THE SPEAKING STONE

A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson

Originally published in Doc Savage magazine November 1941

A Complete Book-length Novel

by Kenneth Robeson

Chapter I embarrassed by the coming of the newspa-

RED VEST permen, because he had always gone to
great lengths to avoid publicity. Therefore,
THE story that brought the newspa- Doc did not notice the small man right away.
permen to the little island of Jinx in the South He was an avid little man, this fellow in
Pacific had nothing to do with the little man the red vest. He came with the others to
with the red vest, other, of course, than it ac- meet Doc Savage, but he remained in the
counted for his arriving in the plane with the background. And although he had paper and
reporters. pencil in hand, he did not ask any questions.
Doc Savage did not give the little man The small man just tucked a thumb in
with the vest any particular notice. Doc was an armhole of his red vest and listened. He
2 DOC SAVAGE

had a small, pinched, quizzical face that had The little man looked at Renny. Then
not much expression, except the quizzical he screamed. There was the quality of
one. Neither did it have a normal amount of ripped-out lungs in his shriek.
color; it seemed to have been washed with He turned and ran.
acid, the way a piece of cloth is bleached. Renny Renwick was gap-mouthed with
The other newspapermen asked plenty of surprise. Then he began laughing. “Holy
questions. Their inquiries were a flood. cow!” he said. “What kind of a gag is this?”
One could have suspected that the But then the little man with the red vest
man in the red vest was not interested in the fell dead!
questions. The inquiries were about an ad-
venture in which Doc Savage had just par-
ticipated, an affair in which an ocean liner THERE was no mark on his body. That
had been taken over, crew and passengers, was the first thing that they noticed. And so
by some gentlemen with more greed and they thought he was not dead; that this was
nerve than ability to finish what they had just more of a joke. A peculiar joke, but
started. Doc Savage had become involved in surely a gag. All but Doc Savage, that is. The
the affair, and his hard, bronze hand had bronze man’s features were so devoid of ex-
ended it on the side of justice, and somewhat pression that they were a little strange.
on the spectacular side. (See Pirate Isle) Johnny Littlejohn—Johnny was William
The man wearing the red vest showed Harper Littlejohn, another of Doc Savage’s
interest, though, in the attitude of the news- five assistants, a renowned archaeologist
papermen toward Doc Savage. Doc was a and geologist—held the small man’s wrist for
celebrity, a man of great accomplishments, a a while. He dropped the wrist. Bewildered, he
man of mystery. All of that was in the attitude looked up. “Doc, is he— How could he be?”
of the newspaper writers. They were courte- Doc Savage examined the small man.
ous to Savage. They were very polite to him. The others watched. Doc was a man of many
A thorough newspaperman is usually courte- abilities and many surprises, with the great-
ous only to the leaders of religious faiths and est of his skills being in surgery. There
the President of the United States. probably was not a great surgeon in the
The “red vest” seemed deeply pleased world who was not familiar with one or an-
by this evidence that Doc Savage was not other of his developments in operative tech-
run-of-the-mill. nique.
The newspapermen went away, and “Dead!” Doc said.
the little man went with them. “But he just fell over, ” gasped William
He came back later, alone. Harper Littlejohn. “I’ll be superamalgamated!
He stood in front of Doc Savage. An uncomeatability.”
“Renny Renwick?” he asked. He spoke Johnny had a habit of long words.
as if the name was hard for him, and he had Big-fisted Renny Renwick, for whom
put a great deal of time on saying it over and the small man with the vest had asked,
over, so that it would be very perfect. rubbed his jaw in amazement. He took an
Colonel John Renny Renwick was one absent step or two backward as if he wanted
of a crew of five specialized assistants which to get away from the situation. Then some-
Doc Savage maintained. thing occurred to him. He went to the small
“Over there,” Doc Savage said, point- dead man and bent over.
ing. But the bronze man—Doc Savage was a Renny picked up the object that had
giant man of bronze—watched the small man rolled out of the small man’s fingers—the
intently. object that was pale-blue and round.
Renny Renwick had two identifying “What,” Johnny asked him, “is that?”
tags—a going-to-a-funeral face and a pair of Renny stared at the thing.
fists that could have been subdivided into a “What is it?” Johnny repeated.
half dozen pairs of normal fists. “A rock,” Renny said thoughtfully. “Just
The little man with the vest looked at a rock. Round and blue and not very heavy.”
Renny, then took something out of his pocket. Johnny stepped forward. “Let’s see it,”
They did not notice the object, except that it he said.
was pale-blue and round.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 3

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
DOC SAVAGE AND HIS PALS
When you get to know Doc Savage and his five aids, you'll find that you know a group worth
while—a half dozen altruistic adventurers who roam the world around, helping out the under-
dog—when the underdog is right—and punishing evildoers without taking human life, whenever
it is at all possible to avoid doing so. Incorrigible tough guys who make the mistake of stacking
up against Doc Savage are usually sent to Doc's special "college" in upstate New York, and
there, through expert treatment, sometimes involving delicate brain operations, are turned into
real men who forget their vicious past and start out fresh as new and useful citizens ranged on
the side of law and order. Doc Savage is one of the most skilled surgeons in the world, and has
accomplished what might seem to be modern miracles. His five companions are not surgeons,
but they're at the top of their own professions. HAM—Brigadier General Theodore Marley
Brooks, the smartest lawyer ever turned out by Harvard, and best dresser ever turned out by
high-class tailors, and an efficient fighter with his unusual drug-tipped sword cane. MONK —
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, who looks a good deal like a gorilla and a tough
hombre in a scrap, but actually one of the world's foremost chemists. LONG TOM—Major Tho-
mas J. Roberts, who is a veritable wizard in the field of electricity. RENNY—Colonel John Ren-
wick, an eminent engineer. JOHNNY —William Harper Littlejohn, renowned geologist and ar-
chaeologist, whose research work has taken him to the fringes of civilization.
They're the perfect group of adventurers, and no struggle is too tough for them. You'll never
meet a bunch like this, ever again!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“It’s nothing but a rock. Guess he “Monk’s voice!” he croaked. “Monk’s
picked it up.” voice in this rock! You can hear it!”
A note of excitement came into William Harper Littlejohn’s face be-
Johnny’s voice. “No, he didn’t,” he said. “Not came a foolish grin. He couldn’t stomach
on this island, he didn’t. That rock—it’s a stuff about a rock talking. But it was not a
strange—” joke and not a lie; the stark set of Renny’s
He broke off, because Renny was sud- face told him that.
denly looking as if the stone had bitten him. “Voice?” Johnny said.
His eyes got very round. “Hey!” he muttered. Renny nodded. “Monk’s voice.”
“I’ve seen this rock before. It’s Monk May- Johnny kept his foolish grin until the
fair’s pocket piece! He’s carried it for impossibility of the thing made him explode,
months—or did. ” “You must be insane!”
The last, the “or did,” was a natural af- Renny grimaced. He spread the cor-
terthought, because Monk Mayfair, fourth ners of his mouth. “Holy cow!” He sounded
member of their group, was not with them on almost frightened.
Jinx Island. He was in South America. Monk Doc Savage swung suddenly forward
was a chemist, and he was supposed to be and leaned close to the blue stone without
in Patagonia somewhere, giving a whaling touching it or taking it from Renny’s hands.
company valuable information about how to He listened intently, his eyes half closed.
get the most out of their whales. Then the bronze man slowly straight-
Johnny, the geologist, scowled at the ened. His facial expression did not change to
stone. “Where’d Monk get that rock? I don’t any great extent. But the others knew that he
place its type. Here—let me see—” was emotionally moved when they heard a
Renny started violently. He did a small trilling sound, a low and exotic note as
strange thing—put the stone to his ear, as if strange as the call of some tiny tropical bird,
he had heard something. His face screwed as vagrant as a wind over polar ice. The
into a listening grimace, then slowly emptied sound seemed to come from everywhere and
of color. yet from nowhere, with a ventriloqual quality.
4 DOC SAVAGE

It was the sound Doc Savage unconsciously Doc Savage then sank to a knee and
made when intensely excited. quickly removed the red vest from the small
“He isn’t insane,” the bronze man said dead man.
in a low voice. The tall newsman with the black mice
for eyebrows scowled, said, “Hey, that’s
funny cloth that thing is made of. Let’s have a
look at it!”
Doc Savage seemed not to hear the
fellow. He stood with the vest in his hands
and wheeled.
“Here!” barked the reporter. “Let me
see that!”
Doc Savage walked away, still without
appearing to have heard him.
Renny, Long Tom and Johnny stood
with Doc Savage beside the lifeboat. Johnny
made sputtering noises, finally got out an
excited, “I’ll be superamalgamated! Let’s see
that speaking stone!”
Doc Savage handed him the round
blue rock. Johnny immediately clamped it to
his ear. But nothing seemed to happen.
The bony, big-worded archaeologist
and geologist looked up. “I don’t hear any-
thing. Did it really talk?”
“It really talked,” Renny said.
Johnny listened to the stone for a while.
ONE of the newspapermen who had Then he lowered it. He frowned. “Now,
appeared on the plane came into view then, look—that’s too screwy! A talking stone.
apparently just out for a walk with nothing on Don’t give me that!”
his mind. But he saw the prone figure of the Renny compressed his lips, turned
man with the vest. slowly to Doc Savage. “What about it, Doc?”
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. Then
he turned and yelled at the other newsmen,
“Hey, you lugs! Something’s on out here!”
The newspaperman who had shouted
was tall and ran to bones. He had a stony,
unpleasant face, equipped with a pair of
black mice for eyebrows.
The other newshawks popped up from
various places.
Long Tom Roberts appeared, also.
Long Tom was the remaining member of Doc
Savage’s five-man group of assistants. There
was nothing particularly outstanding about
him. Quite the contrary, he looked as if he
had grown up in a particularly deep mush-
room cellar. Not realizing what had happened,
he stared at them, muttered, “Who’s the little
guy with the vest?”
Doc Savage caught his eye and made
a slight negative gesture, then indicated a
lifeboat drawn up on the beach. Long Tom
walked to the boat.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 5

“The stone spoke,” the bronze man Having refloated the liner, most of the
said. tugs had departed, but two of them were
That, as far as Johnny Littlejohn was standing by to see that nothing more went
concerned, settled the point of the stone wrong. The radio apparatus of the City of
speaking. It had spoken, if Doc said so. Tulsa had been put out of commission during
“All right,” Johnny said, “explain how a the adventures, but the tugs, being large
rock can talk, somebody?” seagoing craft, both had powerful radio
The bronze man did not answer. He equipment.
was examining the red vest. The fabric was Doc Savage used the radio equipment
unusual. It did not seem to be fabric at all, of one of the tugs to dispatch a radiogram to
but some other substance that was closely the newspaper La Pluma, of Buenos Aires,
akin to a plastic. asking if they employed a correspondent
Then, abruptly, the bronze man rolled named Jones, who would be in the South
the vest into a small package. He took off his Seas at the present time. To make sure there
coat and bundled the vest inside that, then was no error about Jones, Doc Savage in-
handed it to Renny Renwick. “Take care of cluded a full description of the small man with
this,” he said. the red vest. He mentioned the vest.
Puzzled, Renny asked, “You mean— He waited for an answer.
nobody is to look at it?” The newspapermen, inclined to couple
“Right.” anything unusual with some spectacular feat
The newspaper reporters ap- by Doc Savage, were not satisfied that the
proached—that was obviously why Doc had little man with the red vest had simply col-
hastened to get the vest out of sight—with a lapsed of heart failure.
barrage of questions: What had killed Jones? Doc Savage did not say he had died of
What was going on? How had Jones died? heart failure. But the bronze man did ask a
“The little man was named Jones?” number of questions about the man’s
Doc Savage asked. health—if he had ever mentioned heart fail-
“Yes, that was right. Or so he had ure, fear of heart trouble, or any similar mal-
said.” ady.
“What newspaper did he represent?” “To tell the truth,” said the newspaper-
“He worked for La Pluma, of Buenos man he was questioning, “we did not know a
Aires, South America,” someone said. lot about the little guy.”
The long string of bones with the mice
for eyebrows was staring at Johnny Littlejohn.
“What’s the idea of holding that rock to your
ear?” he asked.
Johnny tried not to look foolish and
took the stone away from his ear.

THE situation on the island was this:

On the island was a home and apparatus for
taking plankton from the sea. This plant had
been erected by a scientist for experimental
purposes, and it was the cause of the trouble
that had just been settled. Also on the island
was a plane, the one in which the newspa-
permen had arrived. There was no other
available means of transportation to or from
the island.
However, anchored offshore was the
small ocean-going liner City of Tulsa, which
had been run aground during the course of
the lately settled adventures, and which had
been floated by a battery of tugs that had “Except Bear Cub,” interposed another
come from Tahiti and other South Sea ports. newsman.
6 DOC SAVAGE

“Bear Cub?” asked Doc Savage. “Why are you not letting me see it?”
“That reporter from the Melbourne Ad- Bear Cub countered. “Afraid I might find out
vertiser,” the newshawk explained. “The long something?”
and bony fellow, you know. ” Doc Savage did not care for the man’s
“The one with the eyebrows?” tone. Renny Renwick had knotted his big
“Yes. The black eyebrows.” fists several times, wanting to take a swing at
“What,” asked Doc Savage, “about Bear Cub.
Bear Cub?” Bear Cub glared at them all, then
“Oh, he seemed to take a liking to little snorted violently. “I’m not bluffed by you big
Jones,” one of the others explained. “Shined shots,” he said. “And don’t try pushing me
right up to him. Gave him cigarettes and sat around, or I’ll cut loose and rain a bit on you.”
around talking to him. Followed him around, Renny told him, “Now you’re talking the
in fact.” kind of language I half expected out of you.
The other newspaper reporter cor- Don’t get too near the end of the plank, my
rected, “He talked to Jones, you mean. Little eyebrow-heavy friend. You might get
Jones didn’t do much talking. Bear Cub did it dunked.”
all.” Bear Cub said something under his
“Yes, that’s right, now that I think of it,” breath—something not complimentary—and
said the other member of the press. strode away. He was not afraid of them. That
“Jones did not speak very good Eng- was obvious. And he had an extraordinary
lish,” Doc Savage suggested. dislike for them.
“He spoke a funny kind of English,” Johnny Littlejohn said, “A protervitive
agreed the newspaperman. “Careful. No ac- personality.”
cent that you could place. Not a Spanish ac- Renny looked that up later and found
cent, anyway. Just careful talking. That was out it meant something simple, like “quarrel-
Jones.” some fellow.” Which was a big-worded way
Doc Savage was silent a moment. of putting a fact.
“You did not know him well—but Bear Cub Long Tom reached them out of breath.
did?” “Got a radio answer from that South
“That’s it.” American newspaper,” he gasped.
Doc Savage found the man called Bear “Yes?”
Cub. The fellow greeted them shortly, without “They don’t have any correspondent
much courtesy. His eyes were small and dark named Jones, or anyone who answers the
under his remarkable eyebrows. He was not description of the small man with the vest,”
a likeable personality, seemed aware of it Long Tom explained.
and apparently did not care.
“Look, you can’t pump me about the lit-
tle guy,” he said scowling, “because I never
got anything out of him. Sure I hung around
him. That was because I figured he was a
little nut of some kind.”
“You cannot tell us anything about
him?”
“No. ”
“Where did he join your group?”
“Tahiti.”
“Where did you join the group?”
“Tahiti.”
“Had you ever met the small man be-
fore?”
Bear Cub snorted. He ignored the
question. “How about letting me have a look
at that red vest?” he growled.
“Why are you so interested in the LONG TOM ROBERTS and Johnny
vest?” Doc Savage asked. Littlejohn held a private conference that eve-
ning. They sat on the beach with long white
 THE SPEAKING STONE 7

waves crawling up and creaming on the sand

at their feet, with fish jumping in the lagoon, LONG TOM left Johnny Littlejohn on
with lights of the steamer dancing spots of the beach and walked into the jungle. The
gold out across the sea. electrical expert was excited at the idea of
Long Tom strained sand through his getting hold of Bear Cub. It was Long Tom’s
fingers. “There is something mysterious be- conviction—the thought was frequently
hind this business,” he said. “I can tell by the shared by the bronze man’s other associ-
way Doc is acting. You can always tell when ates—that Doc Savage’s fist was not hard
Doc gets wind of something big and probably enough when he dealt with fellows like Bear
fantastic.” Cub. Long Tom liked action. He planned,
Johnny grunted. “Jones had nothing in frankly, to work Bear Cub over with his fists
his baggage that a newspaperman would and see what he could pound out of the fel-
have. Apparently, he wasn’t a newspaper- low.
man, at all.” Bundled in his own thoughts, Long
Johnny was using small words. He did Tom walked into the end of a gun before he
not often do this unless he was too preoccu- realized there was such a thing about!
pied or too excited—though it was not often “Looking for me?” asked the voice be-
he got too excited to think of large words. hind the gun.
“The red vest,” said Long Tom, “is what Long Tom exhaled a deep breath.
narrows my eye. What do you make of it?” “You!” he said.
“Unusual material.” The voice—it was not pleasant—said,
“Not cloth. You know, I sneaked it out “Getting a long nose, ain’t you?”
of Doc’s coat and gave it a good looking over. “Meaning?”
I even put it on.” “The little guy in the red vest, the rock
“Feel anything when you had it on?” that talked and so on.”
“No, of course not. But I did notice Startled, Long Tom blurted, “You knew
seve ral things. First, of course, it’s made of about the rock and what made it talk?”
some stuff that is like plastic glass, but The other said quietly, “This is what
probably it isn’t. The coloring isn’t fast. It kind made it speak. Here, look.” He held out a
of rubs off on you—not much, but a little.” hand.
“Renny still have that rock?” It was the oldest of fighting tricks. Get
“No. That is, he doesn’t have it now. I the other guy to look at something while you
saw Doc ask him for it just before dinner.” slug him. Long Tom fell for it. He got a vague
“You figure that rock really said any- impression of something—probably a hard
thing?” flexible tree root shaped like a blackjack—
“Doc said it talked, didn’t he?” coming around and down on his head. He
They were silent. The moon was a sil- knew, also, momentarily, that things were
ver tint on the horizon. Behind them in the going to turn black. And very black indeed
bushes, two tropical birds got involved in a was what everything became!
quarrel that sounded like two hags fighting.
“Jones asked for Renny,” Long Tom fi-
nally reminded. “And neither Renny nor any- Chapter II
one else has said what the speaking stone ABOUT A STONE
said to him. And this reporter guy, this Bear
Cub, as they call him, is behaving strangely.” DOC SAVAGE proceeded with his in-
Long Tom abruptly got to his feet. “You know vestigation with what seemed to be too much
something?” leisure. He dawdled, in the opinion of Renny
“What?” and Johnny, who watched him with initial irri-
“I’m gonna find this Bear Cub and have tation. The bronze man browsed around
a little nose-rubbing with him.” Long Tom— without a point, it appeared; and some of the
he was far more man than he looked— time, it was not even evident that he was af-
hitched his belt. “I’ll bet I get words out of ter information.
him.”
“Want any help?”
“No, thanks.”
8 DOC SAVAGE

“He was a queer little guy, Jones was,”

Wilfair said. “Come to think of it, he didn’t act
much like a newspaper correspondent. I
didn’t think much of it at the time.”
Renny remarked, “I should think you
would be able to recognize anyone in the
same profession as yourself.”
Wilfair Wickard shrugged. “It’s not like
it used to be. A lot of people are correspon-
dents who have never been near a newspa-
per office. It works like this: You build your-
self a reputation; then somebody with a chain
of newspapers hires you as an expert on
what you are supposed to know. You don’t
even have to know how to write. The poor
devils in the home office whip it into readable
shape for twenty-five dollars a week.”
Wickard grinned faintly. “Had strange dreams
at night, little Jones did.”
“Dreams?” Doc Savage said.
“Nightmares, maybe you’d call them,”
Wickard explained. “I remember the night
before we left Tahiti in the plane. Jones
busted into my room. It must have been three
o’clock in the morning. He thanked me for
sending a drink up to his room.”
“Drink?”
“The strange thing,” said Wilfair
Wickard, “is that I hadn’t sent him any drink.
It was whiskey. One of those tiny bottles of it,
you know—the size that holds an individual
serving. It was Scotch whiskey.”
“Jones had it?”
“Oh, yes—in his hand. He assured me
that he didn’t drink. He handed it to me, say-
Long Tom got a vague impression of
something, probably a tree root shaped ing it was a shame to have it go to waste.
like a blackjack —coming around and And then he looked at me in the strangest
way and said that it was poison; that it
down on his head!
would—”
Johnny and Renny became disgusted. Wickard’s mouth remained open. His
breathing and pulse seemed to stop.
Then, quite unexpectedly, they were
ashamed of themselves. The shame came “Poison!” he exploded. “Great grief! Do
when it was apparent that Doc Savage had you suppose—”
“Do you still have that bottle?”
been sneaking up on the quail, as it were.
When the bird broke cover, it was this: Tightly excited, Wickard nodded. “Sure!
Someone had made a previous attempt to I kept it. Tossed it into my brief case for a lift
later, in case I needed one.”
murder Jones.
A newspaper reporter named Wilfair He wheeled, ran for the thatched shel-
Wickard unwittingly pushed the skunk out ter which the newspaper correspondents had
erected for themselves. When he came back,
into the air. Wilfair Wickard was a well-
constructed young man with an enormous he had the small flask.
inferiority complex about his name. The first Doc Savage spent fifteen minutes ana-
lyzing the contents of the bottle, then said,
thing he told people was to call him Spike or
Bill or Butch—something besides Wilfair. “Whoever put in the poison knew about poi-
sons. There is enough to kill a man instantly,
yet not so much that it would be noticed.”
 THE SPEAKING STONE 9

