The widest of grins suddenly overspread Monk"s homely face. He turned to Doc. "How"d you do it?"
"There"s a sensitive microphone planted in the headquarters shack," Doc explained. "It is connected to my portable radiophone transmitter. There"s a receiver and a loudspeaker hidden near the bunk house occupied by the giants, It"s that loud-speaker. you"re listening to now."
"You concealed the apparatus last night!" Monk grunted.
"Right."
In his delight Monk bounced up and down, ape fashion.
"I see it!" he howled. "me girl didn"t double-cross us She decoyed the master mind to his headquarters and got "im to spill the truth!"
OUTSIDE THE pit things began to happen. The giants made hoa.r.s.e, violent sounds of rage. It had dawned on them that they were doomed to spend their natural lives as the monstrosities which they now were.
Hack backed from the pit rim with his machine gun. He must have decided to take sides with the giants.Possibly their nearness and their rage influenced this decision.
"The big shot has been lyin" to us," he yelled. "What"re we gonna do about it?"
His answer was a thunder of gigantic footsteps as the monsters charged for the headquarters shack.
"Wait!" Hack yelled, and ran after them. "My machine gun may come in handy."
From other sections of the island howls of the giants arose. Although none of these unearthly sounds were words, their portent was clear. The giants had turned upon their master.
"Make a pyramid," Doc directed.
His men whipped into movement. Renny took up a crouching position against the pit walls, and Monk sprang atop his shoulders, then the others mounted. As he had done the night before, Doc Savage clambered up this living pyramid to the pit rim and hauled himself outside.
The monster men were converging on the headquarters shack. Some of them had picked up boulders almost as large as washtubs to use as missiles, and these seemed as light as pebbles in their hands. One huge fellow wrenched the covering off a camouflaged shack and tore out a section of iron framework as if it were of thin lath construction. Waving this, he charged with the others.
From the headquarters a machine gun clattered.. The master of the giants was using it, and his slugs pommeled one of the oncoming monsters.
The big fellow shook under the impact, but kept coming. The vitality of the Gargantuan man-thing was astounding. Not until the slugs battered his head almost out of shape did he sink, sprawling.
Doc Savage glanced about. Near by lay the rope with which the girl had been hauled from the pit. The bronze man scooped this up and tossed the end down to his comp anions. They climbed in.
Within some thirty seconds all five stood at his side, Monk carrying the excited Habeas by a leg.
Chapter 26. PERE TESTON"S END.
DOC SAVAGE and his men made no move to join the fray. They merely looked on. In a fashion, this climax was reminiscent of others which they had witnessed Their policy was never to take human life directly, no matter how great the provocation, but their enemies had a surprisingly regular habit of coming to an untimely end as a result of their own machinations. And their foes were meeting such a fate now.
The master of the giants was a sly devil. He had evidently taken precautions against the possibility that his big fellows might turn upon him. He had plenty of weapons handy. Another giant collapsed before the withering storm of machine-gun lead.
Hack opened up with his rapid-firer. In doing so he made a fatal mistake, for he neglected to shelter himself suffi ciently.
Hack"s late chief returned the fire. Hack suddenly dropped his machine gun. He stood very straight and stiff and turned slowly, while a crimson flood began seeping from his body, as if it were sieved with many holes. His final collapse was abrupt, and marked the complete departure of life.
"Let"s get out of range," Doc directed. "Over to the end of the island will do." They worked across the rocky surface of the isle, pausing frequently to watch the progress of the fight.
They saw that the steel-haired girl had escaped from the headquarters shack, and was retreating furtively.
Her course took her toward the same headland for which Doc and his men were making.
The master of the giants -- he was far from being their master now -- had not noticed her departure. He was too busy dealing with his erstwhile monster followers.
"Got your eye on the girl?" Doc demanded of his men. "Sure," Monk grunted. "The way she"s going, she"ll join us at the end of the island."
"Keep her with you," Doc directed. Then the bronze man dropped back.
Monk also halted. He stared anxiously after Doc, then called. "Hey, what Ham grasped the homely chemist"s arm. "You"re holding up our stroll, you missing link. Come on.".
