me that if so, he would give no parole. That we were considered pirates, and that he would do his best to destroy us at once."
"Let me go up and talk to that guy man to man," Renny bellowed angrily.
"I"ll be superamalgamated," Johnny offered.
Long Tom"s face was very red. He felt as guilty as if he had done the whole thing himself.
"We could turn "em loose and run for it. We"ve got the speed to get away," he suggested.
Doc shook his head. "We could elude them, of course, but they might be able to trail us long enough to bring surface ships," he said quietly.
The bronze man"s brief period of embarra.s.sment had pa.s.sed. He was himself again.
"There is another way," he added briefly. Long Tom looked puzzled. So did the others.
Doc didn"t explain. He went to the small laboratory he had on the submarine. When he returned, he was carrying more than a hundred yards of small but powerful rope. The rope was of a pale, almost oily, color.
For a second time the bronze man donned diving equipment and left the sub. He was gone scarcely fifteen minutes.
"Release them," he said briefly as he came back.
Long Tom"s expression revealed his doubt.
"They will not pursue us," the bronze man explained briefly. "Their propeller and diving planes are fouled in the rope."
"B-but won"t that mean they"ll eventually perish?" Renny asked.
Doc Savage shook his head. "The rope is of the type that dissolves in water. It will retain its strength for only about thirty minutes before they will be able to escape."
With Doc at the helm, they sped swiftly from the scene.
THE next few hours were a revelation for those aboard the bronze man"s craft.
It had seemed reasonable to suppose that only the pirate submarine would be in this vicinity.
This was not the case. The waters appeared alive with undersea craft.
On a half dozen occasions they crept close to a lurking submarine, only to identify it at the last moment through use of the "propelcheck" as American or British.
"We wouldn"t been fooled the first time, except the sub we caught was a new type, and we had no dope on her," Long Tom said.
The presence of so many submarines made their task harder. All they could do was to stay in the vicinity and try to nab anything that sounded suspicious.
"After lucubration, it occurs to me the knaves we seek might be in one of these submarines," Johnny said.
"In that case we might overlook them."
Doc nodded. "That is a chance we have to take."
It was two hours after that they caught their next "tin fish."
This one proved to be German.
But this time, the bronze man did not appear surprised. The captured U-boat was held, powerless to move, almost resting on the deck of Doc"s sub. Ballast tanks were blown in the bronze man"s craft.
Linked together, the two boats moved toward the surface.
"I"ve at least solved one thing," Renny said dryly. "Whatever this thing is that Doc and Long Tom have figured out, it at least uses our boat as the anchor."
The U-boat commander sputtered angrily as Doc appeared at the side of the conning tower. Only thecertainty that such action would result in the loss of his own craft halted him from shooting the bronze man.
Doc talked swiftly and rapidly, and in German.
The U-boat commander"s att.i.tude changed.
"Forgive me, Herr Savage," the commander said politely. "I did not understand at once. Yes, I will give you the information you wish."
"You believe the pirate submarine to be-or rather to have been-one of yours?" Doc asked.
The U-boat commander looked old and tired suddenly. "I am afraid you are correct, Herr Savage.
But"-and his eyes flashed-"you understand of course that it is no longer in charge of a German crew."
Doc nodded. "I understand," he said. Briefly, he told the other of Roland Stevens" story, and of Stevens"
statement that the original crew of the submarine was found dead.
The commander nodded. "I am glad you know this," he said simply. "Eventually you will be able to tell the world how a hundred brave men died. The craft-and it was one of our latest-was en route to your country on a peaceful mission. It was designed as a cargo craft, although naturally it had some armament-one gun, two torpedo tubes."
"And the speed of the motors, the size of its propellers?" Doc asked.
The U-boat commander"s face lighted. "I see your point," he said excitedly. "Of course. It does have a distinctive propeller beat."
He explained swiftly.
"Thank you," Doc Savage nodded. He prepared to slip back under water, back to his own submarine.
The commander"s hand came up in a salute. "Good hunting," he said. "Although of course we would like to find the craft first. It is a matter of honor with us."
THE little man with the evil, wizened face could not hear Doc"s conversation with the U-boat commander. But he did hear when the bronze man reported that conversation to his aids.
The little man became very excited. Again he spoke into the small, powerful radio sending set he had with him. This time he had to wait for more than an hour before he got an answer.
Then he got some water from a big canteen he had with him. He poured some powder from a small envelope into his hand.
He took the powder, washed it down with the water.
A moment later he tore open the door of the locker room, rolled into the companionway. He screamed.
Big-fisted Renny was the first on the scene. The huge engineer"s face bore a startled look. He lifted the little man up with one gigantic paw, swung his other palm for a slap that would have loosened the man"s neck.
Foam gushed from the little man"s lips. His eyes rolled wildly.
Johnny skidded to a stop behind Renny. The thin archaeologist carefully placed his monocle in one eye,gazed gravely at the scene before him.
"I"ll be a superannuation!" he exclaimed. "What a phantasmagoria."
"If you mean what a funny sight, I agree," Renny said grimly.
Sounds came from the little man"s throat. "Don"t do it! Don"t do it! I was told you didn"t hurt people who were sick."
"Who is sick?" came the calm voice of Doc Savage.
The little man looked at him appealingly. "I am, Mr. Savage. Save me from this giant."
"Put him down, Renny," Doc said quietly.
Renny grumbled loudly, but obeyed. The little man went to his knees, peered up shrewdly. When he saw he no longer was in immediate danger of annihilation, he popped to his feet with surprising speed, grinned smugly.
"I thought that would get you," he rasped. "And what a bunch of mugs you are. None of yuh knew I was here."
"Your presence has been known almost from the time you got on the boat," Doc Savage contradicted quietly.
The little man jeered. "Yeah? Then why didn"t you do something about it? Answer me that."
"I had hopes that your conversations with the one you called "boss" might eventually give us some clues as to his whereabouts," Doc explained.
The little man lost some of his arrogance. "Y-yuh mean you"ve been hearin" what I"ve said to him?"
"And his replies as well," Doc said. "Unfortunately, we had no way of making a two-directional check, so that we might have found from where he was broadcasting."
The little man regained some of his a.s.surance. "Then you even know the last instructions I got?"
Doc turned to a tiny room nearby. He removed a disk attached to a recording machine. This disk had turned every time there was sound from the locker room, had recorded all messages both received and sent from there.
The bronze man played back the last message received: -so tell that bronze devil that unless he stops looking for our submarine, we"ll kill those two aids of his right now, the ones he calls Monk and Ham. I mean business.
The little man was watching closely the faces of Doc and his aids. He expected to see fear, or at least some faint sign of apprehension. What he did see made him doubt his own sanity.
Renny"s huge palms beat jubilantly on Johnny"s back. Long Tom jumped up and down, yelling gleefully.
Even Doc Savage"s gold-flecked eyes seemed to reflect pleasure.
"Oh, boy!" Long Tom chortled happily. "They"re still alive. Those mugs aren"t dead!"
Chapter XV. AN ESCAPE ATTEMPT.
MONK and Ham were still alive, but they were far from happy.
"In fact," Monk grumbled, "I am downright tired of this place."
"With your disposition, you"d probably get tired of heaven if you ever had a chance of getting there,"
Ham said pleasantly.
"Heaven"s supposed to be up above, daggonit. This must be the other place," Monk pointed out reasonably.
Ham snorted. The hairy chemist might have something there, at that.
They were quite alone, and quite in the dark-both figuratively and literally.
The girl Monk had seen when he"d first recovered consciousness hadn"t stayed around. She"d left at once, really, after whispering something about "I"m glad you"re all right."