Wilfair Wickard got his lips loose “Meaning?”

enough to say, “Somebody tried to kill Jones “On top of the waves. More favorable
and lay it onto me!” breeze down there. And if you get a case of
motor trouble at sea, altitude doesn’t help
you a hell of a lot. One wave is about as hard
DOC SAVAGE entered into a really as another.”
complete examination of the body of Jones. Renny Renwick was amazed.
He did this privately, in the house of the sci- “You mean,” he said, “that you flew low
entist who lived on Jinx Island. The newspa- all the time the small man with the red vest
permen, as well as his own assistants, were was with you?”
excluded. “Never over five thousand.”
“I wonder, ” said Renny, “what has be- Renny went back to Doc Savage with
come of Long Tom? Haven’t seen him this information. “The little guy didn’t get the
around for some time.” stratosphere sickness on that plane, it’s sure.
“Probably out to the steamer,” Johnny You positive that’s what he had?”
suggested. “The Chinese have an old saying that
Doc Savage finished his inspection of ‘only fool is positive,’” Doc told him.
the small man who had died so strangely, “Hm -m-m!” Renny rubbed the side of
then joined Renny and Johnny. his long face with an enormous hand. “I won-
“What was the cause, Doc?” Renny der if anybody besides me is puzzled by
asked. “Those newspaper guys—that wise this.”
guy, Bear Cub, at any rate—claim that just “Where’s Long Tom?” Johnny de-
looking at me is what scared Jones to death.” manded querulously. “Funny he would go off
“Stratosphere sickness,” Doc Savage like this. I just got in touch with the steamer,
said. and he isn’t out there.”
“Huh?”
“Occasionally, it is given other names.
Extremely technical, some of them,” Doc DOC SAVAGE had never sought pub-
Savage told them quietly. “But stratosphere licity, so Renny and Johnny were astounded
sickness is the best description.” when he called the newspapermen together
“How come?” and told them about the talking stone. This
“The small man died from being too was astonishing for two reasons. First, telling
high in the air for too long a time,” Doc said. news writers was the last thing natural to Doc
Renny considered that. “Holy cow.” He Savage. Second, it was a goofy yarn.
reviewed his experience with flying. “From The newspapermen’s faces had an as-
being too high, eh? How high would you sortment of expressions when Doc finished.
say?” None of them believed there was a speaking
“Above twenty thousand feet.” stone, and all of them were too polite to say
“Over twenty thousand, eh?” Renny so. Perhaps “polite” was the word. Probably it
pondered some more. “Say, I’ve done a lot of wasn’t. You did not doubt the words of a man
flying. You and I and all of us have done a lot of Doc Savage’s reputation to that man’s
of it, and not a little at above twenty thousand face.
feet. I never got anything like stratosphere “I detect skepticism,” Doc Savage said.
sickness.” “It should be allayed, don’t you think?”
“You did it with oxygen equipment and “I think allaying it would be fine, ” said
much of it in planes equipped with pressure Bear Cub. “Then you might allay the red
cabins,” Doc reminded him. vest.”
Renny nodded, but he was not satis- Doc Savage passed the reference to
fied. He wandered over to the thatched the vest. “The stone,” he said, “should be
abode of the newsmen and cornered the pilot where I concealed it in a nearby thicket.”
of the plane which had brought them. The The thicket proved to be one of thorns.
pilot was a lean young man who was rather It was a very good hiding place. It seemed to
bored. Renny asked him, “Mind telling me at be impenetrable, unless one was equipped
what altitudes you flew between here and so as not to feel pain or had the skin of a rhi-
Tahiti?” noceros.
“We flying-fished it all the way.”
10 DOC SAVAGE

Renny, Johnny and the newspapermen All journalists were present and accounted
encountered the thorns, retreated and waited. for.
It was night, and rather dark night for the “I don’t,” repeated Renny, “see the bot-
tropics at this season. Doc went on into the tom in this.”
thicket, somehow. “Suppose you had a dog, ” Doc Savage
Suddenly, there was a loud uproar said.
from the central section of the thorn thicket. “I haven’t, but I can suppose.”
The uproar was a mixture of scuffle, blows “The dog is trying to bite somebody. It
and a yell. The yell was in Doc Savage’s might be you. What would you do?”
voice, and it was not in any sense placid. “Shoot the dog, if it was practical.”
Then silence. “It might not be practical.”
“Doc!” Renny bellowed. “In that case,” said Renny, “I’d probably
The silence continued. shut the cuss up somewhere.”
“Doc, what happened?” Renny roared. “Suppose,” said Doc Savage, “you shut
Renny’s voice was extraordinary even him up. Then you heard a dog barking. What
on normal occasions. Now, it was loud would you do?”
enough to cause them to turn on a search- “Run like hell to see if my dog was out,”
light aboard the steamer. Renny said.
They found Doc Savage prone and Doc Savage nodded seriously.
motionless in the thicket, though they were “The act I put on back there in the
well scratched by thorns when they reached thorn thicket,” Doc said, “was the dog bark-
him. Renny worked over him a while, and ing.”
Doc opened his eyes. Renny eyed the newspapermen. “The
“The stone,” Doc said weakly. “A man.” facts run over me finally. Now we wait for one
Renny rumbled, “Somebody got the of those poison-pen boys to make a break to
rock?” see about the dog he thought he had tied
“Yes. Someone attacked me with a up.”
club,” Doc Savage said. “He escaped.” “Something,” Doc said, “like that.”
“Who’s the dog, in this case?”
“Might be Long Tom Roberts,” Doc
IT was, when Renny came to think of it, Savage said.
the first time that anyone had taken Doc
Savage by surprise sufficiently to be able to
rap him over the head with a club. Not that Chapter III
Doc Savage was too good to be taken by LIFE INSURANCE
surprise, but when the bronze man was am-
bushed, it was usually something out of the THE tropical night was gently balmy
ordinary that did it. Not just a plain clubbing. with the breeze off the sea. On the anchored
But the thing seemed perfectly natural the liner, the orchestra was playing slow music
way the bronze man told it. that carried faintly to the island. Considering
Renny saw the true situation when he what had lately happened to the liner, it was
and Johnny were helping Doc Savage good now to hear music from the ship.
through the night to their quarters in the sci- “There,” said Renny at last, “goes our
entist’s house. man.”
As soon as they were away from the A figure had casually detached from
others, Doc Savage suddenly was not dazed. the group around the fire and sauntered
“Let me down,” he said in a low voice. “And away. It was not at first evident who the indi-
get into action. We have to watch those vidual was. Renny counted faces around the
newspapermen.” fire.
“Eh?” Renny said. “I don’t get this.” “Holy cow!” he muttered. “I figured it
Doc Savage was patient in not answer- would be Bear Cub, but it isn’t.”
ing. He waited until they were outside the They trailed the man who had left the
campfire, which the newspapermen had built fire. The man walked casually for a while.
in front of their thatched domicile prior to the Then, just as they were beginning to wonder
appearance of Doc with the speaking-stone if he was an innocent chap, out for exercise,
story. Doc counted the figures about the fire.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 11

he suddenly doubled into the brush. They in his hand. Doc walked close enough to the
could hear him making tracks, fast. gun that the hammer clicked back with what,
Renny growled angrily at the darkness. to the bronze man, was an unmistakable
“Holy cow! Doc, you stand a better chance of sound. Although he could not see the gun, he
keeping track of the guy. It’s sure all three of knew one was there.
us can’t follow him.” Doc boldly shook a bush and made the
Doc Savage said, “You two go back twittering noises of a tropical bird that had
and keep an eye on the other newspaper- been disturbed. Wilfair Wickard cursed, close
men.” enough that Doc could smell a trace of alco-
Renny and Johnny were disgusted, but hol on his breath.
it was obvious that trailing a man through the Fooled, Wickard went on and joined
jungle in darkness this intense was beyond Bear Cub. Bear Cub was sitting on a lava
their ability. They watched Doc disappear outthrust in pale moonlight, waiting.
into the blackness. “Who the hell,” asked Bear Cub, “got
“Just what,” muttered Renny, “became that stone?”
of the rock? Doc didn’t mention that.” “Didn’t you?” exploded Wickard.
Johnny Littlejohn was silent a moment. “Hell, no!”
“The cirulean vitrescible actually solilo- “Then who did?”
quized?” he asked. They sat there in silence thinking of no
“Come again, ” Renny said, “with little answers to the question. In the bushes, a
ones.” bird fluttered and made the same outcries,
“The stone actually spoke?” purely by accident, which Doc Savage had
“It sure did.” made a bit earlier. Wickard cursed and said,
“You haven’t,” reminded Johnny, “said “That damned bird must be following me.”
what the stone said. Would there be any sig- “Bird?”
nificance in that.” “Oh, forget it. I’m getting jumpy, I
“Plenty.” guess.”
“Of what nature?” “If you ask me, we better do more than
“Jones claimed he came from South get jumpy. We better jump!” said Bear Cub.
America.” “I see your point,” Wickard said.
“So he did.” “My point is Doc Savage. I never saw
“Monk and Ham are in South America. anybody before who impresses me the way
Monk’s voice came from the stone. ” he does. And it’s funny, too. He doesn’t say
“A coincidence on South America,” much, and he hasn’t done anything like shak-
Johnny agreed. “Is it a secret, what the stone ing the earth. But I just look at the guy, and
said?” maybe think of what I have heard about him,
“No secret,” Renny told him. “But first, and I start feeling that—well, he could shake
there was another coincidence. You remem- the earth if he wanted to.”
ber what Doc said Jones seemed to have “That,” said Wickard, “is the point I
died of?” see.”
“Stratosphere sickness.” “There’s another point.”
“Monk’s voice said, ‘It’s five miles in the “Is there?”
sky, Doc. Come prepared, ’“ Renny explained. “The one in hanging around here. Do
“Was that all the rock said?” you see any?”
“It strikes me,” Renny said, “that it was “That is exactly my argument,” Wickard
enough.” told him. “We finally got rid of Jones. Why
stick around?”
Bear Cub grunted sharply. “We didn’t
DOC SAVAGE followed Wilfair get rid of him. Nature took care of that for
Wickard. The well-built young journalist—so us.”
he had claimed—was a woodsman of skill. Wickard swore. “Isn’t that hell? We fol-
He demonstrated a stealth in traveling low the guy umpteen thousand miles, trying
through the jungle that gave Doc Savage to knock him off at every jump and not get-
considerable trouble. Once, he nearly got the ting the job done. And nature steps in and
bronze man, when he stopped unexpectedly does it for us.”
and stood waiting in the darkness with a gun
12 DOC SAVAGE

“Just why,” asked Bear Cub, “did you Wilfair Wickard looked at the knife—
tell Savage about the poisoned bottle of liq- there was some moonlight that glinted on the
uor that Jones handed back to you.” steel—and said, “Don’t you have a ceremony
Wickard chuckled. “That was a or anything? Do you just stick him?”
smoothie, wasn’t it? I happened to think Sav- Bear Cub laughed. “Better get back,”
age might have searched my stuff and found he said. “Sometimes they squirt after the
the poisoned whiskey. So I told him the blade goes in.”
truth—except that I left out that it was I who That got the best of Wickard, and he
sent the liquor up to Jones that night in Tahiti. shuddered from head to foot. He knew from
A real smoothie, wouldn’t you say?” the way that he felt that he was getting pale
“It might not be smart,” said Bear Cub, and maybe was going to faint.
“to depend on smoothies to keep us out of Then the rock said, “It is very high. You
the clutches of this Doc Savage.” will find it five miles up.”
“We can get the plane.” Bear Cub did not realize at once what
“I would say that would be very smart,” had happened. Then it got into his head that
said Bear Cub. “What about the juice that the rock had said something. Bear Cub
makes the plane fly?” seemed about to rise straight off the ground,
“Tanks are full. There was aviation as if something had him by the hair.
gasoline on the steamer, and they filled the “Wicky,” he said. “Did you hear that?”
tanks this morning.” “A tony voice,” Wilfair Wickard said
“Enough gas to take us as far as we breathlessly.
want to go?” Bear Cub fell on the stone. It was
“We might have to stop once. We could smooth and dark, not exactly blue, although it
manage. I know they’ve got radios here, but was hard to tell about the color. Bear Cub
we could manage.” gripped the rock excitedly.
“Then I suggest we do manage.” “Look!” he croaked. “We got one at last.
“What about this cross between a tad- We got one of the speaking stones.”
pole, a fishing worm and a bobcat —this Long Wickard looked at the rock with a more
Tom Roberts?” practical eye. “That isn’t the stone Jones
“I imagine a knife would slip into him if had.”
you pushed it hard enough!” Bear Cub said “But it talked.”
grimly. “It looks to me like an ordinary rock.
You sure it’s a talking stone?”
“Hell, you heard it, didn’t you? It
LONG TOM ROBERTS was gagged spoke!”
and spread-eagled. His agony must have They were silent for a few moments.
been terrible. They had tied each wrist and The orchestra had stopped playing on the
each ankle to a separate tree with lines, so steamer. There was almost no sound from
that he swung his body a yard off the ground, roosting birds, and creaming of surf on the
like a hammock. They had also gagged him distant beach was a very soft noise.
with moss which they had pinned in his Bear Cub pointed at Long Tom excit-
mouth by thrusting long thorns through his edly. “It must have fell out of his pockets
lips. There were other evidences of mis- when we got him. I don’t see how we missed
treatment. it, but it must have been on him.”
Bear Cub gave Long Tom’s posterior a “It isn’t the stone Jones had.”
gentle kick and said, “Well, it’s been nice “No, ” said Bear Cub. “And that means
knowing you.” Bear Cub took a long knife out this guy must know about the speaking
of his clothing. “Very nice—with a messy stones.”
ending.” Wickard swore. “But everybody figured
There was not much capacity for pain, Doc Savage and his men did not know any-
or even for caring what happened to him, left thing about them. They figured Jones was
in Long Tom Roberts. And certainly no ca- going to him for help.”
pacity to move, or ability to do anything for
himself. If death came, which it seemed to be
doing, he would have to lie and take it.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 13

Long Tom Roberts was gagged and spread-eagled, each wrist

and ankle tied to a separate tree. Bear Cub took a long knife
out of his clothing. “Very nice,” he said, “with a messy ending.”

“Everybody could be wrong, ” Bear Cub “Hell’s bells!” barked Bear Cub.
advised him. “Look here. A speaking stone. “They’re wise to us. Savage and his men—
Not the one Jones had. What more do you they must know all about the whole thing.”
want? Of course he knew about the speaking Wickard coughed nervously. “We’ve
stones. More than that, he had one!” been lucky. They’re playing with us.”
“You think we better take him with us?” “Lucky,” Bear Cub said, “if we get off
“Best thing, don’t you figure?” the island. ” He stooped, heaved Long Tom to
“Wait a minute,” Bear Cub said. He his feet, held him. With some difficulty, he got
used his knife to cut Long Tom down from the electrical expert across his shoulders.
the four small trees. The electrical expert, “What’s the idea?” asked Wickard.
when the lines were cut, fell with complete “There’re things this fellow may be able
looseness. His body convulsed slightly after it to tell us,” Bear Cub said. “We’re taking him
hit the earth, then did not move. He said, along.”
“They think we don’t know what the speaking “I’ll take the stone,” Wickard said.
stone is, the fools!” in a voice so low that it
was startling. Thereupon he closed his eyes
and continued not to move.
14 DOC SAVAGE

DOC SAVAGE stood there in the dark- out the fear that he had put into them, they
ness beside a thick tangle of umbrella fern would not have murdered the man.
and listened to the two men stagger away They shot the man because he was
with Long Tom Roberts. operating an aviation-gasoline barge on the
Doc was surprised at the results of his island. He was probably connected with the
practice of ventriloquism. Following Bear Cub navy of Ecuador, the country to which the
and Wickard to the spot, he had tried the islands belonged; or, at least, he had a con-
voice-out -of-a-rock stunt as a kind of desper- tract to supply gasoline to such naval patrol
ate, last-minute measure that might get re - planes that saw the necessity of stopping at
sults and might not. He was no special kind the out-of-the-way and scientifically strange
of ventriloquist. He was good, but no one Galapagos.
was good enough to actually make a rock It was a lonely job. Probably the man
seem to talk in pitch darkness. He had simply did not see a plane or another man a month.
used a voice that was low and vaguely like But he had a radio, and he could have told
the voice of Monk that had come from the the world that the plane carrying Bear Cub,
genuine speaking stone, earlier. Wilfair Wickard and the prisoner, Long Tom
Seeing that the deceit was getting re- Roberts—Doc Savage was careful not to
sults, he had carried it on a bit later by imitat- make himself noticed, although he was get-
ing Long Tom’s voice with the statement: ting more than moderately hungry by now—
“They think we don’t know what the speaking had stopped at the island. So Bear Cub shot
stone is, the fools!” That had been intended him.
to convince the pair that Long Tom had more Bear Cub shot him neatly between the
information than he did have. It had worked eyes three times. Once would have been
excellently. enough. But Bear Cub liked to deal death
It had worked, but it did not make much with a flourish, and so the three shots. The
sense. These two men—this Bear Cub and man fell back in his barge and sat there with
Wickard—had followed Jones from South his hands out and his toes turned in. Three
America, to kill him. And they had wanted to red ribbons crawled out of his forehead, be-
get hold of a speaking stone, as they had coming one that dripped off his chin.
expressed it. Wilfair Wickard was sick.
Doc Savage headed for the beach. Bear Cub laughed and laughed at him.
The seaplane in which the newspa- After Bear Cub had had his laugh, he
permen had arrived was moored offshore, worked on Long Tom Roberts for a while.
but in shallow water. There was no guard Bear Cub wanted to know about the secret of
over it, because there had seemed no sense the rock. Long Tom said he didn’t know any-
in having the plane guarded. thing about any rock. Which was true.
Doc Savage waded out and climbed Bear Cub brought the rock that he
into the plane. He fooled with the stabilizer thought had spoken to him. He showed it to
adjustment for a while, then crawled back Long Tom, and, of course, it meant nothing
through the inspection port into the rear part to the electrical wizard. But, by now, Long
of the fuselage. His tinkering with the bungee, Tom sensed that something eerie had hap-
or stabilizer-tab set -up, balanced the ship so pened, and he connected Doc Savage with
that his added weight far back in the fuselage whatever it was. He stalled Bear Cub. He let
would not be noticed—he hoped. Bear Cub think he knew something, but was
not going to tell it.
In angel, Bear Cub finally got a ham-
Chapter IV mer and broke the rock. He expected to find
THE SOUTH AMERICAN WAY something inside besides stone, obviously,
but stone was what he found.
THEY murdered a man on one of the Finding nothing inside the stone made
Galapagos Islands. Bear Cub shot him. Bear Cub’s mouth and eyes get round, then
Doc Savage had a sickening feeling of narrow. They got narrow, and he turned them
responsibility for the death for, indirectly, he on Wickard.
was probably the cause of it. He had scared Wickard got white.
Wickard and the man called Bear Cub; with- “Wait a minute!” he gasped. “Don’t get
me wrong. I didn’t do nothing.”
 THE SPEAKING STONE 15

Bear Cub, with his voice like his knife, “Sure.”