They sprinted toward the farthermost end of the island.
DOUBLED LOW among the rocks, at times moving on all fours, Doc Savage made himself as inconspicuous as possible. He watched the giants closely, in order to avoid coming too near them.
Doc was making for the shack where he had found the strangely immobile prisoner -- the poor unfortunate who was under the effect of the drug.
The bronze man could now see the shack among the boulders. He circled warily, apparently oblivious to the fighting off to his right.
The monster man guarding the hut had not quitted his post. The big fellow was bouncing about in impatience and making rage sounds.
The giant paced away uncertainly, as if to join the fight. Coming to a pause, he lumbered around and glared at the hut. He gibbered more wrath.
It was obvious that the stupid fellow considered the helpless man inside responsible for the unpleasant things which had befallen him. Emitting a roar, the monster charged the shack. He crashed in the covering with his fist and began tearing the framework apart Doc Savage p;itched from cover. Swooping as he ran, he scooped up two flinty, elongated pebbles, each nearly the size of a man"s fist. He held one of these in either hand; they were his only weapons.
The monster was on the point of forcing entry to the hut. Doc yelled. The man-monstrosity wheeled, attention attracted. He perceived that Doc was going to attack. He hurriedly scrambled out of the hole he had opened in the hut wall.
Doc did not pause in his rush. It seemed that he intended to come to grips with the huge fellow. The monster opened enormous hands, spread his arms to receive the bronze man.
Giant among ordinary men though Doc was, he seemed diminutive alongside his huge foe.
What occurred next surprised the monster. Doc folded down, almost against the ground. The monster"s hands clutched empty air.
There came two loud cracking noises. The man-thing squawled in agony. With the stones gripped in his fists, Doc had struck each of the fellow"s kneecaps a hard blow. The bronze man sprang clear. He dropped his rocks and shoveled up handfuls of the fine sand underfoot.
The man-giant had grasped his kneecaps and was walling like a small boy who had fallen down.
Doc rushed him again.
The monster straightened, bellowing, to meet him.
Doc flung his fine sand into the big one"s eyes.
The gritty particles blinded the monster. It weaved In aimless circles, howling, swinging random blows that encountered nothing.
Doc Savage darted into the hut. He scopped up the drugged man who lay there and bore him out.
Carrying the unfortunate, Doc ran to join his companions.
THE FIGHT between the giants and their late chief was rapidly approaching its gory end.
The master of the giants, keeping under cover, had not shown himself to Doc and the others. They had not, as yet, identified the fellow by sight.
The chief villain now began hur?ling small metal cannisters out of his retreat. These burst with slightly more noise than bad eggs, and spewed a lemon-colored vapor. This fog spread rapidly. It swathed the giants in a citrous mantle. The monsters began to scream and stagger in agony.
Renny and the others, nearing the opposite side of the island, could see the affair.
"Poison gas!" Renny rumbled.
There was a breeze across the isle. This swept such of the gas as fell short directly toward the monster men. Two of them turned to flee, but were too late. The lemon-hued cloud descended upon them.
"Whe-ew!" breathed Renny. "me breeze is a lucky break for us."
Not until much later did Renny realize that it was foresight against just such a contingency which had moved Doc to direct them toward the side of the island where the wind would sweep the gas away before it could reach his companions.
It became apparent that all of the attacking party -- giants and normal men alike -- were certain to be smitten by the poison vapor.
The men of ordinary size dropped almost instantly after encountering the fumes. The giants, with their infinitely greater vitality, survived some moments after the stuff swept over them.
A strange vengeance befell the master of the giants. The fellow had, no doubt, seized the three black pinhead savages against their will, and by feeding them his sinister concoction by force, had turned them into giants.
It was this seizure of the pinheads, indirectly, which had put Doc Savage on the fantastic trail, for the pinheads had escaped from the island to wreak vengeance upon the man who had mistreated them -- Bruno Hen. The beating Bruno Hen had administered to the little black fellows, when they came pleading for food, had later been the cause of his own death.