said, “You maybe didn’t take the stone that So they tied Long Tom and left.
spoke? Oh, no, you wouldn’t do a thing like Doc Savage crawled out of his hiding
that.” place in the back of the plane. This was not
Wickard’s lips shook. “No, Bear Cub,” as simple as it sounded, because he was stiff
he said. “No—please. I didn’t—” from head to foot, so stiff that each move-
“I got a notion to cut your big intestine ment was an individual agony, and some of
out, you handsome yellow pig, ” Bear Cub them almost an impossibility.
told him. They had tied Long Tom in the lavatory,
“I didn’t, Bear Cub.” tied him so that he could move his eyes and
“If you’re getting ready to double-cross not much else. Long Tom did not look as if
the big boss, I ought to cut you wide open,” they had fed him, and his lips where they had
said Bear Cub. been pinned with the thorns were swollen
“I didn’t!” and showing signs of infection. Doc had an
“What makes me mad,” said Bear Cub, unpleasant time digging into his puffed swol-
“is your not taking me in with you. The idea! len wrists and ankles for the cords which held
Trying to chisel the whole thing for yourself. him.
You cheap stinker.” But Long Tom was able to swear when
“I didn’t !” Wilfair Wickard was both Doc got him on the cabin floor. Doc had not
white and hoarse. been aware that Long Tom knew that much
Bear Cub gave the situation deep profanity. It was not loud, but it made up for
thought. Doc Savage sat in the back of the any shortcomings in its guttural fierceness.
fuselage and hoped for the best. The best at “I’ve seen mean ones in my time,”
the present moment was for the pair not to Long Tom said, “but that Bear Cub takes the
fall out. Doc was trying to let them take him nickel-plated weasel skin.”
to their headquarters or to their leader, or to Doc Savage looked out of the plane.
the scene of the mystery, and whatever trou- He saw water that was remarkably clear and
ble Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks were in. not deep and a beach that was narrow and
He was now sure that Monk and Ham were almost black and covered with rocks that
in some kind of difficulties. If one of these were like scabs. Above and beyond were
men murdered the other, it might blow up the hills furred with runty green brush. Mountains
general plan. The one who did the killing that were too beautiful for description were
might be afraid to go on; might drop the very, very far away.
whole matter. “I’ll pull his legs off if I get my hands on
But Bear Cub decided he could be him,” Long Tom said in the low, guttural voice
wrong. that he used when he meant terrible things.
He said, “If you ever decide to do any Doc Savage heaved Long Tom to his
double-crossing, take me in on it.” He broke feet, worked him out of the plane. The elec-
open his revolver and replaced the cartridges trical expert could not stand without aid, but
which he had used on the poor gasoline- his trouble seemed to be stiffness that would
barge attendant. “Let’s get under way.” wear off.
The waist-deep water was utterly cold
when they stepped into it, but its iced shock
THEY sat the plane down many hours and the quick scramble up the harsh beach
later on a lake. They taxied to the lake shore stirred up their circulation.
and held a consultation. “I’ll take his hide off in strips and show
“If the natives do come to look it to him,” Long Tom added.
around—what the hell!” said Bear Cub. “We Doc Savage went back and took small
can lock the plane, so what do we care? We parts off the plane—small gadgets out of the
just tie this Long Tom up where nobody can ignition system. Without them, the plane
see him, and what harm can he do? We’ll tie would not run.
him so he can’t even kick.” Then Doc turned the plane loose. He
“Well,” said Wickard doubtfully, “that untied the anchor line, gave it a shove. The
may be all right. We may not be gone long. wind drifted the plane away, out on the lake.
There should be some word for us at El Gor- He told Long Tom, “They may see the
rion’s. If there is, we can get back in a hurry.” plane adrift and come back. We will wait here.
16 DOC SAVAGE

If they come back, that will put us on their “Look here, you’re taking me along be-
trail.” cause you’re afraid they will come back and
“Their trail is what I want,” Long Tom find me,” Long Tom said. “I’m in no shape to
muttered. “That, and Bear Cub’s hide. ” fight them off, I’ll admit. But that is no reason
They sat in the bushes for a long time. for you burdening yourself with me. Go on
The bushes had hard, scabrous bark, leaves and leave me.”
the green of an over-boiled egg, and thorns. Doc Savage said nothing.
“El Gorrion’s was where they said, “They may get away if you don’t,” Long
wasn’t it?” asked Long Tom. “I don’t think Tom warned.
they’re coming back.” Doc Savage seemed not to hear that.
“El Gorrion’s was right,” Doc said.
“That is Spanish for The Sparrow’s.”
Long Tom grimaced. “I think we must be in THEY found a native leading two lla-
South America. That right?” mas on which small brass bells tinkled. The
“Probably.” Doc Savage helped him to llamas were very black. The native had a
his feet. “We had best get on their trail.” bright blanket over his shoulder, a brighter
He had to more than half carry Long sash about his middle, and an American wrist
Tom. For a while, it was unbelievably rough. watch strapped to his wrist.
Then they found a path. “Buenos dias, señores,” he said, look-
“They had the idea I knew all about the ing steadily at Long Tom.
speaking stone,” Long Tom said. “Did you do “Can you direct us to El Gorrion’s?”
that to them? I figured you did. And after I Doc Savage asked in Spanish.
saw I was alive because they thought I knew The native blinked placidly. “You do not
about the speaking stone, and they would want to go there. It is a place of sin.”
eventually make me tell what I knew, I didn’t Long Tom muttered, with surprising
disillusion them.” vigor, considering that he looked like a man
Doc Savage told him about the deceit about to die, “Any place I catch that Bear
on Jinx Island. It sounded far-fetched when Cub will be a place of sin. And what a sin!”
he told it, and he remarked on the fact. “It Doc Savage asked the native, “What
was ridiculous, but they believed it,” he said. do you mean?”
“It was also lucky that I used the trick of mak- “Bad!” The native looked at the ground
ing a stone talk with ventriloquism. It was one as if he expected to see hell. “He is bad, The
of those things—one of those right things that Sparrow is.” The native’s brown, round face
you do on the spur of the moment—that later was long and his mouth corners pulled down.
seems so fantastic that you would never “What is this place?”
have arrived at the idea by any rational proc- “A ranch,” said the native, “which
ess of reasoning.” raises nothing but trouble for others.”
“A rock talking is crazy,” Long Tom “Where is it?”
said. The native looked pious. “I should not
“Unusual, anyway.” tell you.”
“Doc.” “Where is it?” Doc’s tone made the na-
“Yes.” tive jump a little.
“Where is the original speaking stone— The fellow pointed over one of the lla-
the one with Monk’s voice—now?” mas. “Up there. Not far. Fifteen minutes’
Doc Savage seemed not to hear the walk.”
question, and Long Tom did not repeat his The native looked pained for a moment.
inquiry, because he knew the small peculiari- Then, without another word, he whirled and
ties of Doc Savage, the things that made the grabbed up a small stick, gave his llamas a
bronze man different from other men. There whack apiece, and went down the trail. He
were several of these. One of them was the did not look back. He kept whacking the lla-
small trilling sound that he made uncon- mas with the stick, and one of them kicked
sciously, another was the extreme attention him. After the kick, the native limped.
he gave to physical and mental exercises, Doc Savage walked slowly with Long
and one was this small trait of not hearing or Tom. He still had to more than half carry
seeming not to hear the things he did not Long Tom. They turned a sharp angle in the
wish to discuss. trail where boulders were high around them.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 17

Suddenly, Doc Savage was off the trail. expressions, among them that of a man shot
He shouldered Long Tom and ran with what, with a large bullet.
considering the time he had been without With great satisfaction, El Gorrion said,
food, was amazing speed. “Who has his hair on end now?”
“Blazes!” Long Tom was astounded. Bear Cub hit the ground. “You fool!
“What hatches?” Don’t you realize what this means?”
“That native, ” Doc Savage said, “wasn’t “Pero to entiendo bastante, as they say
a native.” down here,” said El Gorrion. “I understand it
“Huh?” pretty well.”
“His Spanish.” Bear Cub grimaced. He waved his
“It sounded all right to me. Good. Bet- arms. He seemed without any words but
ter than mine.” Long Tom was puzzled. “How curses.
did his Spanish tell you anything?” El Gorrion told him, “Button your word
“Textbook. Also same accent as our bag, my friend. I knew who they were at once.
own. Yankee. That fellow was an American.” Men like you and I know about this Doc Sav-
“Sure, now that you mention it,” Long age, you see. I sent them up the mountain,
Tom said sheepishly. “That makes him worth looking for an imaginary house.”
looking into, doesn’t it?” “They’ll be back!” bellowed Bear Cub.
“Yes, they will be back, no doubt.”
Bear Cub grabbed a handful of his own
Chapter V hair. “What I want to know is how Savage
OLD LADY followed me here!” He threw out both arms.
“What’re we gonna do?”
THE native had abandoned his llamas. “I am not worried.”
He ran down the path with chin back and Bear Cub stared at him with purple
legs stretching. speechlessness. El Gorrion went to a door
“For the love of little sparks,” Long Tom and called. Four men appeared in answer to
said. “He was pulling something.” the summons. Three of them were strangers,
Doc Savage carried Long Tom and and the fourth was Wilfair Wickard.
they followed the native, who went with great “Our bloodthirsty friend,” said El Gor-
speed and desperation to an adobe-and-rock rion, indicating Bear Cub, “has returned to us
house that probably was called a casa, and bearing a buzzard. A man named Doc Sav-
was elaborate enough to be setting on Sun- age is here. You have heard of Savage, I
set Boulevard, near Hollywood. Bear Cub imagine.”
came out of this house. He paused and watched them. The as-
“Well, well, it’s El Gorrion,” said Bear sortment of expressions on their faces did
Cub, “with his hair on end, as usual.” not seem to please him. “Now, don’t get ex-
El Gorrion, the native, said rapidly, cited,” he growled. “This is bad luck, but that
“There are two white men on the lake trail!” is all. We’ll get out of it.”
Bear Cub, not at all concerned, said, “I don’t see how we’ll get out of it!”
“Why not? There are nine hundred and Bear Cub snapped.
eleven odd million men, according to some- El Gorrion whirled on him. “You should
body’s estimate. Two of ‘em might get on the be useful for something besides cutting
lake trail.” throats, you fool. Go get your plane. Fly
“One of them was hurt.” away.” He whirled on Wickard. “Go with him,
“Maybe one I hurt,” said Bear Cub, who you shaking jellyfish.”
seemed inclined to overdo his humor. “I’ve “Where’ll we go?” Bear Cub bleated.
hurt a lot in my time.” “Any direction but the right one,”
El Gorrion took a deep breath. snapped El Gorrion. “Lead Savage away
“One,” he said, “was big and bronze. from here.”
The other was thin and pale, and looked as if Bear Cub licked his lips. “Savage will
needles or something had been thrust turn up here. What’ll you do about that?”
through his lips.” “He won’t see me. He’ll see one of the
Bear Cub seemed to rise slightly into others, who will tell him you stopped here to
the air and stay there. His face took various ask for a message from a friend. We will tell
him what the message was.” El Gorrion pon-
18 DOC SAVAGE

dered a moment. “The message will be for Cub and Wickard and Jake rode in the craft,
you to fly to Panama at once. Incidentally, Jake handling the outboard motor.
you had better go in that direction.” Long Tom watched Doc take half a
Bear Cub said, “All right.” His eyes nar- dozen small gas grenades and three explo-
rowed. “Listen, you ain’t figuring on me get- sive ones from his clothing and place them
ting cut out of my share.” on the ground. They were not much larger
A strangely fixed expression came over than bird eggs, but each one could be an
El Gorrion’s face and a fat black pistol ap- unpleasant customer. Long Tom knew what
peared in his hand simultaneously. “Right at Doc’s move meant.
this moment, it will be a miracle if you do not “You’re going down there!”
get cut free from that worm you call your life,” Doc said, “I do not need to tell you
he said. these fellows are not cream puffs. Take no
Bear Cub backed away so fast that he chances.”
stumbled. “All right, all right,” he gasped. Long Tom took the grenades. “I’d give
“Come on, Wickard.” He turned toward the one right arm if I was able to navigate a little
lake. better.”
Then Bear Cub emitted a bawl of hor- Doc Savage went back to the house. It
ror. “My plane!” He pointed. “It’s drifting was more of an estate, actually. But it had
across the lake.” been built with more lavish abandon than
The fixed look left El Gorrion’s face, taste.
and the gun departed from his hand with the It was a strange sort of a place to find
same magic by which it had come there. in an out-of-the-way spot such as this. There
“Jake, go take the boat and get his was no other sign of habitation near, no other
plane for him,” El Gorrion said. “Our brother boats on the lake, no smoke visible any-
bucket-of-blood here, Bear Cub, probably where that might indicate other dwellings.
forgot to anchor it.” And the mountains heaving up to the north
Jake was a short man with dark eyes and east were impressive. The mountains,
and pistol bulges on each hip. He ran toward Doc Savage had decided, were all of a hun-
the lake with Bear Cub and Wilfair Wickard. dred miles away, and their crests were lost in
clouds. Their height must be stupendous.
Doc went first to the outbuilding which
DOC SAVAGE withdrew carefully from he had concluded was the stable. There
a spot behind a boulder some twenty-five were donkeys and llamas inside, several of
feet or so distant. He retreated with great each, in separate sections of the stable.
care, using a convenient ditch, and returned There was a loft with loose hay, a compart-
to Long Tom, who had been left on the hill ment with maize carefully bundled the way it
above the elaborate house. had been harvested by hand labor.
Long Tom said, “That El Gorrion is an He put the animals outside, then set
American, isn’t he?” fire to the stable.
“They all seem to be Americans.”
“Not that they are to be proud of,” said
Long Tom. “You find out anything about DOC left the stable in haste, while the
speaking stones?” flames were small, and followed his plan of
“No. ” getting around to the other side of the house.
“Or Monk or Ham?” He waited there. The fire got farther along
“No. ” than he had anticipated.
Long Tom said uneasily, “Monk and Finally a man came to a door to stand
Ham were here in South America the last we and stare at Wickard, Bear Cub and Jake,
heard of them. That speaking stone was out on the lake pursuing the plane, and the
Monk’s pocket piece, Renny said. I can’t get fire was discovered.
rid of the hunch that Monk and Ham are in “Hey!” the man squalled. “Fire! The
plenty of trouble.” stable’s on fire. The blasted donkeys will
Doc Savage nodded slowly, but did not burn up!”
speak. An outboard motor cackled down on Someone said, “Let ‘em burn. If I never
the lake, and a raft-boat made of reeds ap- ride a donkey again, it’ll be too soon.”
peared and began chasing the plane. Bear
 THE SPEAKING STONE 19

But they dashed out to the stable to They stumbled about the floor and
see what they could do about the fire, all but tripped over something and fell. Doc Savage
El Gorrion, who did not appear. Doc Savage got the idea that they had tripped over a hu-
saw a window, found it was covered with iron man form on the floor that was probably un-
bars that would have confined an elephant. conscious.
He did not fool with it long. He tried a side It was evident now that the fight was
door. It was locked, but there was no other unnaturally silent.
door available. He worked on it with a gadget So, when the bronze man finally got his
which he carried, and because he had stud- opponent flattened on the floor, and struck a
ied locks and because this one was simple, it match, he was somewhat prepared to dis-
delayed him not much more than half a min- cover that the limp form they had stumbled
ute. He went into a corridor which was all over was El Gorrion.
stone and heavy beams, hand-hewn and The one who had fought him was fe -
formed for strength rather than beauty. male, all right. Female, and—if her appear-
It was dark, too. Remarkably murky, ance was any proof—two hundred years old.
considering that there was bright daylight A gleeful two hundred, though. There was
outside. Doc moved with silence and care, something utterly joyful about her old face,
feeling ahead with his left hand and holding with its wrinkles that would hold pencils. A
his remaining supply of tear-gas bombs in his remarkable old lady.
right hand. The supply was unpleasantly And remarkable also was her red vest!
small.
When a voice came through a door, he
stopped and listened to someone saying, “I Chapter VI
never was much worried by this Monk May- RED VESTS
fair and Ham Brooks. But they’re Doc Sav-
age’s pups, and he’s an old dog of another THE old lady with her wrinkles and her
color. The same color as the fires in hell, if he red vest—the same type of red vest which
doesn’t like you.” little Jones had worn—became of secondary
There was a pause. El Gorrion was importance when a man with bare feet calmly
evidently looking out of a window at the flam- walked into the room.
ing barn, because he continued, “I wonder The bare feet of the man, and the thick
how the hell that barn got afire. Say, I’d bet- stone floors that did not vibrate, accounted
ter warn the boys not to tell Savage I was the for the man’s walking in before Doc knew he
crony of Bear Cub and Wickard. Damn! I was near. The man was a quick squaller. He
must be getting stupid. Never thought of seemed hardly to pop in the door before it
that.” seemed as if someone had closed the switch
There was silence again, so much of it on a siren. His voice of terror was a great
that Doc Savage decided to try the door. It one.
was not locked and opened slowly and qui- The man was also a quick leave-taker.
etly—to intense blackness. The room was Still making his frightful noise—a scream that
dark. would wake the dead if anything could—he
“Ps-s-t, El Gorrion!” Doc Savage said whirled as if on a hinge and took off through
softly. the door.
There was no answer. If he had been any part Spanish or
Convinced El Gorrion had stepped out South American, his native language would
of the room, Doc Savage went quickly inside. have come out of him now. But it was Ameri-
And someone took him by the throat! can that came out. Solid Brooklyn American,
By the throat first, then by the hair, and with fright in every chord.
tried industriously to get fingers into his eyes, “Look out!” he howled. He inserted pro-
tearing and gouging. Kicking at his shins also, fanity. “Savage is here!”
so that Doc knew it was not a man; it was not The old lady with the wrinkles and the
a man’s way of fighting. Knowing it was not a red vest had hold of one of Doc Savage’s
man, he took more abuse than he might oth- legs with both arms, so that he was wonder-
erwise, trying to find a gentle way to end the ing if he was going to have to knock her out
fight. There seemed to be no gentle way.
20 DOC SAVAGE

to get loose. But when the man howled, she

immediately released Doc.

Someone got Doc Savage by the throat first, then by the hair, and
tried industriously to get fingers into his eyes, tearing and gouging!

She said something Doc Savage did Doc Savage was not sure how many
not understand. were around. He was alone, and in not too
What she said sounded very simple. good physical condition.
The syllables seemed childishly easy of pro- So he got close to a window and bel-
nunciation. The words—they must have been lowed, “Circle the barn, men! Cut them off!
words—had an alliterative swing that was Bring up the machine guns! Use the gas on
charming. them at once!”
Doc Savage could speak fluently over “Gorrion!” bawled a man. “What’ll we
fifty languages, had a spotty acquaintance do?”
with twice that many others and dialects, and “They got Gorrion,” said the man who
would have been willing to bet—modestly, of had done the screaming. “We better get outta
course—that he could identify any spoken here!”
language on earth by listening to a few words Somebody said, “I’m on my way,” in a
of it. bitter voice. He broke and ran toward the
This one was one he hadn’t heard. It lake. The others followed.
was also one he couldn’t identify.
After the old lady released him, Doc
got to his feet. DOC SAVAGE went back to the old
The bare-footed man was going lady with the red vest. He said, “Watch El
through the house like a circus calliope, then Gorrion while I go get a friend of mine who is
out to the barn where the others were fighting injured.”
the fire Doc had lighted to divert their atten- She stared at him. Her eyes were black
tion. fire in her old humorous face. If she under-
There was some excited bellowing until stood, she gave not the slightest sign.
the man made himself understood. Then “Tengo que marcharme,“ Doc said, try-
there was silence. A lone shot banged out, ing Spanish.
and, like a goat at the head of a flock of She grimaced. She did not understand
sheep, it led more shots into existence, most that, either, apparently.
of them made solid noises against the pon- To save time, Doc went over to El Gor-
derous walls of the building. A few knocked rion and gave him a wallop on the jaw to in-
glass out of windows, and the falling shat- duce him to remain stationary for a while.
tered panes were like small steel bells. Then, noticing a stout rawhide lariat
hanging on a peg, the bronze man calmly
took it and tied the old lady to one of the
 THE SPEAKING STONE 21

stout iron window bars. He tied a knot that the same small square jaw, the same delight-
looked simple, but which was complicated to ful pleasure around the eyes, the hilarious
undo; it would probably anchor her for a time. humor about the mouth. It was not a silly ex-
She did not seem happy about being tied, but pression of humor. It was just good.
she did nothing in the way of resistance until She stood very still and innocent until
he arose to depart, when she gave him a kick they entered the room, after which she took
in a vulnerable part of his anatomy. At his her hands away from her sides and exhibited
surprised expression, she snorted gleefully. the three small metal balls connected with a
The bronze man went up the steep woven cord which they contained.
slope and found Long Tom among the rocks What she had in her hands was not
with his grenades. exactly a bola. The balls seemed too small.
“That fight,” Long Tom said, “was as But it was undoubtedly some adaptation of a
short as Bear Cub’s stay in Heaven will be. bola, and she held it as if she had confidence
You do any good?” in the thing.
“Two prisoners.”
“Yeah?” (A bola is a device not as widely used by
“El Gorrion. ” the South American gauchos, or cowboys, as is
“That’s good. He seemed to be some popularly supposed. It is not as widely used as
kind of boss in the outfit.” the American cowboy’s lasso rope, although it
“And an old lady, an incredibly old lady, is more efficient and more violent. A bola has
wearing a red vest,” Doc added. some qualities of a weapon. It consists, usually,
Long Tom’s eyes came out a little and of two or three weights joined together by a
he blinked as if trying to get them back again.
crow ’s-foot of thongs.)
“Red vest, eh? You don’t mean like Jones’
vest?” Fascinated, the bronze man could not
“Very similar.” think of anything except: “This girl is the old
Long Tom pondered that. “She didn’t lady of a few minutes ago. ” And yet, the idea
happen to have a rock that talked, I hope.” was too fantastic to accept.
Doc Savage said that they might ask He said, “Who are you?”
her about that. He gave Long Tom a boost to She moved her hands a little, getting
his feet. The rest and the excitement had the bola gadget ready.
helped Long Tom. He made most of the trip “Where is the old lady?” Doc asked.
to the house without aid. He was improved She still did not answer, and Long Tom
sufficiently to mutter, when they passed growled, “There’s something fishy here. Ei-
some fat chickens in the yard, that he ther she’s got words, or she hasn’t.”
thought a little food would put him back in The electrical wizard started forward.
shape to navigate. The girl threw her gimmick. She threw it, not
at Long Tom, but at Doc Savage. Evidently
she figured she could handle Long Tom her-
THEY entered the room where Doc self. Long Tom looked as if he would be fair
Savage had left the old lady. game for an infant.
Long Tom stopped suddenly. Doc Savage got a surprise. The
“She doesn’t look so old to me,” he weights on the bola device, not larger than
said. hen eggs, were astonishingly heavy, the
Doc Savage, staring at the girl who thongs which connected them capable of
stood there, had an utterly weird feeling. This cutting into flesh, and the skill of the girl
girl was young, early twenties. And yet she equalled the skill of a magician with a trick he
was the old lady, it seemed—which was im- had practiced a long time.
possible, of course. There was a whistling report as the
For an uncanny moment, Doc Savage thing arrived, and Doc was suddenly fighting
thought of stones that talked, and an old lady to get the thing loose from his throat before it
suddenly becoming a young girl did not seem strangled him and, incidentally, to ascertain
any more of an impossibility than speaking how nearly it had come to cutting off his head.
rocks. If Doc was surprised, so was the girl.
The girl had the family characteristics Long Tom fooled her. He was capable of
of the old lady: the same forehead contour,
22 DOC SAVAGE

fooling most people. He looked as if he were Doc Savage hefted the cane thought-
on his last legs at the best—the kind of a fel- fully. He took it with him when he returned to
low that made undertakers rub their hands Long Tom.
together hopefully. But he had the kind of Long Tom lost no time in pointing at
gray unhealthiness that was made of gristle the girl and saying, “She’s got a red vest.
and whale-bone. What do you know about that?”
Long Tom put the girl on the floor in as Long Tom was a little more scratched
gentlemanly a way as he could, then sat on and abused than he had been, indicating he
her. had had more trouble with the girl. The girl
Doc Savage finally got the gadget herself was still humorous, but it was not a
loose from his neck. He had an enormous friendly kind of glee.
respect for it. “Have you tried to talk to her?” Doc
“Watch her,” he said. asked.
“Sure. No luck.”
“Have you tried different languages?”
DOC began searching the house. In “Sure. She doesn’t savvy English. She
the first room he looked, he found the old doesn’t habla Espanol. She doesn’t gavaryoo
lady. The end of the rope was tied to her and Parooskee. No parler Francais. She doesn’t
she was making faces and trying to untie it. even taler de Norge.”
The girl evidently had sliced the other end of Then Long Tom saw the cane. His lips
the rope loose from the window bars. Doc came together, and his eyelids pulled tight.
realized then that he had forgotten, on seeing “That’s bad!” he said quietly. “Where did you
the girl, all about the rope. find it?”
The girl—an afterthought—was very “In one of the rooms,” Doc Savage ex-
pretty. plained. He showed the sword cane to the
Doc found no other person in the girl. “Did you ever see this before? The man
house—El Gorrion was on the floor of the who owned it is a very close friend of mine,
room with Long Tom Roberts and the girl— one of my associates.”
but there were things that made the search The girl looked at him, smiling slightly,
interesting. remaining silent.
Interesting was the store of light auto- Long Tom said, “Finding the cane
matic rifles and machine guns in the place. proves Monk and Ham are mixed up in this
There were gas masks. There was gas, poi- thing, whatever it is. They came down here
son gas, of homemade concoction, plainly as consulting experts about whales. The way
labeled with its chemical formulation and the I figure it, they must have been side-tracked
added information, unnecessary to anyone into plenty of trouble, got themselves out on
who knew much chemistry, that it was deadly. a limb and sent poor little Jones after us for
There were a dozen new parachutes. help. Question is—has Monk and Ham’s limb
All the equipment seemed to come in been sawed off, yet?”
dozens. A dozen pairs of skis. A dozen packs,
all packed with concentrated rations. A dozen
suits for high-altitude flying, equipped so that DOC SAVAGE brought in the old lady
they could be chemically warmed. who wore the red vest. She did not resist
Twelve outfits for—whatever it was. more than enough to show him that she was
And Ham Brooks’ sword cane was ly - averse to being pushed around.
ing on a table in another room. Seeing the “Does that one speak anything, ei-
cane put cold, heavy lead inside Doc Savage. ther?” Long Tom asked.
One of those sword canes was the last thing “Something,” Doc said.
Ham would part with, next to his life. The Long Tom stared at him. “I don’t get
sword cane was of fine Damascus steel and you.”
Ham kept the tip coated with a chemical “A language I could not identify.”
which would produce abrupt unconscious- Long Tom moistened his lips slowly.
ness. The cane itself was dark and innocent, “You mean she speaks something you never
in genteel good taste that would go with the heard before and can’t identify? You mean
sartorially perfect clothing which Ham in- she’s got a language that’s a new one to
variably wore. you?”
 THE SPEAKING STONE 23

“Yes.” He told her the situation. He explained

Amazed, Long Tom said, “As Renny about the mysterious little man in the red vest,
would say—Holy cow!” Jones, who had come to them in the South
Doc Savage addressed the old lady. Seas and who had died of something resem-
“Do you mind,” he asked, “if we examine bling stratosphere sickness. It was hard to
those red vests?” He got no answer, which explain about stratosphere sickness using
was what he was expecting. He went over small words, but Long Tom thought Doc
and inspected the red vest’s material managed very creditably.
thoughtfully. Doc told her about the speaking stone,
Except for one thing, the feminine cut and the two men, Bear Cub and Wilfair
of the garment, the thing was identical with Wickard, who had followed little Jones in or-
the one little Jones had worn. The same der to kill him. He explained how he had
strange weave. The cloth that was cloth and stowed away on the plane after Long Tom
yet wasn’t; made of some material strange to had been grabbed.
the bronze man. Net result of all this talk: Nothing.
Long Tom also looked at the cloth. Except that they met a newcomer, a
“It’s as if they came from another tall young man with a pleasant face and a
world,” he said. “I never saw stuff like that.” gun that was not pleasant, who leaned in
Doc Savage looked thoughtfully at the through the window with the remark, “That
old lady. was an excellent story if anyone believed it.
“You understand English, ” he told her. Will you two gentlemen kindly see if you can
“Awhile ago, when that man yelled my name, touch the ceiling?”
you released me.”
She looked at him with twinkling, bird-
like silence. DOC and Long Tom gaped at the
Long Tom contemplated the girl, then stranger, naturally.
the old lady. “They’re mother and daughter,” He said, “It is a high ceiling. But I ad-
he said. “Or rather, probably great-great- vise you to try to reach it.” He did not sound
great-grandmother and daughter. This old as if he were trying to be comical.
woman must be a hundred if she’s a day.” There was considerable athletic ability
He waited after he said that. Then he evident in the length of him. The smile on his
grinned. “She doesn’t savvy English, ” he said, face was not amiable, not from the joy of liv-
“or she would have had something to say ing like the smiles on the faces of the old lady
about that. No woman could take that kind of and the girl. He was smiling because he was
a crack about her age.” proud of himself and because he wanted to
The old lady walked over to Long Tom. let them know that he was not afraid.
She walked quite slowly and calmly, so that Doc said, “He might shoot, Long Tom.”
when she arrived, she took Long Tom by The bronze man put up his arms. Long Tom
surprise. She kicked him. She kicked first his did likewise.
shin, then when he was on one leg, she “That’s fine,” the young man said. He
kicked him behind the knee of the leg that turned to the two women and spoke to them.
supported him. Suddenly, he was on the floor, He spoke the strange language that
astonished and indignant. The old lady un- was so musical and sounded so easy, yet
derstood English, obviously. was so completely unintelligible. The old lady
Doc Savage went to a window and answered him, and he shrugged slightly. He
watched the surroundings. There was no showed much more interest when the girl
sign of El Gorrion’s men coming back. Out on spoke. She spoke briefly.
the lake, Bear Cub and Wickard and Jake He turned back to Doc. “Who are you?”
had reached the plane, and evidently were “My name is Savage. Clark Savage,
fooling with the motor, trying to get it started. Jr.”
Doc turned back and began speaking “Doc Savage,” Long Tom supplied.
to the old lady. He used English slowly and The young man sneered slightly in
distinctly, the small simple words and the Long Tom’s direction. “You act as if you think
common phrases that one with not much the name should mean something.” He
knowledge of the language would most read- waved his gun slightly. “Stand still. I am go-
ily understand. ing to give the gun to the girl. She will watch
24 DOC SAVAGE

you. She understands a gun better than, or Johnny on Jinx Island. An extremely disap-
as well as, the devices she threw at you. pointed Renny and Johnny, probably, he
While she watches you, I am going around to thought without relevance. They liked ex-
a door. I will join you in a minute.” citement. They were missing some; the indi-
He left the barred window after giving cations were that they would miss a lot. But
the gun to the girl. She held the weapon the presence of the speaking stone in Doc
rather awkwardly, but they took no chances. Savage’s pocket was somehow surprising.
An awkward grip on a gun did not make the Terrence Wire whirled on the bronze
weapon shoot any less dangerously. man. “Where did you get this?”
The young man came in, appearing to Doc Savage said patiently, “It was in
be very proud of himself. “I am Terrence the possession of Jones, the little man who
Wire,” he told Doc Savage. He took the gun came to find Renny Renwick. It is the stone
from the girl. “I think I have heard of you, Mr. which spoke with the voice of Monk Mayfair,
Savage. You have something of a name. But one of my associates.”
I assure you, I am not impressed; neither am Wire chewed his lip and frowned. He
I convinced you are a paragon of virtue.” did not say anything. He did, however,
“A smarty-pants,” Long Tom muttered, glance at the two women in a way that con-
but the young man did not hear him. veyed the impression that they did under-
Doc asked, “You heard all of the story I stand English.
told the two women, here, just before you Doc added, “Perhaps you would ex-
appeared?” plain the meaning of this stone.”
“All.” “Meaning?” Wire scowled.
“You mean, then, that you do not be- “Why it talked. And how.”
lieve it?” Wire thought that over. He pulled his
“There might be spots of truth here lips off his teeth slowly. “You don’t expect an
and there,” said Terrence Wire. “But, as a answer to that, do you?”
whole, I discard much of the yarn. The “Why not?”
greater part of it.” He moved his gun menac- “I hope you don’t think I am that kind of
ingly. “Stand still.” a fool,” Wire said angrily. “You’re a man
He came over and searched Doc Sav- named Savage. So what? You have two
age with inexpert, but thorough, care. His friends who got mixed up in this thing. And I
scrutiny missed nothing, not even the indi- will say right here that I think they might be
vidual coins in the bronze man’s pockets. responsible for all the trouble. Like I say—so
When he brought Jones’ speaking what?”
stone out of Doc Savage’s pocket, he yelled Doc Savage and Long Tom had been
with excitement. holding their hands above their heads during
the whole exchange. Now, as if it was tire-
some, Doc lowered an arm and rubbed his
Chapter VII nose on a cuff. At Terrence Wire’s “Get ‘em
THE UNEXPECTED TRUTH up!” he lifted his arms again quickly, however.
But he caught Long Tom’s eye, and
TERRENCE WIRE knew the stone. He Long Tom realized what had happened, and
bleated out in amazement when he saw it. nodded.
And the two women changed, too. Long Tom said, “Wire, you’ve bit off
They jumped forward—the old lady with the more than you can handle this time.”
incredible wrinkles moved almost as quickly Wire eyed him darkly and advised,
as the younger woman—to stare at the rock. “Don’t pull anything!”
They did not say more than a few words, ex- “I suppose,” Long Tom told him, “you
plosive ones in the strange, easy-sounding think we came here alone, the two of us.
language which they spoke. What suckers do you take us for? Not that
Long Tom Roberts, for his part, was kind, I hope.”
almost equally astonished. He had sup- Wire sneered but did not say anything.
posed—with no good reason, he now recol- His eyes were uneasy.
lected—that Doc did not have the stone; he Long Tom said, “You might take a look
thought that it was back with Renny and at the door.”
 THE SPEAKING STONE 25

Wire pointed his gun at Long Tom and sorry, but her highness forbids me to say
said, “That is old, so very old that it is childish. more. ”
You don’t think I am going to look behind so Doc indicated the old lady. “Her high-
you can jump me, I hope.” ness?”
Doc Savage then expelled the button The girl nodded. “She is the Queen
he had jerked off his sleeve with his teeth Mother of Wisdom.”
while pretending to scratch his nose on the “That does not exactly make sense,”
sleeve toward the door. Wire was looking at Doc Savage said. “Can you tell me where to
Long Tom. Doc managed to do the expelling find Monk Mayfair?”
silently and with enough force that the button “I am forbidden to speak.”
hit near the door, and clattered slightly. “What about Ham Brooks? Do you
Long Tom laughed at the psychological know him?”
moment. The slight change in the girl’s eyes in-
Wire whirled. Doc went forward, put his dicated she had heard of Ham Brooks, but
hands on Wire. Wire fell to the floor. There she shook her head slightly and said, “It is
was some kicking and pounding, but not said that I shall not speak.”
much, before Wire spread out helplessly on Doc turned to the old lady. “We have
the floor. Doc Savage had hold of his neck come a long distance to help Monk and Ham.
and did something paralyzing to spinal-nerve Naturally, any friends of theirs are our friends,
centers. and enemies of theirs are ours.”
The girl in the red vest said, “This . . . She sniffed.
is . . . what . . . I . . . expected!” She said it in “Will you tell us where we can find
a slow and careful fashion, the English words Monk and Ham?”
strange and difficult for her. “You,” she said, “will be told nothing.
Not by me. Not by this foolish girl, here. She
already has told too much.”
INSTANTLY, the old lady was on her “Why not?”
with a verbal barrage. Not in English, but in “It is,” she said, “forbidden.”
the easy, musical language which was so “Forbidden?”
strange. She was berating the girl for betray- The remarkable wrinkles in her face
ing an understanding of English, it was obvi- were amiable but determined. “You do not
ous. understand this. But there is good reason
Having finished scolding the girl, the behind it. A sufficient reason. An utterly suffi-
remarkable old lady turned to Doc Savage cient one.”
and said in quite understandable, but some- The bronze man looked at her steadily.
what unnatural, English, “There could be a “I take it that Monk and Ham are in trouble.”
mistake.” She shrugged. “They are. They may
Doc Savage kept hold of Wire and not even be alive now.”
worked with the man’s neck nerves until Wire “Then there is no reason,” Doc said,
no longer kicked and squawked, and lay mo- “that is sufficient.” There was heavy force in
tionless with fixed and somewhat glassy eyes his low voice.
but with breathing regular. She was silent.
The girl said, “You are the man Monk Doc, after a while, turned the pale-blue
Mayfair described to me as Doc Savage.” and round stone in his fingers. “This stone is
The name, Monk Mayfair, hit Doc Sav- one that speaks,” he said. “Would you care to
age a visible impact. He came to his feet. discuss that?”
“Where is Monk?” The old lady eyed him steadily. “Young
The girl said, “In terrible trouble.” man, either you are deceiving me, or your
“Where?” mind is a bird with a broken wing. Stones do
The old lady ripped out again in the not speak words.”
musical language. The girl’s face lost a little
color. She dropped her head.
“Where is Monk?” Doc Savage asked THE best that Terrence Wire had been
her. able to do was make gurgling noises. But
It almost seemed that the girl was not now, after sitting up and carefully massaging
going to answer. Then she said, “I am very his neck and throat —he did the kneading in a
26 DOC SAVAGE

way that showed he had some knowledge of AFTER twenty minutes of up-and-down
either medical or osteopathic principles—he going, over rocks that were as naked as the
was able to speak coherently. day they had been coughed up by a volcano,
“Would you care to hear a few words of they crawled carefully to the rim of a small
truth?” he demanded angrily. creek which had cut a deep gully into the
Long Tom said, “Of truth, we could lake in such a way as to form a cove. With
stand a book. But a lie will lose you some care, and with Terrence Wire breathing warn-
teeth.” ings for caution, they looked over the edge,
Terrence Wire sneered slightly. “These down at a massive natural overhang of stone.
two women were prisoners here. I also was a It was not a hangar in any true sense but
prisoner.” which would serve as one, and an excellent
“None of you were prisoners when I one, if planes were picketed under the lung-
entered the house,” Doc reminded him. ing mass of stone.
“We were making a break,” Wire said. Two planes were there.
“Just as you arrived, we had freed ourselves. Around the planes were the men who
I had overpowered a man and taken a gun had fled the house, all of them busy loading
from him.” He pointed at El Gorrion. “That is gasoline and themselves into the ships.
the man I overpowered. ” Long Tom touched Doc’s arm, mut-
Doc glanced at El Gorrion, who tered, “Am I pink? This guy, Wire, was telling
showed few signs of regaining his senses, truth.”
then studied the old lady. “Is that the truth?” Doc Savage withdrew a few yards, mo-
he asked. “Or is an answer forbidden?” tioning the others back.
“Truth is never forbidden,” she said. “Think you can watch these people?”
“Then what he said is the truth?” he asked.
“Yes.” Long Tom said grimly, “I don’t know
“I bet,” Long Tom muttered. “He acts about watching them. But give me that gun,
like a boy with a dark page in his book.” He and I’ll shoot anything that moves!”
scowled at Terrence Wire. “Don’t you?” Doc handed Long Tom the revolver
For some reason or other, this made which had earlier been in the possession of
Terrence Wire exceptionally indignant. He Terrence Wire.
was so angry that he hammered the floor Long Tom was suddenly uneasy.
with his palms while he shouted at them. “They’re a big gang down there, Doc. And
“Those men, that Bear Cub and Wilfair they’re not boy scouts.”
Wickard and the others, have gone to the The bronze man made no comment.
hangar a mile south along the lake shore,” he He began working down toward the planes.
bellowed. “They have other planes there. Creeping very close to the ships was
They will take flight.” out of the question; the rocky terrain was too
Long Tom eyed him suspiciously, de- bare. But he could get close to the mouth of
manded, “Why all the indignation?” the cove and, from there, perhaps do some-
“Because if you are not crooks your- thing.
selves,” Wire shouted, “you would be after When he was close to the cove’s
those fellows, trying to stop them.” mouth, a man came running. The man stood
Long Tom snorted. “The biggest liars on a rock, took off his coat, waved it to get
have loudest voices,” he said. “And you attention of the plane.
sound pretty raucous to me.” “What’s the holdup out there?” he
Doc Savage walked over to El Gorrion. shouted.
He kicked El Gorrion in the ribs, not gently. “We’re checking the engines,” Bear
Anything but gently, in fact. Cub bellowed back. “We figure maybe Sav-
El Gorrion made a hissing sound of age did something to them.”
rage and, with his eyes open, rolled over and “Do you find anything wrong?”
got to his feet. Apparently, he had been con- “Not yet.”
scious for some time. “Get in here and take gasoline aboard,”
Long Tom told him, “Instead of calling the man shouted. “We’re all taking off on the
you The Sparrow, they should call you—what expedition right away.”
is the Spanish word for opossum?” “What about El Gorrion?”
El Gorrion glared wordlessly.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 27

“We can’t leave him here, ” shouted good guess—would instantly make Doc think
Bear Cub. that Long Tom or the others might be injured,
The man on shore waved his arms an- or in trouble. Certainly, they would not let El
grily. Gorrion escape if they were not injured. So
“El Gorrion just joined us,” he bellowed. Doc had been decoyed up the hill in a hurry
“He was a prisoner. He escaped a moment to investigate, and into the planned ambush.
ago.” And El Gorrion did escape now!
Up on the cove rim, among the rocks
where Long Tom and Terrence Wire and the
Chapter VIII two strange women in the red vests lay with
THE HIGH WORLD El Gorrion, there was sudden movement.
Long Tom tried to lead a dash to better cover.
IT was a trick. Terrence Wire grabbed Long Tom. Long Tom
When the bronze man saw what it was, thought Wire was attacking him. He struck
his first thought was: “My mind is out of gear. fiercely at Wire. El Gorrion got up and ran
The thing is so obvious. And it fooled me.” while that went on.
It did not entirely fool him. It almost did. El Gorrion took off across the rocks as
Because, by the time he realized that it was a if he was a bird.
trick—or suspected, more properly, that it A man yelled, “Get under covet, Spar-
could be a trick—he was high up on the rim row! We got ‘em surrounded!”
where he had left the others, and was dash- “Cover, hell!” bellowed El Gorrion.
ing toward them. As soon as he saw what it “Get to the planes, you guys! Clear out of
might be, he whipped low in the shelter of a here.”
maze of boulders. “But we got ‘em surrounded—”
Instantly, a man jumped up a few yards “Get to the planes,” shouted El Gorrion.
ahead and tried a wing shot at him. The man “Cut the argument.”
was using an automatic rifle, and it gobbled There was a general exodus. Not a si-
out violent thunder which cascaded through lent one, though. There was plenty of shoot-
the hills in echoes. ing. They retreated toward the inlet.
Furthermore, Doc fell almost upon two Down by the water, someone tried
other men who were lying there waiting. They again to tell El Gorrion that Doc Savage and
were surprised. They had known he was the others had been surrounded.
there, but had been trying to keep out of sight, El Gorrion swore at the man. “When
and his sudden dive into the exact spot you got that guy Savage surrounded, all
where they were conc ealed set them aback. you’ve got is a bear by the tail.” He raced
One of them tried to brain Doc with a rock. toward one of the planes. “Come on. Get
The other endeavored to get his rifle into ac- these things off the water.”
tion. “What about the two women?” a man
It would have been hard to dodge the shouted. “They’ll give Savage the whole
rock. Doc twisted and got his hands up, took story”
the rock as if it was a football someone was “The two women,” El Gorrion barked,
trying to hand him in a violent fashion. He got “will be dead in another twenty-four hours.
possession of it, and used it on the rifleman Savage can’t get high-altitude equipment
in such a way that the fellow’s arm was bro- together that quick!”
ken.
By now, there was shouting and shoot-
ing in quantity. UP on the rim of the bay, Long Tom
The enemy had, it was obvious, dis- Roberts pounded Terrence Wire with his fists.
covered that Doc’s party was close and that Wire, who seemed dumfounded by the
Doc was not with them. They had surmised strength left in the emaciated-looking electri-
the bronze man was probably down investi- cal expert, was taking a beating in spite of all
gating the cove. he could do. Doc Savage reached them and
So a man had calmly walked out on the grabbed Long Tom’s fist.
point and bellowed that El Gorrion had es- “This guy let that El Gorrion get away!”
caped. El Gorrion’s escape—and this was a Long Tom snarled. “Let me loose, Doc. I’m
gonna take off one of his wheels!”
28 DOC SAVAGE