And it was the three monster black pinheads who now wrought justice upon the czar of the giants. They,alone, did not swerve when the poison gas bit them. Probably they did not know what the stuff was, did not realize they were doomed, for all of their great size.
The three of them fell upon the headquarters shack. There was reenacted much the same drama which must have marked the demise of Bruno Hen. The monster pinheads beat at the sides of the shack. They flung themselves headlong and crashed in its walls.
Disappearing inside, they sought the man who had made them the hideous things they were. An awful screeching arose as their enormous hands found their quarry.
They hauled the lifeless body from the shattered shack and tossed it away as if it were an unclean thing.
The body fell at some distance, and the pinheads started after it, as if to wreak further vengeance. But the gas was having its effect; They began to claw at their chests. They pawed at their great mouths. They sank to their knees. After swaying there for a moment they toppled over, one at a time.
These three black monsters were the last of all the giants to die.
DOC SAVAGE joined his five men. Over one shoulder he carried the figure of the man he had rescued.
The steel-haired girl had joined the group. They all stared at Doc"s burden. They noted the wizened, extremely pallid countenance of it.
The homely Monk scratched in the reddish bristles which furred the nape of his neck.
"This fellow answers the description of Pere Teston," he muttered.
"No doubt we will find be is Pere Teston," Doc replied.
It was some fifteen minutes before Doc"s surmise was ver?ified. There was still danger from the gas cloud which covered the other end of the island. While waiting for the wind to sweep it out over the lake, Doc Savage swam to the spot where they had dropped their equipment.
He dived until he found the box he desired. He brought it ash.o.r.e. The container held medical supplies, restoratives, stimulants.
Using these, Doc revived Pere Teston. Before long the man could speak coherently.
"You are Pere Teston?" Doc questioned.
The wizened man nodded. "They have been holding me here for months -- a prisoner."
"Why?"
"My chemical compound!" Pere Teston wailed. "I only intended to develop super farm animals. But they used it on men. They kept me here, made me mix the stuff."
Doc gestured toward the other side of the island. "How did the master of the giants first find out about your compound?"
Pere Teston grimaced and shuddered. "I went to him, hoping he would supply money to finance my experiments."
Doc straightened. He moistened a finger and held it up to judge the strength of the breeze. "The gas has been swept away by now," he decided. "We could go over and take a look at the fellow who was behind all this."
Monk and the others ran ahead, anxious to be first to view the features of the master villain.
The steel-haired girl lingered behind. She kept her eyes on Doc. "You have guessed who he is?"
Doc Savage nodded. "When the giants made their raid on Trapper Lake, it was clear who he was. The fellow wanted to get away to supervise personally the raid of his monster men. So he had his giants come and get him."
Monk reached the spot where the czar of the giants lay. His loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n as he glimpsed the lifeless features carried distinctly.
"Griswold Rock!" he squawked. "Griswold Rock was the guy behind all this!"
THE GROUP, which had gone to the body of Griswold Rock, came back. Their return was slow, for they angled right and left, inspecting the gigantic hulks of the men-monsters and the bodies of the thugs of normal size.
"The gang is all done for," Monk told Doc, when he had reached the bronze man.
Monk"s words, in a sense, marked the end of the menace of the monsters.
It also signified the beginning of what, to the rest of the world, became a profound mystery. Doc and his men never told of the isle or of what had happened there.
Steel-haired Jean Morris, given her chance by a motion-picture company, on Doc"s recommendation, became within a few months a star of some magnitude. She never told of the isle, either. It was something she wanted to forget.
Nor did Pere Teston talk. He followed a suggestion which Doc Savage made. Questioning him, Doc learned that Pere Teston was actually a man of great mental ability. The bronze man placed a considerable sum of money at Pere Teston"s disposal for use in making scientific experiments. But Pere Teston"s future work had nothing to do with increasing the size of men or animals.
"I"ll never touch that stuff again," Pere Teston declared.
Pere Teston"s grat.i.tude to Doc Savage was profound. Many times he expressed his feelings.
"Anything I can do to repay you," he said earnestly. "Anything."