Wire gasped, “I was trying to grab you

myself. I didn’t intend for Gorrion to get
away.”
Doc said, “They are trying to get away
in the planes. Come on.”
The power of command in the bronze
man’s voice brought them to their feet. They Long Tom looked toward the lake,
ran toward the cove. Down on the water, watched one of the men in the boat—it was
plane motors were roaring. They saw that the Jake—come to his feet suddenly, then fall
ships were moving out toward the open sur- over and wrap both arms around a leg.
face. “Boy, that one wins a turkey,” Long
The two ships taxied rapidly out to the Tom said admiringly. “Get that Bear Cub,
other plane, the one which Bear Cub, Terrence! No, wait! Let me have a shot at
Wickard and Jake had been trying to get him!”
started. There must have some shouting. Terrence Wire’s rifle ripped out again.
The words were blotted out by engine noise. Nothing happened in the boat, and he swore.
It was plain that they concluded to tow He fired once more.
the plane, the engines of which would not Bear Cub and Wilfair Wickard picked
start, to a spot out of rifle range. They took Jake up and threw him out of the boat. They
no chances of a collision, however. Bear Cub, plunged into the lake after him, then dragged
Wickard and Jake piled into the boat with the him toward the nearest plane with running
outboard motor, with a rope the other end of motors.
which was attached to the plane. They pad- Doc Savage ran toward Wire and
dled furiously, hauling toward one of the wrenched the rifle out of the man’s hands. He
planes. was not gentle about it, but he turned in-
“Damn them!” Terrence Wire snarled. stantly and began shooting.
He whirled and dashed away. Long Doc’s first shot was not at the planes or
Tom yelled, “Hey, you, stop!” and grabbed for the men in the water or anything in their vi-
a rock. cinity. He fired at a floating bit of wreckage—
Terrence Wire did not run far. He had a test shot to learn where the rifle targeted.
noticed among the rocks a rifle dropped by Terrence Wire watched, mouth open,
one of El Gorrion’s men. He scooped up the as the bronze man continued shooting. Be-
gun, fell across a rock and aimed carefully at cause the bronze man did what seemed im-
the boat pulling the rope. Doc Savage called possible under the circumstances, drove both
sharply, “No killing, Wire!” planes away from the ship with the dead mo-
Terrence Wire’s lips pulled off his teeth tors. He did it with half a dozen shots. The
slightly. The rifle made noise and slapped rifle was a semi-automatic one, equipped
back against his shoulder. with a drum-type clip which held twenty-five
cartridges.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 29

When both planes were in the air, he He grabbed up five of the outfits.
handed the rifle to Long Tom. “Keep them The plane came down. Its motor grew
from bombing the plane,” he said. “I am go- to a great blast, then sank in volume until the
ing to try to reach the house before they roar of air around the wings of the plane was
bomb that.” louder than the engine noise. Suddenly, the
Doc ran in the direction of the house. shadow of the ship was a great thing outside
Terrence Wire rubbed his jaw. “What the window.
was his idea? With shooting like that, he Then the house jumped on its founda-
could have kept both those planes out of the tions. The door caved in; window glass broke
air.” with jangling violence. And dust was sud-
Long Tom said, “You don’t know much denly thick. An amazing amount of dust. The
about Doc, do you?” roof sagged slowly and tiredly.
“I have heard of him,” Wire admitted. Doc got to a door, waited long enough
“As a matter of fact, I am just now convinced to make sure the plane was a quarter of a
he is Doc Savage.” mile away and banking to come back. He
“Who’d you think he was?” made a dash, covered a few dozen yards,
“A ringer they were trying to run in on and flattened among the rocks as bullets be-
us to—” Wire went silent, lips tightening. gan to spatter. He remained motionless. It is
“To what?” Long Tom prompted. very hard to spot a motionless target as small
“To . . . well, to get information out of as a man from a plane.
us.” The ship rocketed overhead. There
“What kind of information?” was more shooting, none of it accurate. The
Terrence Wire glanced at the girl, then men in the plane spotted a brown rock that
at the old lady, who shook her head almost they mistook for the bronze man and pep-
imperceptibly. Wire told Long Tom, “It is for- pered it with lead. Then the plane was past.
bidden.” Doc got up and ran again. Now, he
Long Tom started to snort, then kept under cover and made his way back
grabbed up the rifle. “Those blasted planes toward the cove.
are going to try to bomb the plane on the wa- Long Tom was standing beside a large
ter!” boulder, nursing the rifle stock against his
cheek, his puffed lips twisted fiercely. He
glanced uneasily at Doc Savage. “I must be
DOC SAVAGE was learning how weak more shaky than I figured,” he said. “I’m
he had become. He was also aware of some- afraid I nicked one of those pilots. I was just
thing else that he had not noticed before— trying to put a slug through the cockpit.”
that this lake was at high altitude. Breathing “Where did you hit him?”
was hard. Weakness grew in his legs. The “In the left shoulder.”
distance to the house began to seem like “At least,” Doc said dryly, “there was
miles. nothing shaky about your eyesight.”
He turned his head once and saw that Terrence Wire grinned slightly.
the planes were circling warily over the lake. Doc Savage swam out to the plane.
He could hear the rifle whack repeatedly. Long Tom and the others remained on shore.
Once, one of the planes lurched wildly. Evi- Long Tom fired twice as Doc was
dently the pilot had been nicked. climbing into the plane. The ship overhead
Then the planes suddenly swung away. veered away. A gunman tried some long-
One of them headed for the house. It was a distance rifle fire that was not effective.
race, now. Doc hastily replaced the parts he had
The plane motor was loud when he removed from the ignition system. Bear Cub,
dived into the house. He lost agonized mo- Wilfair Wickard and Jake had not tampered
ments when he found an unexpected locked with the motors. They had not had time. But
door and had to go back and try another way. efforts made to crank the engines had ex-
He got into the room where the equip- hausted rich mixture from the cylinders, or
ment was stored. He was interested in the coated the plugs with fouling oil, so that they
concentrated rations, the high-altitude flying were slow in starting. Doc soon got them
suits—the latter equipped with compact oxy- banging over.
gen equipment.
30 DOC SAVAGE

As soon as the plane moved across “How much longer do you think you
the water, the two ships overhead veered would have lived?” Doc Savage asked.
away, heading west. Her eyes were frightened. She loos-
ened her lips to say, “It is hard to be definite.
We know . . . from past experience . . . about
DOC taxied to shore, shouted for the how long we can live . . . after we leave Ar-
others to get aboard and bring the equipment. riba. Another day or two, perhaps.”
The water was very deep inshore, and they “Arriba? That is where you come
had some difficulty. from?”
The girl and the old lady had never “Yes.”
been in a plane before. That was obvious. The old lady made a warning hiss.
They looked scared. Doc turned to her, said, “You cannot
Doc asked, “Where are they heading?” keep us from there. From this Arriba. It
Terrence Wire glanced at the old lady. seems you would have died to preserve the
She shook her head. Wire said, “I am sorry. I secret. How soon this death would have
have given my word not to tell anything.” come to you, probably you know.”
Without speaking, the bronze man She looked at him steadily until defeat
lifted the plane into the air. “We will follow came slowly to her face, and she lowered her
them,” he said after a few minutes. “But there head to hide it. “Tonight,” she said. “Tonight,
is not too much gasoline. Five or six hours’ or tomorrow at the latest, would have been
supply. If that is not sufficient, it may be bad.” our death. ”
Terrence Wire looked at his hands. He The motor noise was not loud inside
shuddered. “It is not enough, ” he said, “to the cabin, and Long Tom had his ears fanned.
bring us back.” When Doc joined him, Long Tom said, “What
Doc searched the sky for the other was that about death?”
planes and located them. Long Tom, squint- “You remember what killed the little
ing and frowning, failed to spot the two ships man in the red vest, Jones?”
ahead. He rummaged around in the cockpit “Sure. Stratosphere sickness.”
and came up with a pair of binoculars. He “The two women are verging on it.
peered through these and grunted, satisfied. They have it, in fact, but it has not yet
“Follow them?” Doc asked. reached an acute stage. There are tests that
“Sure,” Long Tom said. “I can see them show its presence. Tests familiar to most
through the glasses.” army and navy air-corps physicians.”
Doc turned the controls over to the Long Tom mulled it over for a while.
electrical expert, and went back into the “You mean the two women have been up in
cabin. The girl looked at him as if she were the stratosphere so high that they are going
ashamed of her silence. The old lady met his to die? Isn’t there anything we can do?”
eye firmly, then grunted in astonishment as “We are doing it.”
he took hold of her. “What?”
“Keep your hands off me!” she said in “Going back to this Arriba.”
better English than she had used before. “Arriba? That’s a Spanish word for up,
“This is an examination,” Doc told her. isn’t it?”
“You will not be harmed.” “Yes.”
She said something about not wanting Long Tom suddenly hit the control
to be examined, and something else in her wheel with his fist. “Up!” he exploded. “So
own language that sounded indignant. The we’re going up! I don’t get it. Up to what?”
bronze man ignored her. “To Monk and Ham, I hope,” Doc Sav-
After he had finished about fifteen min- age said grimly. “And to a surprise, unless all
utes of examination, he made the low, un- the signs are wrong. ”
conscious sound which was his expression of
surprise, the note that was an exotic trilling,
so small as to be hardly noticeable. LONG TOM was handling the plane
He moved toward the girl. She leaned well enough. The excitement, or maybe it
back tightly, with her hands clasped. And was the exercise, had cured him of his earlier
then she relaxed. physical inability. Doc Savage broke out the
“I am in the same condition,” she said. concentrated rations, gave Long Tom some
 THE SPEAKING STONE 31

and took some himself. The ordinarily taste- the thing. The part that happened about a
less stuff was as good as filet mignon and month and a half ago.”
French fries. They had not eaten since leav- “A month and a half ago?”
ing Jinx Island in the South Pacific. “Sure. It’s been going on for sometime.
Satisfied that Long Tom was handling Like the Irishman’s green snake, it started
the plane all right, Doc went back to Terrence small and grew.”
Wire. Wire watched him come with steady Doc Savage said, “You had better de-
eyes. scribe that growth.”
“You do not have it,” Doc said. “Sure. El Gorrion pulled his double
Wire gave considerable thought to cross. Only he did not have his usual rare
whether or not to answer. Then he said, “The good luck. He got about half outsmarted. He
stratosphere sickness? No, I do not have it.” didn’t get what he was after. He got a regular
“Why not?” mess of trouble stirred up instead. But he still
Wire smiled without humor. “The an- thought he could catch the rabbit.”
swer is as obvious as simple. I have not been Terrence Wire paused to stare ahead
to Arriba. ” of the plane. The mountains, appearing so
Doc Savage gave him a look that made high and cold and formidable that they beg-
the young man’s mouth lose color. gared description, were directly ahead of the
“Give me a sensible answer,” the plane. But they were still very, very far away.
bronze man said. He continued, “Two guys named Monk
“I have not been to Arriba.” Mayfair and Ham Brooks were the trouble El
“That is not what I meant by a sensible Gorrion stirred up. Monk and Ham were
answer.” called on for help.” He nodded at the old lady.
Wire looked at the old lady, then away “The queen, here, did the calling.”
from her quickly. “Will I be believed?” Doc said, “If she called on Monk and
“Probably not at once. Eventually, you Ham for aid, why is she so hostile to me?
may be, if it is the truth.” Monk Mayfair and Ham Brooks are my close
Wire grimaced. “All right, here it is. friends. They are members of my organiza-
Anyway, here is enough to explain my part tion.”
and still not break my word to her.” He jerked Wire made a wry mouth.
his jaw at the old lady. “I made a promise to “The queen,” he said, “is disgusted with
her. I keep my promises. Don’t think I don’t. your organization. All Monk and Ham did was
Maybe I’ m not virtue in white britches, but I get into more trouble.”
keep my promises.”
Doc said, “Do not try to build your
character with words. Deeds will do it—the THE air through which the plane flew
ones from now on.” was suddenly rough for a short interval. Up-
Wire shrugged again. ward currents seized the ship and heaved it
“All right. The old lady, the girl and little up; down currents yanked it toward the earth.
Jones come from Arriba. They came first to Long Tom snapped on the “Fasten Your
hire El Gorrion to dispose of something for Safety Belts, Please” warning light, with
them. Don’t ask me what the something is, which the cabin was equipped, but it was
because I’m not saying. But they came. I hardly necessary. The motors labored, and
worked for El Gorrion, and I was just begin- the ship was tail low in the sky, climbing
ning to smell him as the skunk he is. Gorrion steeply in an effort to rise as fast as the
decided to double-cross these people. I did mountain foothills were lifting below.
not go for it. I quit him. It was all right. We Doc Savage said dryly, “I have been
had an agreement. We bumped heads some under the impression that Monk and Ham are
over it; but we got together, and I walked rather efficient.”
out.” “I would say they were very efficient
Doc Savage put a look of skepticism guys,” Terrence Wire admitted. “But you see,
on his face as Wire stopped speaking and they’re up against something different. And in
looked at him. Arriba, efficiency is not as we know it. A guy
Wire said hastily, “I know I was a pris- might be very good in Podunk or Kansas City
oner when you got here today. ’Ill come to or even New York. But in Arriba, the same
that. What I’ve just told you is the first part of
32 DOC SAVAGE

guy would be distinctly mongrel pup. Not so pression. If he was disappointed, he did not
hot.” show it.
Doc said, “So Monk and Ham got into He said, “That was a complete story—
trouble.” as far as it went.”
“Up over their hair,” Wire agreed. “But “It won’t go any further,” Terrence Wire
they did do one thing. The one thing that I’m said.
beginning to think may save their necks and Doc Savage asked, “Why your sudden
the whole of Arriba. A couple of hours ago, reformation. Why did you come back—after
I’d have said nothing would save the situation. quitting El Gorrion’s gang—to help the two
But I’ ve seen you work a little, and now I women?”
don’t know. You seem to have a touch for Wire glanced at the girl. He glanced
these things.” slowly, so that Doc Savage would see his
“Who,” Doc asked, “did Monk and Ham meaning. He said, “It seemed worth it to me.
send for help?” Even if I never get any farther than I have
“The little guy you call Jones and the gotten now—which is not far.”
two women. ” That was explanation enough. The girl
“And—” was an exquisite thing. Wire was in love with
“El Gorrion caught the two women. her.
Jones, as you call him, got away. Somehow,
he learned that you were on a place called
Jinx Island, in the South Seas. He set out on Chapter IX
the long journey to get you.” STRANGE ARRIBA
“Bear Cub and Wilfair Wickard?”
“A pair of fine birds sent by El Gorrion THE sun was making long evening
to get little Jones in case the stratosphere shadows when they crashed.
sickness didn’t get him first. Incidentally, They had put on the high-altitude suits.
which did kill Jones?” It was very cold in the plane, for the ship had
“The stratosphere sickness,” Doc ex- been working in the tropics and the heating
plained. “You were out of the affair at that system was inadequate. They were using the
time, as you explain it. How did you get back chemical-heating arrangement inside the
in?” suits. They had also turned on the oxygen.
Wire grinned. He was suddenly proud. It came unexpectedly!
“I cut myself a slice of it. A damned hero— Doc Savage and Long Tom were in the
that’s what I became. I found out the two cockpit. Because it was getting dark, one of
women were being held prisoners. So I came them was keeping track of the two planes
to El Gorrion, and I said, ‘My ex-brother, let ahead while the other handled the ship. Fly-
them go. Turn them loose.’ You can imagine ing the plane was a job—as Long Tom ex-
what that got me. A bullet in the brisket, only pressed it—for an octopus. The big ship was
I was too quick on the draw for him.” behaving pretty much as if it were a flivver
Wire paused, then grimaced. “Trouble trying to speed across a plowed field.
was, I wasn’t the fast company I thought I They had no suspicion that anything
was. They caught me. Locked me up with the was going to happen. Nothing unpleasant, at
two women and began trying to make me tell least, from the source from which it did come.
what I already knew about—” He went silent. Long Tom grunted with the labor of
“About what?” hauling the big ship out of an involuntary dive.
“Again, I come to the point where I He said, “Yoicks! Talk about a rodeo!”
can’t say any more,” Wire explained. Terrence Wire then came forward and
The old lady had been leaning forward, leaned over their shoulders.
every one of her humorous wrinkles twisted “What is the altitude?” Wire asked.
with anxiety. But now, when she saw that “Our altitude is a little over twenty-two
Wire was not going to say any more, she was thousand feet,” Long Tom told him. “The alti-
relieved. She sat back. She seemed sud- tude of the mountains under us is not as
denly happy. much less than that as I’d like. Not by a long
Doc Savage’s metallic-looking and re- shot.”
markably regular features were without ex-
 THE SPEAKING STONE 33

“How much higher can we go?” Wire job, even, was nothing compared to the prob-
inquired. lem of one of these big dual-motored planes.
“What dumfounds me,” Long Tom said, Long Tom dived out from behind the controls.
“is that we’ve got this old freight car up this Doc Savage took over. Long Tom grabbed a
high.” fire extinguisher. He told Terrence Wire, “Get
Wire sounded disappointed. “You parachutes!”
mean we can’t go much higher?” Wire nodded. He was white. He went
Doc Savage turned unexpectedly, back into the cabin. The old lady stood there
asked, “How much higher is Arriba?” defiantly, grinning,
Wire looked as if he wanted to answer. Wire stared at her grin, then lost his
But he said, “The mountains are much higher, temper. He gave her a shove, a hard one
as you can see. El Gorrion has his planes that sent her slamming down into one of the
equipped with special superchargers, the seats.
type used on high-altitude bombers. How are “When I’ve lived as long as you have, I
you going to follow him?” might want to die, too,” he growled. “You old
Long Tom growled, “Didn’t you hear battle-crate, you!”
Doc ask you a question about Arriba?” Down was about the only way the
Wire was a determined man. He said, plane could go. Doc brought it toward the
“You won’t get any information about Arriba stone fangs of the mountains in a sideslip
out of me. I’ve told you why. I promised. It’s that, to some extent, kept the fire from
damned little I could tell you, anyway. ’Ive spreading. With luck, he would have been
never been there.” able to sideslip fast enough to suck the fire
Long Tom stared at him. He saw that it off the ship. But the blaze was too violent.
was futile to try to pry information out of Wire. The mountain peaks offered no landing
“Where,” asked Long Tom, “did these place. If it had not been for the fire, he could
mountains come from? Hell, there isn’t sup- have glided for miles down the side of the
posed to be anything like these in South mountains and possibly made a decent se-
America. These are high, what I mean. We’re lection. Flames that rapidly bundled the ship
high right now; but from what I can see made that impossible.
ahead, I don’t believe those mountains got There was a canyon, wide and not
any tops.” deep. He sideslipped into that. Suddenly,
Then, abruptly, the cabin was full of they were out of the evening sunlight, and it
blue-white firelight. Doc Savage heaved up, was startlingly gloomy.
whirled. He was taken completely by surprise. Firelight from the burning plane was
He had not supposed there was anything red on the canyon sides, red and reeling in
back in the cabin with which they could fire horrifying fashion as they went down.
the plane. He knew the small oxygen cylin- Doc set the wing flaps full back, killed
ders for the altitude suits were there, of as much landing speed as possible.
course, and he knew how oxygen would burn. There would be nothing, he saw, but a
The old lady, the one they called the crash landing. No place was smooth enough.
Queen Mother of Wisdom, had taken two The snow, however, made the terrain decep-
oxygen cylinders—her own and the younger tive. The snow covered everything. The stuff
girl’s—and had opened them, set fire to them. appeared to be yards deep.
She managed to smash a window and hang He yelled, “Smash the windows so you
half outside with one of them. She had se- will be ready to get out!”
cured a revolver somewhere. With it, she He got the ship level. Heat was searing.
made holes in the fuel tanks, then fired the There was not much smoke; the plane’s
spouting streams of gasoline. movement was driving that back.
Suddenly bundled in flames, the plane Boulders below looked like sleeping
was doomed! white animals under the snow. Some were as
large as houses.
Doc did a good job on the landing.
AFTER that, there was action and no Good enough that he was in all ways satis-
words. Long Tom knew what to do: he was a fied with it. With all flying speed gone, nearly,
good pilot, but he knew his limitations. Han- the ship was in a perfect stall just before it
dling a light ship or a five-passenger cabin touched.
34 DOC SAVAGE

It was as if a huge tin can had been Almost at once, though, the younger
kicked. Then kicked again and again. And woman began quarreling with her. The words
trampled. There was a scream, like a woman, were in the unintelligible tongue, but the
such a horrible sound that it seemed surely tones told that it was a quarrel.
to come from death. Doc Savage managed Doc Savage and Long Tom were after
to whirl apprehensively, but it was metal that them instantly. The bronze man broke
screamed, and not either of the two women. through the crusted snow repeatedly, slowing
The plane began going over and over. It did him until he barely kept up with Long Tom,
this twice, slowly, losing one wing and part of who half-carried his parachute.
the tail. The other gasoline tank was split, The quarrel between the two women
and the liquid flooded the craft and burned, reached a climax. The girl stopped. She
as if it was a great Christmas package in red would not accompany the older woman.
tissue paper. Doc and Long Tom reached the girl.
There was no silence after the crash. She said, “She would leave you here.
The jangling and ripping of metal, its tearing You would die. I will not leave you.” She said
and grinding, merely tapered off into the roar it as if she was reading it from a first-grade
of the fire and the excited shouting of Ter- school book.
rence Wire, who was trying to get to the Long Tom stopped there. His mouth
young woman and get her out of the fire. was as wide as he could get it, and his lungs
It was not hard, actually, to get out of pumped convulsively. But he had to stop,
the cabin. Smashing glass out of the win- then went down on all fours, eyes rolling. The
dows had not been necessary. The rib skele- altitude had him.
ton of one side of the fuselage had been Doc Savage went on, parachute pack
skinned neatly—this was a little inexplica- banging his thighs.
ble—of inside and outside covering. There The old lady looked back, triumphantly
were a dozen places where the group could at first. Then, as she saw the bronze man
walk outside upright. keep coming, confusion was in her manner.
Doc went out with the others, saw they She picked the hardest going, the most diffi-
were safe. Then he plowed back into the cult climbing. The route that was hardest on
cabin. The interior was almost full of moaning the pursuer’s wind.
flame. He picked up as much equipment as Doc caught her. But not easily. He was
he could and scrambled outside again. His feeling the altitude. There was no magic in
clothing was afire in spots. He rolled in the his make-up, only careful training and regular
snow. exercise. He was glad when he got a hand
Terrence Wire was sprawled out in the on the old lady’s bony shoulder. He pulled
snow. He seemed to be unconscious. Long her down, sank on a rock, and let his lungs
Tom was kneeling beside him. “He just pump and his ears ring.
seemed to pass out,” Long Tom said. “Here, The old lady seemed troubled.
I’ll loosen his ‘chute harness.” “I would have sent food and guides
Doc Savage went over and thrust the back to you,” she said. “They would have led
tube of Wire’s oxygen supply back between you to the lowlands. You would not have
his lips. “At this altitude,” the bronze man died.”
said, “we are going to need oxygen.” Evidently, the quarrel with the girl was
The old lady said something to the girl bothering her. Doc Savage made no com-
in the musical language. ment. The fact that she talked about sending
Then they both ran away. guides back indicated Arriba must be not so
far away. An old lady such as she could not
travel any great distance without food or
THE old lady, considering that her age shelter. She might be immune to the altitude,
looked to be over a hundred, was remarkably but she was certainly not freeze-proof.
agile. She knew snow. She kept to the Just how cold it was, Doc Savage be-
crusted spots with remarkable judgment and gan to realize. His breath was a jumping
shouted, as she ran, what was evidently in- plume, the ends of his fingers were already
structions for the younger woman to follow beginning to sting.
close behind her. He said, “Come on back,” and the old
lady followed him.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 35

Doc plowed back into the cabin of the plane.

The interior was almost full of moaning flame.

Long Tom got to his feet and shuffled them.” He considered for a moment. “Come
back toward the flaming plane. The girl came to think of it, they must have known we were
with him. following them.”
Terrence Wire had recovered enough “Probably they did,” Wire said.
to sit up. But he was not happy. “I don’t get it. Why didn’t they do some-
“Talk about mountain sickness!” he thing?”
groaned. “I’ve got it, and it has pups.” “Simple.”
“Eh?”
(In medical terminology, this is a sic k- “They figured your plane could not fly
ness experienced by mountain climbers or high enough to get to Arriba, ” Wire told him.
dwellers in high altitudes. Principal cause is “Evidently, they knew how much gas was in
rarefaction of the air. Its symptoms are fatigue, our ship. They knew we couldn’t get back to
breathing difficulty and a general helplessness, a point where we could find gasoline. ” He
often with headache and nausea. It is similar to shrugged. “So why should they bother about
the debility which Doc Savage refers to repeat- us?”
edly as “stratosphere sickness,” although there “Nice guys,” Long Tom said grimly.
“Particularly that Bear Cub. ”
are differences, the latter being more serious,
and, unfortunately, considerably less under-
stood by medical science.) DOC SAVAGE approached the plane
ruin and searched for objects which would be
A roaring came out of the mountain
of use to them. The craft was still hot and
pass, grew to dull thunder, then ebbed. One
smoking. This was far above timber line, and
of the planes had come back. It returned
there was no brush of consequence; hence
again, flying lower, and the pilot evidently
there was nothing to use in poking about in
distinguished Doc Savage’s party by the
the embers. But the bronze man got hold of a
blaze. A few rifle bullets rained down. Then
long control wire, untempered by the fire, and
the plane flew away.
succeeded in lassoing the rifle out of the
“Great stuff, ” Long Tom said. “Now,
coals. It was useless. He took off his para-
they know we’re in no condition to follow
chute to work more freely.
36 DOC SAVAGE

He got together a number of large someone had hit him with a very dirty and
sheets of the very light alloy-skin covering of unpleasant rag.
the plane. They would serve as crude tobog- He came back to Doc Savage com-
gans with which, in place of skis, they could pletely crestfallen. “O. K. She will do it.”
make better time down the mountains as far Long Tom asked him, “Then why the
as the snow and ice extended—provided face as long as a string of spaghetti?”
they decided to go down. Terrence Wire was white-lipped for a
It was while the bronze man was fash- moment. “Tara told me why she wouldn’t go.
ioning the toboggans that he managed to get I thought it was because she was afraid
Long Tom and Terrence Wire aside. something would happen to me. Hell, it
“Let the two women escape,” he said. wasn’t me.” He scowled at Doc Savage. “It’s
Wire was uneasy. “I don’t like the idea you, damn it!”
of the girl leaving. These mountains are no Doc Savage was embarrassed and si-
joke. Just the two women alone—they might lent until after the old lady—she was actually
get into trouble. El Gorrion may waylay them. not called “queen,” Terrence Wire explained,
I’m not enthusiastic about it.” but was called what was the equivalent of
“The old lady,” Doc said, “is capable. “the Queen Mother” in the strangely musical
And no fool. And Arriba may be very close.” language of Arriba—had escaped. Tara and
“I don’t know how close Arriba is,” Wire the old woman eased away from camp si-
admitted. “I was thinking about that.” He lently. Their red vests were visible against
frowned. “How are we going to make the old the white snow in the moonlight—the night
lady think she’s got a chance to get away?” that had come was as bright as a dull day—
“Mountain sickness,” Doc told him. then they were gone.
“Pretend to be very tired. Sleepy. We will “Come on,” Doc Savage said.
conclude we have to pitch camp before we
go on. ”
“Uh-huh,” Wire said. “That might work.” THEY followed the trail in the snow
It did work, too. And it didn’t. Doc Sav- without much trouble. The bronze man eyed
age and the other two men pretended great the footprints closely. The rhythm of the
fatigue—which was actually no pretence on tracks soon changed, and he glanced at
Doc’s part, and certainly none by Long Long Tom and Terrence Wire. They were
Tom—and announced their need for rest be- tired. Their packs, parachutes included, were
fore going on. They rigged a shelter, a tent of heavy.
sorts out of the heat-blackened skin fabric of “They are running,” Doc pointed out.
the big plane. Two tents. One for the women. “Their object is to exhaust us if we follow. ”
They saved their three parachutes. “That old exhibit of wrinkles,” Long
It didn’t work when the girl refused to Tom said laboriously, “is not so dumb.”
escape with the old lady. She got Terrence Doc told them, “I seem to be able to
Wire aside and told him about it. stand this altitude a little better. I will go
Wire came to Doc Savage. “She’s got ahead. You two follow.”
some kind of idea that she must take care of They nodded. Terrence Wire muttered,
us.” “If I follow much farther, somebody’ll have to
Doc said, “I am getting tired of referring play horse.”
to the girl as ‘she’ and ‘her.’ Does she have a The bronze man went on, leaving Long
name?” Tom and Terrence Wire to slog along as best
“Tara,” Wire explained. they could. Doc made as obvious a trail as
“Tara who?” possible. He was careful, however, not to
“Tara is all I ever heard.” overexert himself. In a thing of this kind, ei-
“Tell Tara,” Doc said, “to go on and es- ther of the two women had more endurance
cape. We will take a whack at taking care of than he could muster. They were accus-
ourselves.” tomed to the altitude. They had, and he was
Wire nodded, and got the girl aside growing more and more certain of this, spent
casually enough. They had a conversation of much or all of their lives at this high altitude.
some length, in the middle of which Terrence The extreme height had not bothered
Wire’s jaw nearly fell off. He looked as if them. Rather, they had seemed to grow com-
fortable as the plane climbed into the moun-
 THE SPEAKING STONE 37

tain heights. It was startling but possible, and rywhere. At points, there were tunnels. No-
physically practical. It was probably in the where was the thing fully exposed to the
final analysis no more remarkable than a snow. It was cleverly designed so that the
dweller in the polar regions becoming accus- snow would not block it. It reminded the
tomed to conditions there, or a black savage bronze man of the marvelously engineered
in the African jungle becoming at home there. ice tunnels and mountain paths on Pilatus
Transplant the naked, heat -acclimated Afri- and the Jungrau in Switzerland.
can to the north Greenland Eskimo country, There was no sign that modern tools
and he would think it was a hell of a place had been used in the construction. Doc
and certainly not fare well. So there was paused to examine the stone. He had con-
doubtless such a thing as becoming accli- siderable knowledge of geology. This stone
mated to an extreme altitude. was hard, and this path had been here for
The hard thing to believe was that many years. For generations. Centuries
there could be a livable spot in these high probably.
mountains. He went on, utterly absorbed in the
Doc glanced about. He had never seen growing evidence that he was approaching
more fantastic loneliness, more utter bleak- something amazing. Something fantastic
ness and solitude. The grotesque shaping of enough to be out of another world.
the naked stone that thrust up out of the He was a little too absorbed.
snow was fabulous, but there was something For suddenly, with a sudden, ripping
about the place that froze the soul. It had a sound, the path on which he stood folded
little of the glittering spectacle of Switzerland, outward! The stone was a great pivot, so ex-
and some of the stupendous impressiveness pertly balanced that his weight tilted it. There
of Tibet, but there was a cold formidability was no chance to leap to safety. The design
about this that transcended anything else. of the thing took care of that.
Doc Savage became more and more As if he was being dumped out of a
certain that his scheme was working: that he cup, he was poured out of the path onto the
had let the two women escape, and now he sharp slope of the mountain, into snow! He
was following them to Arriba. They knew this rolled. Over and over. Snow filled his mouth
country. They chose their trail in a way that and eyes, swept in a flying cloud around him.
told him that they were avoiding the impossi- It was a horrible sensation, because he had
ble going that one unfamiliar with such moun- been looking, a few moments before, at a
tains would have been bound to encounter. sheer cliff that dropped probably a thousand
There was the direct route which they feet so abruptly that a tossed rock would
took to reach a cache. have fallen the whole distance. So sheer that
The cache was empty when Doc Sav- it seemed to lean outward.
age reached it. But he could see what it had He went downward helplessly, tangled
contained. Skis. Skis with wide runners, with his pack, jarring against the burden of
shorter than ordinary skis. Where the runners equipment he was carrying.
made individual tracks in the snow, they The ledge was not much. Not quite ten
looked clumsy. But there was nothing par- feet wide. But the stakes—they were as large
ticularly clumsy about the way the two as fence posts and taller—were inserted in
women used them. They set out climbing, holes drilled along the outer edge, so that
then turned into a narrow canyon which led they were like a fence. The stakes literally
downward sharply. strained the bronze man out of the avalanche
They knew this country, all right. of snow.
He straightened himself out, freeing his
mouth, eyes and ears of snow. He still had
SUDDENLY, Doc knew that he was his pack, but not much breath. He crouched
close to Arriba. there, gasping.
There was the trail. The two women Involuntarily, he went back from the
were suddenly upon it. It was a well-defined sheer drop that was beyond the stakes. It
trail, a thing of marvelous engineering. must have been hundreds of feet, because it
The bronze man advanced a few hun- was a long time before he heard the jarring
dred feet, began to feel a growing amaze- dull sounds the snow made at the end of its
ment. The trail was cut out of solid stone eve-
38 DOC SAVAGE

fall. It had tumbled through space a great “Who’s got that dynamite?” El Gorrion
distance. demanded. Then: “Well, bring it here, dam-
Fascinated by the nearness of the mit.”
chasm, he made a snowball and tossed it There was a silence, then El Gorrion’s
outward. He counted seconds while it fell. voice, loud and directed at Doc Savage. He
Not as far as he had thought. Only about five bellowed, “Savage—to hell with you,
hundred feet. But five hundred feet was a lot brother!” To someone else, he snarled,
of drop. “Damn you, use all the dynamite you’ve got.
“Mr. Savage!” a voice called. We may not get another chance like this!”
It was the girl, Tara. And she was not Doc looked upward. There was a great
above. She was to the right, farther along the deal of snow, with loose stones arranged
trail. Doc searched the moonlit cliffs above. behind carefully balanced restraining walls of
“Where are you?” he called, not loudly, other stone. A man-made avalanche, bal-
because he knew that as small a thing as the anced and ready for use. Even a fraction of a
vibration of a strong voice could start an ava- stick of dynamite would turn the rubble loose.
lanche. And hurling down the chasm slope, it would
She waved, and he saw her, then demolish a skyscraper.
heard her voice distinctly. Finally Doc saw, obscure against the
She said, “We did not set that trap. black wall of stone, a reddish flare that was
Someone else must have done it.” the reflected light of a match ignited to set
“Trap?” fire to the dynamite fuse!
“You were on the trail to Arriba,” she
told him. “There are many such traps made
by the ancient people. You fell into one. An Chapter X
enemy would come along the trail and be DEATH WALKING HIGH
dumped over the edge to be caught on the
ledge you now are. The ancient warriors LONG TOM ROBERTS and Terrence
would look him over and, if he was an enemy, Wire stood in the snow and held their breath.
leave him there to die or send an avalanche The ugly gobbling echoes of the shot
down to sweep him to his death.” had chased themselves into the distances of
Doc Savage, who had his human mo- the unnaturally bright silver night. Now, there
ments, was about to make some comment was strange silence in the uncanny mountain
about the old-timers being nice fellows; then heights. Not complete silence, but one bro-
he realized it would be asinine under the cir- ken by strange murmurings that might be
cumstances. He was rearranging his other echoes and yet might not.
thoughts when the shot came. “Did Doc have a gun?” Wire asked fi-
The shot was a sudden blast. Instantly, nally.
the girl Tara cried out sharply. Long Tom had to swallow the tension
The shot echoes thumped and gobbled, out of his throat before he could answer. “I
seeming to get louder and louder and go on don’t think so,” he said. “He gave the one he
and on, before they finally chased each other had to me. Doc tries not to carry a gun; al-
off down the chasm and died. ways has.”
Doc called, “You hurt?” “You’d think,” Wire muttered, “that he
“No, ” Tara called down. “But who would need one. A man who makes trouble a
fired?” specialty, the way he does.”
There was another shot then. And fol- “He explained it to me one time,” Long
lowing it, Bear Cub’s voice saying, “We’ll get Tom said. “He said that if you carry a gun,
you, yet, sister.” you get to depend on it. It is like a crutch.
Doc Savage dived into the snow, con- Caught without the crutch sometime, you are
cealing himself. He was not much ahead of a helpless.”
few bullets which came down, searching. Terrence Wire cleared his throat grimly.
Evidently, they could not see him from above, “We’re crazy to stand here and talk about
because a voice began cursing. It was El stuff like that. Something has happened up
Gorrion. there. ”
“You able to go on now?”
 THE SPEAKING STONE 39

“Able or not,” Wire said through his Long Tom finally lunged forward,
teeth, “I’m going. Come on! There’s a plain gasped, “This thing is getting us! Come on!”
trail.” They came upon the trail soon after
They could tell, as they clambered up- that.
ward with their lungs starving for air, that the Suddenly cautious, Wire said, “I got a
bronze man had made the trail more obvious hunch something happened to Savage. You
so that they could follow. say you have his gun.”
They came to the cache which had Long Tom produced a revolver. “Not
held the skis. It was a small affair that at first his—one he collected in that fracas back
seemed to be a natural niche in the stone. there at El Gorrion’s house.” He got his cold-
But Long Tom ran a hand over the interior, stiffened finger through the trigger guard.
said, “This thing seems to have been cut out “Come on.”
of the rock. See what you think.” They followed the path—and were as
Wire examined the cache. “Sure looks impressed as Doc Savage had been. Long
like it. Feels like it, I mean. Who you figure Tom was completely amazed. He gaped at
would go to the trouble of cutting something the elaborate, scientific engineering of the
like that out of solid rock?” path that was so built that it could not be af-
Long Tom shook his head. “I don’t fected by snow.
know. There’s a lot about this thing I don’t Terrence Wire was as impressed as
know. Most of it, in fact.” Long Tom, but, somehow, not as amazed.
They went on. He seemed to expect something of the kind.
The explosion came then! There was “You sure,” Long Tom demanded, “that
not the slightest doubt in their minds but that you have never been up here before?”
it was a blast. They even saw the flash. And “No, no,” Wire assured him. “I just
the ripping sound was loud enough to seem knew we would find something startling,
almost against their ears. that’s all. This is only a beginning.”
Wire said, “Dynamite!” “Beginning, eh?” Long Tom was im-
“How can you tell?” pressed.
“The sound. It’s different from black Two or three minutes later, Long Tom
powder, or from TNT. I used to work with it a stopped suddenly, gripped Wire’s arm. “You
lot. I’m a mining man, a hard-rock engineer smell anything?”
by profession. Or did I tell you that? I guess I “Dynamite been exploded right around
didn’t.” here,” Wire said. “Let’s take a look.”
They stood there, not because they They found the rotating trap of an affair
were fascinated by the explosion, but be- in the path. They saw its purpose, saw also
cause they did not have the power to go on. by the disturbed powder snow that it had
The fatigue of mountain sickness was over- functioned recently.
powering. No matter how much they wanted Long Tom groaned. He looked over the
to go on, they simply could not. It was like edge. “Doc rolled down below,” he said
hypnosis. Their will power, their intense hoarsely. “You can see where there has
worry, could do nothing against it. been a ledge. They used dynamite to start an
avalanche and sweep him over the cliff!”
(This is one of the common effects of al-
titude. The author, while hunting mountain
sheep at high altitude, has had members of his IT was daylight before they left the spot.
party, men ordinarily of great stamina and Long after daylight. They waited there in a
courage, simply sit down and quit, refusing to kind of forlorn hope. Not in idleness, though.
make any effort to even return to camp, when They ripped up their parachutes, and made
afflicted with altitude sickness. Such instances the fabric and the shroud lines into a long
rope. By this, Long Tom was lowered to the
could result in death by freezing. Many deaths
brink of the chasm.
of men working at extreme mountain altitudes,
On what had been the ledge, he found
under seemingly eerie circumstances—no visi- three of the high stakes still standing, and
ble reason for collapse and death—can thus be they were enough to tell him what the device
explained—Kenneth Robeson.) had been. They told him also that Doc Sav-
age was dead, because jammed against one
40 DOC SAVAGE

of the poles was the sheet of airplane-skin its fully rounded aspects, was understanda-
metal which Doc Savage had been carrying bly a factor that made him different from
for use as a toboggan. other men. Outwardly, at least.
Long Tom sat there for a long time in a And so, Long Tom sat there in dry-
spell of cold horror. His body seemed filled eyed grief for a long time. Later, he got hold
with a kind of death that was physical without of himself and worked to the lip of the chasm
being mental. There was no feeling, no and peered downward. Enough daylight
numbness even, and little impression of cold. penetrated to show the abysmal depth of the
His mind was wild and frightened and rent and the great pile of stone and rubble
bounding, like a tormented ghost going into and snow which had been carried down by
the past, into his long association with Doc the avalanche set loose by the dynamite.
Savage. He thought of a thousand small Long Tom used a little of the precious
things the bronze man had done, small and oxygen from the storage cylinder of his high-
human things. He did not—and this struck altitude suit. With the strength it gave him, he
him as vaguely peculiar at the moment— climbed back to join Terrence Wire.
recall any of the great feats, the world-hailed “I thought you were never coming
discoveries for which Doc Savage was re- back,” Wire told him.
sponsible. It was the small things. “I didn’t feel like it,” Long Tom said hol-
The small things, back in the past. The lowly.
way, for instance, that all of them had, for a
long time, thought Doc Savage was incapa-
ble of perpetrating a practical joke. Then the THEY worked their way along the path
morning when Monk Mayfair, who had a pet that became more and more a series of tun-
pig named Habeas Corpus, had found an- nels in the chasm wall. They went cautiously.
other pig in his laboratory-penthouse- They made both their packs into a bundle—
apartment near Wall Street. The pig had the articles which would not break—and
looked exactly like Monk’s Habeas except added stones for more weight. They tossed
that he was minus Habeas’ gigantic ears and this ahead of them, letting it jar down on the
dubious tail. path as a test.
Thinking someone had mangled his pet The precaution was wise. Unexpect-
Habeas—and sure it was Ham Brooks, who edly, great beams of wood, disguised so that
had always threatened to do so—Monk had they exactly resembled the stone, whipped
gone charging into the swank and eminent out and around and would have imprisoned
Tycoon Club where Ham was delivering a them crushingly against the wall had they
dignified lecture on the legal points of the been closer.
income tax. Monk had made an ass out of “Talk about wild spots,” Long Tom mut-
himself, and a fool out of Ham, who got mad. tered. “All of this stuff looks as if it was built
The thing had been hilariously funny at hundreds of years ago.”
the time, a perfect practical gag under the Terrence Wire said, “It was.”
circumstances. To their astonishment, they “Huh?”
had discovered that Doc himself had perpe- Wire said, “I wish I could tell you the
trated it, gotten as much fun out of it as any story—as much of it as I know. But I can’t. I
of them. promised not to.”
Before that, although subconsciously Displeased and irritated by the hard-
knowing better, they had been a little inclined ships they were undergoing, Long Tom
to regard the bronze man as the public snapped, “For an ex-gangster out of El Gor-
looked upon him, as a kind of superior com- rion’s mob, your moral sense is suddenly
bination of mental genius and physical mar- damned high.”
vel, not exactly human in all respects. Wire held his temper. “Maybe. I have
Doc Savage was admittedly a strange reasons, as I said before. These people—
fellow, though. He could not be anything else these Arribans—attach importance to a
in view of his upbringing. Placed in the hands promise. Great importance. I figure they con-
of scientists at childhood for training, as he sider it more important than life itself. From
had been, and subjected to such a rigorous what I’ve seen of the Queen Mother and Tara,
program of mental and physical development they must be an amazing folk.”
as probably no other man had undergone, in
 THE SPEAKING STONE 41

“You might explain,” said Long Tom, caused Terrence Wire to stare in amazement.
“why that should have such a big effect on “You killed him!”
you.” Long Tom said, “No, blast it! But if I felt
Wire eyed him sharply. a little stronger—”
“Love, ” he said, “makes the wheels go He searched the victim quickly, came
around. Backward, sometimes.” up with another pair of pistols, a rifle that was
“Your wheels are turning backward?” standing a few feet away and a gas mask.
“You seem to think so. Maybe it is a They stowed the pistols inside their clothing,
reverse for me to be honest. But you see, I close to the skin where body heat would
got ambitions to be an Arriban.” keep them in working order.
“To be Tara’s husband, you mean?” They listened anxiously. But the whin-
“You,” Terrence Wire told him enthusi- ing of the wind through the mountain peaks
astically, “said it!” was enough sound to cover whatever racket
they had made.
Long Tom eyed the victim, said, “For
LONG TOM put out a hand suddenly two bits, I’d roll him over the edge.”
and yanked Terrence Wire behind an out- “Probably be a kindness,” Wire agreed.
thrust of rock. Wire growled, “Do you have to “We leave him here, and he’ll maybe freeze.”
manhandle me just because I’m in love, you Long Tom snorted. “They say freezing
dried-up—” is the easiest death. Let’s be kind to him.”
Long Tom silenced him. “Sh-h-h! Shut They went on, leaving the guard be-
up! Look!” hind. Belying their tough announcement to let
Wire stared and made out a figure him die, they covered the fellow with what
sauntering along the path ahead of them. was left of their parachutes, and the sheet-
The figure was unaware of their presence. metal skin of the plane which they had
Recognizing the man, Wire grunted. “The brought along to use for toboggans if they
guy who thinks a life was made to take,” he ever got started down the mountains again.
muttered. They stalked Bear Cub with infinite
“Yeah, Bear Cub himself,” Long Tom care.
agreed. “Come on. The score I’ve got to set- Following the man was difficult. For the
tle with him has a long, sharp-pointed tail.” trail suddenly came out into the open, or
They hurried forward, still cautious, al- rather into a great devil’s playground of boul-
though they did not thump the trail ahead ders that seemed—and as they advanced
with the sack of rocks and equipment. They they grew more sure of this—the top of a
had dumped the rocks out of the pack to pass.
lighten it. Now, they could see Bear Cub’s Then unexpectedly they lost Bear Cub.
footprints in the fine snow that had sifted on He was nowhere to be seen. Excited and
to the path during the night. They kept in his worried, they backtracked, found his trail, and
footprints and felt safe. followed that.
“He was on guard, evidently,” Long The footprints led them to a cave.
Tom whispered. “Either that, or—” There were many tracks around the cave
“Hump!” Wire gasped. “We almost mouth, which had undoubtedly been made
thought of that too late.” the day before. But only one set, those of
Bear Cub had not been on guard. He Bear Cub, had been made since the snow
had been checking to see if the man who had blown during the dawn hours.
was posted was on duty. The fellow was Convinced that the cave was the hide-
suddenly in front of them, aiming with a pistol, out of the gang, and that they had a landing
an automatic. field for their planes nearby, Long Tom and
He would have shot them down then, Wire crept forward. They had, they discov-
except that he had forgotten about the in- ered, no matches. It was ugly business,
tense cold at this altitude. The cold had stiff- creeping into the cave. As soon as possible,
ened the oil in his weapon; the gun was they moved over against the stone side walls,
probably over-oiled, anyway. The safety out of the backlight from the door.
stuck. The man jabbed at it frantically with his Long Tom was not surprised when they
thumb, long enough for Long Tom to reach were set upon. His legs were seized. He had
him. Long Tom struck the man a blow that a grisly moment when he knew very well they
42 DOC SAVAGE

should not have barged headlong into the shackled to Monk’s ankles and to a U-
cave; when he knew, too, that they were in shaped tunnel cut in the solid stone floor.
no condition, due to the altitude sickness, to “Where’s Ham?” Long Tom asked.
put up a fight. “Down a ways,” Monk replied, whisper-
He went down, got his captor by the ing. “They keep us apart. When we try to talk
throat. The throat was very thick, and some- to each other, they come and do their best to
how familiar. Familiar also was the small, kick out our teeth. It’s their amusement.”
angry voice that could have belonged to a “Is Ham all right?”
child. “He is not happy,” Monk said, sounding
“Monk!” Long Tom gasped. slightly pleased. “They took his fancy clothes
Complete silence fell. away from him and gave him an outfit of
Terrence Wire whispered, “Get away gunny sacks to wear. You know how he likes
from him, Long Tom. I’ll use my gun on him!” his clothes. He’s mad enough to eat snakes.”
“Nix, nix, this is Monk Mayfair, ” Long Long Tom considered the situation.
Tom gasped. “He’s one of the fellows we “Wire,” he said, “you get Monk loose.
came all the way from the South Seas to While you’re doing that, I’ll go down and turn
find.” Ham loose. Th en we’ll figure out a cam-
paign.”
Monk said, “Wire had better have teeth
like a hacksaw, if he expects to get me loose.
Some guy made this chain a thousand years
or so ago, and he didn’t know how much
steel it would take to hold a man, or some-
thing.”
Long Tom muttered, “You mean we
can’t get you loose?”
“You got any cutting torches or hack-
saws?”
“No. ”
“Then,” said Monk, “you have a prob-
lem on your hands.”
Long Tom said finally, “I’ll go see Ham.
Maybe we can catch the guy who has the
key.”
Terrence Wire put in, “Go ahead. I’ll
take a whack at the lock.”
Long Tom crept forward. He was still
THERE was another silence during without light, and although his spirits were a
which no one seemed to know what to say. great deal higher, the danger was no less.
Then Monk, in the tiny voice that sounded so Too, locating Ham in the darkness would be
ridiculous in a man with the physical charac- difficult. They had stumbled on Monk by luck.
teristics of a playful ape, said, “How many of Ham was supposed to be “down a ways,”
you?” which might take in a lot of territory in this
“Me and a guy named Terrence Wire.” stygian, bat-dream darkness.
“Him, eh?” Monk said. “Well, you two An idea occurred to Long Tom. An old
ain’t enough to lick anybody. Not at this alti- gag. They had used it before.
tude. You better keep your mouths shut and He got two small rocks and rubbed
hope nobody has overheard this.” them together. The sound was something
During this silence, everyone strained like an animal gnawing, or a noise that Ham,
his ears. Evidently, they had not been over- if he was chained nearby in the darkness,
heard. might logically make in stirring slightly. The
Not being overheard puzzled Long gritty noises of the rocks, Long Tom turned
Tom until he explored around Monk’s ankles into international code dots and dashes,
with his hands and found a chain that would which all of them could read.
have held an elephant helpless. It was He got an answer from Ham almost at
once.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 43

“W-O-T-H,” Ham transmitted, also with “I don’t see how it is so much hide off
two rocks. Which was a short way of asking, their noses,” Wire said.
“Who the hell?” “The young men,” Ham pointed out,
“seem to think it’s a lot of hide off their
noses.”
“Hm -m-m! Competition.” Wire was si-
lent.
The cave blackness was intense. A
faint patch of lighter murk against the black
indicated the distant mouth of the cavern by
which they had entered. Long Tom thought
he could distinguish in the opposite direction
another trace of slate, but he was not sure.
He asked, “Is there another mouth to
this hole?”
“Sure,” Monk said. “It’s a passage
through the mountain. The front door to Ar-
riba.”
Ham snorted. “The doorstep of the
place, you might say.”
“Kennel,” Monk corrected.
“Eh?”
“The dog house. We’ve been in it for
weeks.”
Chapter XI Long Tom was puzzled. “You mean
MOUNTAIN FANTASIA they actually keep dogs here?”
“No. I mean the figure of speech,”
LONG TOM worked twenty minutes Monk corrected him. “These Arribans de-
trying to free Ham Brooks, who was suffering cided we were a couple of incompetents, so
from nothing more serious than impatience they stuck us out here.”
and, as Monk had said, the indignity of hav- In a suddenly amazed voice, Long Tom
ing to wear gunny sacks. Long Tom failed to asked, “Look here—you don’t mean the Arri-
get Ham loose. He went back to Monk and bans have been holding you prisoners?”
Terrence Wire. “It hasn’t been my Uncle Abner,” Monk
Monk was free, sitting on the stone said disgustedly.
floor rubbing his ankles to restore the circula- “I thought El Gorrion had you.”
tion. “No, ” Monk said. “Say, a bunch of guys
“How’d you get him loose?” Long Tom went through here a time or two during the
asked Wire in astonishment. night. There was some shooting over on the
“Remember, I told you I was an engi- Arriba side of the tunnel. So Ham and I natu-
neer?” Wire sounded a little sheepish. “I’ve rally didn’t make much racket. We figured El
done some work on locks in my time. Where Gorrion had come back equipped to take the
is Ham?” place by force. Were we right?”
They went to Ham, and Wire busied Terrence Wire said grimly, “You were
himself with the padlock which held the law- right.”
yer—Ham was the law expert in Doc Sav- Their breathing was harsh in the cave
age’s group of associates—chained to the stillness. That and the metallic gritting of the
stone floor. wire Terrence Wire was using in an effort to
“I’ve heard of you,” Ham told Wire. “I pick the ancient lock. It was a modern
don’t know that you are so smart coming enough padlock, as the age of things around
back here.” them went, probably not more than thirty or
“How do you mean?” Wire asked. forty years old.
“The Arribans,” Ham told him, “figure Long Tom said, “Monk.”
you are in love with Tara. They are not turn- “Yeah?”
ing any handsprings about that.” “There was a rock.”
“Huh?”
44 DOC SAVAGE

“It talked with your voice.” carried it around in my pocket for weeks not
“Sure,” Monk said. “So what?” knowing what it was. I figured it was just a
Long Tom was silent so long that Monk pretty stone.”
asked him, “What’s the matter with you, volts “How’d you get it?” Long Tom de-
and amperes?” manded. “In the first place, I mean. ”
“I can’t get rid of the feeling some- “My reputation as a scientist.” Monk
body’s crazy,” Long Tom told him sourly. chuckled. “A reliable scientist, associated
“Rocks don’t talk.” with Doc Savage.”
“Was this,” asked Monk, “a pale-blue, “I don’t understand.”
round, little rock?” “I don’t see how anybody would under-
“Yes.” stand he was a scientist,” Ham said. “Misun-
“It talked,” Monk said. “I told it what to derstand, rather.”
say.” Monk grunted sourly. “They sent the
rock to me with an accompanying letter. The
letter contained instructions. They wanted me
MONK MAYFAIR, who liked to be to take the thing apart and pass my scientific
dramatic, enjoyed Long Tom’s obvious be- opinion on its practical qualities and its prob-
wilderment for a few seconds. Then, deliber- able value to the world. The letter of instruc-
ately aggravating, he began talking, but not tions got lost. I only received the stone.”
about the rock. He paused to ask Terrence Wire if he
“I don’t know,” Monk said, “whether could be of any help on Ham’s padlock. Wire
anybody has told you how we got here—or at muttered that he could not, that it was just a
least got into a spot where we needed help.” matter of time and patience.
Long Tom muttered, “About that rock. Monk repeated, “They sent the rock to
How—” me with instructions, and the messenger lost
“These Arribans hired El Gorrion to the instructions. I think, now, that El Gorrion’s
dispose of the secret of the speaking stone men stole the instructions from the messen-
for them,” Monk continued. “The Arribans ger, but didn’t get the stone. Anyway, I got
needed a little civilized money, and they were the stone, thought it was a pocket piece
going to get it that way. Only El Gorrion was somebody had given me, and I carried it
not the little box of honesty they thought he around. To tell the truth, though, if I had been
was. He crossed them up. All that saved exactly sure who had sent me the stone and
them and their speaking stone was that they why, I wouldn’t have carried it the way I did.”
hadn’t turned the secret over to El Gorrion. Ham said, “Your story keeps wagging
He had to get it. When he tried, they got wise its tail too much. Can’t you bob it off?”
to him.” “Sure,” Monk agreed. “They called on
Monk was silent a moment, then us because they’d sent me the stone. And
clutched in reflective wonder. “It was sure a because they had a high opinion of my abil-
wonder El Gorrion didn’t get it. He told them ity.”
he would have to have the thing so he could “Which opinion,” Ham added, “is now
patent it. That was logical. I think they were so low it would have to wear stilts to walk
about to put the baby in his basket when the over a worm.”
Queen Mother got wise. She fanned him out. Terrence Wire gasped with relief.
Rather, she tried to. Fanning out El Gorrion is There was a snicking sound from the padlock.
like getting rid of fleas. It’s hell unless you get “Got it,” Wire said.
the right powder.”
Ham, still shackled to the stone floor,
made a bitter noise. “We were the flea pow- LONG TOM now told them that Doc
der.” Savage was dead. He had been withholding
Monk grunted in agreement. “You’ll the information, figuring that once Ham and
never guess how we happened to get tan- Monk were free, they would be in better con-
gled in it.” dition to stand the shock.
Ham growled, “How you got in it, you They listened to him with a silence that
homely goat.” was horror, and, afterward, they did not say
Monk, not disturbed by the lawyer’s much because there was nothing to be said.
sarcasm, said, “It was that talking rock, see. I There was only death, and it was so real and
 THE SPEAKING STONE 45

close to them that it seemed to stand with got food up here. But there was nothing of
skull and scythe in the very darkness about the sort spread out before them.
them. There was, instead, a fabulous work of
After a long time, in a low, anxious stone—a fortress against the elements,
voice, Terrence Wire asked, “Will this make against the bitter cold and howling blizzards.
any difference? I mean—Doc Savage was The architecture was Incan, or pre-
coming to rescue you, and now you two are Incan. At least, nowhere was the type of
rescued. What I’m trying to say is—well, you stone arch employing a keystone used. All
have accomplished your objective. That is—I openings were beamed with flat slabs of ob-
hope you haven’t. Or have you?” sidian mountain stone.
Monk Mayfair spoke almost instantly In general form, Arriba was, in minia-
for himself and the others. ture example, a group of very black match
“We’ll see it to the end,” he said. “El boxes placed in a fairy rock garden. A won-
Gorrion killed Doc Savage. Do you think we der place of grotesquely shaped, sometimes
would turn back and let him get away with beautifully gnarled and twisted mountain
that?” stone. And all was blanketed over with ice
Sincerely, Wire said, “I did not think and white snow in which there was not a
so.” footprint.
They spread Ham out on the stone “Look.” Long Tom pointed. “Green-
floor of the cave and worked over him, houses.”
kneading his muscles and pulling his joints “Something like that,” Monk admitted.
like osteopathic students working over a “They have a whiz-ding system of heating
charity patient. Ham grunted and groaned water by solar lenses. You wouldn’t think, at
and called them unpleasant names; but when first, that it is practical. But the sun always
they let go him, he was limber and able to shines up here, and the guy who invented
walk or even run. the thing was a wizard. It heats the whole
“From the shooting during the night,” colony, and warms their greenhouses.”
Monk said, “I think El Gorrion is tackling Ar- Long Tom stared. They were a little
riba. We better wade right in ourselves.” higher than most of Arriba, able to look down
Terrence Wire had one comment to on the roof tops. They could see that, while
make. He made it disconsolately. “Fine lot of the walls of the buildings were stone, the
equipment we’ve got to fight those birds. roofs were of some transparent material that
They came prepared, I’m telling you. They’ve resembled glass.
been preparing for months.” Pointing, Long Tom asked, “Glass?
Sunlight outside was very bright. They They have glass here?”
waited back in the cave mouth gloom until Monk nodded. “A quartz product.
their eyes became accustomed to the glare. Something like our so-called health glass that
Long Tom and Terrence Wire did not wait passes the invisible rays of light as well as
patiently. They were anxious to see what this the visible ones.” The homely chemist looked
mysterious place of Arriba looked like, and all at the electrician strangely. “This glass was
they could see through the cavern mouth worked out ten or fifteen centuries ago.”
was mountain sky as blue as a safety-razor Long Tom frowned. “You keep talking
blade, and doubtless filled with cold that in terms of hundreds of years. You mean this
would cut like the blade. is a lost race of people or something?”
They moved forward. “Hermits is more like it.”
“All right, you birds,” Monk said. “Get “Eh?”
ready for the spectacle.” “This place,” Monk said, “probably was
one of the high cities of the Incas in the be-
ginning. I don’t know what tribe of the Incas
IT was not what they had expected. In built it, but probably it had a religious signifi-
one respect, Arriba was more than that. It cance. They were sun worshipers. The sun
was different. They had subconsciously been does everything here. You can see how the
looking forward, all of them, to something in houses are open at the roof. The sun heats
the nature of a volcanic crater heated by sub- the places, as I said, and does just about
terranean hot springs; some such freak of everything else.”
nature which would explain how the Arribans
46 DOC SAVAGE

They picked a route which seemed to “Their two planes. Where are they?”
offer the least chance of being discovered Monk snapped his fingers as hard as
and started working their way downward. he could, which was not hard, stiff as they
Monk added, “These Arribans aren’t were with the cold. “Over beyond the place,
pure Inca.” there’s a level spot. I’ll bet they landed there.”
“How come?” There was no more comment. They
“Oh, a foreign exploring party barged turned left. Monk and Ham had a general
onto the place a couple of hundred years or idea of the lay of the ground. Long Tom and
more ago. I guess the guy leading the party Terrence Wire handed them what clothing
was some kind of an advanced thinker. He they could spare, to fend off the intense cold.
set out to stay here and take advantage of They passed close to a number of the
the Inca culture, add his own, avoid partici- black boxes which were the strange buildings
pating in wars, quarrels, politics, and the of the strange Arriba. The stone, they saw,
other mental boils of humanity, and really get was shiny. It was not unlike glass. The build-
something extra in the way of a human ings were not as large as they had seemed.
economy. He darned well succeeded, I would Ham suddenly went low in the snow,
say.” breathed, “There they are! Both planes! Or
It was bitterly cold. Not mere zero two planes, anyway.”
weather, but at least twenty degrees below. “They’re El Gorrion’s ships,” Long Tom
Monk and Ham, who had barely enough said.
clothing to keep them alive in the cave, be- They remained flat and motionless in
gan to turn blue. the snow for some time, long enough to dis-
“I got an idea,” Terrence Wire said. cover that there seemed to be two armed
“Yeah?” guards near the planes.
“We’ve got one halfway friend in there,” “How’ll we do this?” Wire muttered.
Wire explained. “Tara. I suggest we find her, Monk scowled. “They’re not going to let
if we can, and go on from there.” us walk up there, that’s a cinch.” He shivered.
Monk was very interested. “Tara your “A little more of this, and ’Ill be frozen into
friend, eh? You know, I wouldn’t mind having bullet-proof condition.”
a few friends like that.” Tara spoke quietly behind them. “Show
yourselves,” she said. “Then start shooting. ”
A wild cat jumping on their backs would
Chapter XII not have gotten more emotional results. Long
SIEGE OF ARRIBA Tom spread out convulsively in the snow and
clutched handfuls of the flakes. Both Ham
THERE were two shots and a cry that and Terrence Wire came convulsively to their
might have been elation or agony. The feet. Monk, who could have been shot with-
noises came from somewhere in the remark- out showing emotion, lay quite still for a while,
able array of buildings, and they were very then slowly rolled over, looked at the girl.
faint. Monk made a remark which was clas-
Long Tom Roberts stopped the others. sic under the circumstances. “Something
“We’re rushing right in to take the bull nice has finally happened to us,” he said.
by the horns,” he said. “I don’t know if that is In her so-careful English, the girl said,
so smart.” “Start shooting at them, please!”
“Taking him by the horns is my There was such imperative need in her
method, ” said Monk fiercely. Monk liked to voice that Monk and the others stared at
fight, and he was now cold enough that he each other.
needed one badly. Long Tom growled, “All right! Let’s not
“Taking him by the tail,” Long Tom said, ask questions!”
“might be better. ” He took deliberate aim with his revolver
“Eh?” and fired. The distance was too great for a
“We might twist his tail easier than his revolver shot, but Long Tom made a snarling
horns. Especially if he turns out to be a big noise when he saw that he had missed.
bull.” Instantly, the two plane guards popped
“Meaning?” out of their ships, unlimbered their rifles, and
stared for the source of the shot.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 47

“The rest of you haven’t got guns,” Long Tom began to have a startling
Long Tom said. “So get back. Keep under premonition.
cover. I don’t know what this is about, but I’ll He was sure of it when the raider in
do my best with these lugs.” white left the ships, made a successful dash
Tara said, “Show yourselves.” for safety, and waved just before vanishing
“Huh?” Long Tom stared at her. “You among the stones.
trying to get us shot?” “Doc Savage!” he gasped incredulously.
The girl seemed to search for a word They took to their heels then. They ran
that would explain what she meant. as fast as they could, which was not very fast,
“Decoy,” she said finally. the altitude still having a strong effect on
them. As soon as they were safe—the pair of
plane guards showed no disposition to chase
THEY understood what it was then. them—they stopped, lay down and fought for
Ham and Monk and Wire leaped to their feet, breath.
emitted squalls that would carry to the two Doc Savage soon appeared. The
guards and plunged forward. They were, bronze man looked more tired than Long
however, sensible enough to dive behind Tom or the others had ever seen him look.
boulders that would turn bullets. He was somewhat battered.
The two riflemen began shooting. The Long Tom goggled at the white gar-
brittle reports of their guns whacked off the ment Doc was wearing, fashioned from para-
surrounding peaks. Long Tom’s revolver was chute fabric.
a series of rending noises closer at hand. For “Blazes!” he said. “We’ve made a lot of
a few minutes, the place became a miniature stupid guesses in our time. But I seem to
battlefield. have made one that takes the prize. ”
The pair of riflemen seemed extremely “Meaning?” Doc Savage asked curi-
anxious to get away from the immediate vi- ously.
cinity of their plane. “On that cliff. Wire and I didn’t see a
“There must be dynamite or bombs or way you could have escaped. But you just
something explosive in the ships,” Monk went over the ledge with a parachute, didn’t
growled. you?”
“Show yourselves!” Tara gasped. Doc nodded. “There was not much to it.
She tried to set the example by leaping It was not even necessary to jump. There
up recklessly. Monk seized her and hauled was an updraft of air strong enough to yank
her down. They kept under cover. Ham kept open the ‘chute and cut my speed of descent
peering toward the planes. to a great degree.”
“There he is!” Ham exploded suddenly. Tara came quickly to the bronze man’s
“Down, you dope,” Monk snarled. side. “The plane will not fly?” she asked. He
“Whoever it is, don’t give him away!” nodded and exhibited the small parts he had
Long Tom, conserving his cartridges removed.
and shooting only after the most careful aim- Long Tom and the others had regained
ing, saw the figure also. It was so expertly their breath. They resumed the retreat.
disguised that he almost failed to locate it. Tara led the way toward the cluster of
The figure, a man, was all in white, blending black buildings that was Arriba.
with the snow, and working toward the “I don’t get this,” Monk said. “What’s
planes. going on?”
The man in white reached one of the Doc Savage explained the situation.
planes and vanished inside quickly. He was He had climbed the mountainside, skirting
gone only a moment. Then he reappeared, the cliff, and managed to head off Tara and
went to the other ship. the remarkable old lady. They had joined
Long Tom grinned. The man was tak- forces. There was nothing else to be sensibly
ing essential parts off the planes and opening done, because El Gorrion’s men had started
fuel cocks to the gas tanks, disabling the their attack on Arriba.
ships. “Then they are inside the place?” Monk
It was a startling feat of boldness, demanded. “That shooting we heard means
stealth and quick execution. they’re meeting resistance, as military men
say?”
48 DOC SAVAGE

“Yes, they are fighting inside.” Tara and Doc Savage seemed to have
Long Tom eyed Tara approvingly. definite ideas of where they were going.
“You’re being a big help to us. The surroundings became more im-
She said, “It was . . . my persuasion . . . pressive. The rooms were more vast, the
which persuaded them to call . . . on you for supporting columns more massive.
help . . . in the beginning. ” “This must be the palace end of the
Long Tom grinned. He liked her hesi- place,” Ham decided.
tant, extremely careful way of speaking. As a “It was . . . originally . . . the abode of
matter of fact, Long Tom found himself liking the highest potentates,” Tara said slowly.
everything, now that Doc Savage was alive. Ham grinned at her. She had a funny
Thinking Doc had been dead had been a way of speaking English. She took the same
tremendous error on his part. And like men care with the smallest words that she applied
who have made a huge mistake, his mental- to the largest.
escape mechanism kept trying to consider it They came then to the presence of the
as a great joke. A gigantic joke on himself. A Queen Mother, and Tara made a speech.
more-than-a-little horrible joke. The speech was in the remarkably musical
“How,” asked Long Tom, “does the tongue of the Arribans, and it was seriously
Queen Mother feel about this?” vehement. The old lady was argumentative,
The girl winced. “I did not ask her. ” worried.

THE pleasantly balmy, yet delightfully IT turned out that the argument was
crisp, air inside the strange black block build- about the red vests. The vest angle did not
ings was a surprise. It was as if there were develop immediately.
ultra-efficient air conditioning. But the air was First, at least a dozen old men were
not under pressure, not charged with oxygen. called in. They were old men, but they had
It was the same rarefied air that was outside the same humorous wrinkled faces as the old
on the mountain tops. Pure and brittle, as lady, the Queen Mother. There was no family
biting as the mountain tips. resemblance between them, no evidence of
Interest in their surroundings wiped out, inbreeding. But there was plenty of evidence
for the next few moments, thoughts of danger, of scientific physical culture.
of anything but the strange passages and Their skins were very clear, and none
rooms through which they passed. There of their bodies were fat. They had a certain
was, first of all, the locking arrangement of general manner of carriage, indicating that
the great stone door. The door itself was they took the same exercises in the same
nearly a yard thick. There were two doors, way. Signs of regimented physical instruction.
one a few feet inside the other, both obvi- Their skins were darkly golden. Many of them
ously air-tight. The builders seemed to have had about the same complexion as Doc Sav-
known the insulating value of dead air age. They looked remarkably intelligent, as a
spaces. group.
Long Tom sank suddenly to a knee, Their features were not exactly Anglo-
ran a foot over the passage floor. It was Saxon, neither were they native. Not Incan,
rounded, worn by feet. As hard as that stone either. A mixture of races, rather, as if a care-
was, it had taken many footsteps to grind out ful blending had been carried out over the
those grooves. centuries. That, they later learned, was the
They heard an explosion then. It was explanation. From time to time, at long inter-
very muffled. vals, outside blood had been brought to the
Tara said, “They . . . blast down . . . colony. Arriba was not out of touch with the
doors.” world. Its people knew what went on outside,
What she meant, the group soon dis- although great pains had been taken to keep
covered. At intervals, the passages were existence of Arriba a secret.
closed with great stone doors, none of them Actually, there was perfectly modern
less than a yard thick. They moved on equipment in the place. Radio apparatus,
grooves which were arranged with a simple receiving only, for instance. And modern
but effective system of counterbalanced medical equipment, a well-stocked library of
weights. up-to-date literature.
 THE SPEAKING STONE 49

The food was not confined entirely to A man, an Arriban, arrived without for-
what was produced under careful forced cul- mality, and somewhat breathless. He said
ture in the great greenhouses. Luxuries were something excited.
brought in from the outer world. It was to get Tara turned to Doc and the others. “El
money to make such purchases that it had Gorrion, ” she explained, “wants a confer-
been decided to dispose of the speaking- ence . . . to offer us terms.”
stone secret.
All of that came out gradually in the
course of time. Chapter XIII
What developed immediately was that THE STONE SPOKE DEATH
Doc and the others were given red vests.
Ham’s first inclination was to laugh. EL GORRION had a peculiar faculty.
Then he saw the serious expressions on the There was a kind of bawdy democracy in his
faces of Tara, the Queen Mother and the old gang, in which he was sassed, argued with
men, who apparently were some kind of high and even cursed to his face. This behavior
council. on the part of his men was not disrespect. It
Ham straightened out his face and was not much more than a habit on their part.
asked, “What is the idea?” El Gorrion did not try to discourage it. Possi-
Tara stared at him. “Do you not . . . bly, he was wise, because some of his asso-
know the meaning . . . of the vests?” ciates, while trying to be insulting sometimes,
Long Tom shook his head. “They got came forth with an idea which was good.
me. Little Jones wore one. And you and—” El Gorrion had another faculty, neces-
he stared at the old men, who were also at- sary under the circumstances. He could put a
tired in the red vests—”the rest of them here stop to the backtalk and sass with a word or
seem to have red vests. But if they have a a scowl. His change of manner did the job.
meaning, it throws me.” That, and what his men knew about him.
“They are a badge,” Tara said, “of Ar- E ven the bloodthirsty Bear Cub was a lamb
riba.” alongside El Gorrion when the master had
“Yeah?” Long Tom said, not impressed. red in his eye.
“For generations . . . no Arriban has At the moment, El Gorrion and most,
been without them . . . during his or her wak- but not all, of his men were ensconced in a
ing hours,” Tara added. room in one of the square black stone struc-
“Yeah?” repeated Long Tom, still less tures which made up Arriba. The air-
impressed. conditioning set-up had been switched off by
He was thinking that this smacked of the defenders of Arriba, so that it was very
barbaric mumbo jumbo. And he was dis- cold in the room. This did not bother them,
gusted, because Tara and the other Arribans except that it was an aggravation.
had been impressing him as individuals of “Damn it!” said Bear Cub, his breath
very high intelligence. spurting steam, “I think you made a mistake,
Tara, a little angry, spoke English with- offering to palaver with them.”
out her usual hesitations. “Palaver?” said El Gorrion, apparently
“Those vests,” she said, “are bullet- not knowing what the word meant.
proof. ” “Slang for gab,” Bear Cub explained.
“Huh?” Long Tom was profoundly star- “Chin, confab, chat, talk, gossip, confabula-
tled and stared at the girl’s vest in amaze- tion, and so on.”
ment. He had not imagined the garment was “Your mouth is too big,” El Gorrion said,
anything of the kind. “for your mind. Less talk and more brain
“Also,” said Tara, “the material . . . is would help you.”
an excellent antiseptic and germicide. Merely Bear Cub snorted.
applying the fabric . . . to a wound . . . is the The men watched one of their compan-
best treatment . . . you could give it.” ions arranging a charge of dynamite, the ob-
Long Tom’s mouth fell open. ject of which was to blow down another of the
“But principally,” finished Tara, “you will set of remarkably heavy double doors which
need the vests . . . to go about Arriba safely. seemed to be the rule in the Arriban buildings.
They will mark you . . . as accepted into Ar-
riba.”
50 DOC SAVAGE

These were the next thing to steel, and there what might happen to them and had volun-
were plenty of them. teered.
Dynamite would shatter the doors, of El Gorrion made a speech that was
course, but the difficulty was that they did not short. “Habla V. Espanol?” he asked.
have enough dynamite to carry out the “No, we speak English,” one of the
amount of blasting that was beginning to conferees said.
seem necessary. “All right, you guys,” said El Gorrion, “I
A man came in. He was one of the want the talking stones, as everybody calls
guards from the two planes, and he started to them. I want blueprints, or drawings, or
speak uneasily. whatever you have got to show how they are
El Gorrion made a quick gesture, and made. ”
produced a pencil and paper. “And in return?”
There followed a rather remarkable “There won’t be any return. I’ll get out.
dialogue. I’ll take my men.”
Remarkable because it was all written. “That is all you will give us?” asked one
“Did you make sure?” wrote El Gorrion. of the Arribans.
“Both planes are ruined,” scribbled the “That ain’t nothing to what I’ll give you
excited guard. if you don’t come across.”
“Ruined how?” The Arribans were silent for a while.
“Parts out of the ignition.” “This is an ultimatum?” one said finally.
“Who did it?” “I’m just telling you how it stands.”
“Don’t know. ” The Arribans held a conference. Then
“Where were you when it happened?” they told El Gorrion, “We will have to confer
The man made vague, baffled gestures with the Queen Mother and our older men.”
with his pencil, as if he was trying to think up El Gorrion nodded. “Your old men had
a good lie. better be smart, believe me. I’ll take this
So El Gorrion hit him. Hit him in a way place to pieces if you don’t come across. I
that did not seem very hard, but which lifted can do it, too.”
the man so that first his heels then the tips of He hesitated a moment.
his toes were off the floor. He fell backward “You’ve got me in a hell of a spot,” he
straightly and stiffly. A man—it was Wilfair added. “And a hell of a spot for yourselves. I
Wickard—put out a toe quickly and kept the know you got to my planes some way and
man’s head from cracking the floor. fixed them so they can’t fly. All right—I wasn’t
El Gorrion blew on his knuckles. going to use the planes to clean out this
“If he wasn’t one of our two pilots,” he place, anyway. So that won’t save your
said dryly, “I would shoot his brains out from necks.”
between his ears. I really would.” The Arribans took this without expres-
No one said anything. It was no time sion and departed. They were not gone long.
for anyone to say anything. They all knew Only one Arriban came back. He was a
that. young man with a strained manner.
He said, “We refuse.”
Without a change of expression, El
WHEN the Arribans appeared for the Gorrion turned to Bear Cub and asked, “Do
conference, El Gorrion surveyed them with you care to do anything about that Bear
contempt and some disappointment. Neither Cub?”
Tara nor the Queen Mother was among them, Also without any facial movement,
and El Gorrion could tell by looking at them Bear Cub drew a revolver and shot the Arri-
that they were not important individuals in the ban who had brought the refusal. He shot
unusual economy of Arriba. him twice and missed a third bullet which
The conferees were not leaders, and El ricocheted off the floor and a wall, came back
Gorrion was not pleased. In the back of his and made them dodge. The Arriban whim-
mind, as a last resort, had been the thought pered a little as he died. El Gorrion cursed
of seizing the conferees as hostages. He the ricocheting bullet.
could see that they had foreseen this and What came, now, seemed to puzzle El
sent persons who were not important. Gorrion’s men.
Probably, these Arribans had been told of
 THE SPEAKING STONE 51

El Gorrion said loudly, “All right, you “Wave motion!” Long Tom snapped.
birds. We are in the north wing of this place. “What kind of first-grade lesson is this?”
There are two other wings. One in the south, “What is wave motion?”
one in the west.” “Huh?”
He let that soak in. “There you are,” said Monk. “People
He added, even more loudly, “The Ar- say, ‘Oh, well, sound is wave motion. Elec-
ribans are in the west wing. I know more tricity is stuff that goes through wires. Gravity
about this place than they think I do, and holds you to the ground. Love makes you do
they’ll be in the west wing. So we attack the goofy things.’” He snorted. “Actually, we
west wing. We bust down these doors with know very little of the physics of sound.”
dynamite the way we’ve been doing.” Long Tom scowled.
He looked around at his men. “An elastic medium is necessary for
“We head for the west wing,” he re- transmission of sound,” Monk continued. “In
peated. other words, the compressions and rarefac-
Then he made sharp gestures indicat- tions caused by the vibrating body producing
ing no one was to make any comment. sound are passed on from one layer of the
From a pocket, he took a sheaf of medium to another, and transmitted to a dis-
notes which he had already prepared. tant point.”
The notes, all reading the same, said: “So what?”
Monk said, “Another thing I want to
Don’t say anything. They will be using point out: The study of alernating mechanical
the speaking stones. They will go to the south motions connected with sound is very similar,
wing thinking we believe that is where they analogous in many respects, to the study of
ain’t. The ventilating system delivers air to the alternating electrical currents. In other words,
south wing. I have located the main trunk of the there are startling similarities.”
ventilating ducts. We will put poison gas into it. “Now you’re getting clear like mud,”
They do not have masks. Long Tom said. “And don’t start telling me
what electricity is. I have put in a lifetime
He stared at his men and showed his studying the stuff, and I don’t thirst for more
teeth gleefully. knowledge right now.”
“Come on,” he said in a loud, false Monk grinned. “What I’m telling you is
voice. “Let’s take that west wing.” that these people found a new medium that
conducts sound waves.”
Long Tom was getting very impatient.
“So what? Lots of things transmit sound. Wa-
Chapter XIV ter carries it. Air. Wood. Lots of things.”
THE TALKING-ROCK TRICK Monk pointed at the speaking stone.
“You interested in knowing how that works,
LONG TOM ROBERTS looked, pop- or not?”
eyed with astonishment, at a speaking stone. “Go ahead,” Long Tom said, “if you’re
“So that’s what they are!” he gasped. trying to explain the stone.”
Monk Mayfair asked him, “Do you “These people,” said Monk, “found out
know anything about sonic engineering?” that ordinary sound is carried on a medium
“Huh?” similar to the medium which carries radio
“The science of sound.” waves. In other words, there are two parts to
“I know what the words ‘sonic engi- every sound. One part you hear, and the
neering’ mean,” Long Tom snapped. “But other part you don’t until it is converted.”
what I want to know is how that blasted thing The homely chemist picked up the
works. It ain’t possible!” speaking stone.
Monk chuckled. “Sound,” he said, “is “This thing,” he said, “picks up sound
what?” where you didn’t think there was any sound.
“Noise.” In other words, it is sensitive to the ether
“I mean scientifically.” wave of sound—it isn’t exactly an ether wave,
“Vibrations.” but I’ll call it that—which are the hitherto un-
“How do they travel through the air?” known result of the vibration of bodies which
produce sound. These waves travel a lot far-
52 DOC SAVAGE

ther, a whole lot farther, than ordinary widely used by radio stations, in microphones
sound.” for public address systems. In almost every
Long Tom stared at the device. amateur’s radio station is a crystal mike which
“We just listened to it,” he said, “and functions because of this phenomena.)
heard it repeat every word that El Gorrion
and his men said. How come? You mean it Long Tom scratched his head again.
was this ether sound, as you call it, that we “Why,” he asked, “do the gadgets all
were listening to?” look like stones?”
“Right.” Tara herself explained that. “For the
“How far, ” demanded Long Tom, “can same reason,” she said, “that the chassis . . .
you hear sounds with that thing?” of a radio is grounded . . . as nearly as I can
“Miles.” Monk grinned. “Through the explain it. There are necessary insulating
sides of buildings, stone walls, water, you properties . . . in the stone—it is a composi-
can hear it.” tion, not a stone, incidentally—which en-
cases the apparatus.”
Doc Savage had said nothing. It was
THE magnitude of the thing seemed to his habit not to enter a conversation in which
hit Long Tom suddenly. He took a step the pertinent points were being brought out
backward, eyeing the speaking stone as if it by others. He was impressed. He had been
was something that might jump and bite. He impressed in the beginning, back on Jinx Is -
raked fingers through his hair. land, when he had first inspected the gadget.
“The thing is immense,” he muttered. He had understood then, what it must be.
“No wonder El Gorrion is going to all this What it had to be.
trouble!” But there was one puzzling thing. The
Doc Savage was examining the speak- stone in the South Seas had spoken with
ing stone. This one was much larger than the Monk’s voice. That was impossible. A power-
small, pale-blue, round rock which had been ful short-wave radio station would be neces-
carried by unfortunate little Jones when he sary to transmit from this point to be able to
came to the South Seas island of Jinx. reach the South Seas.
Size of the device made its mechanism He said, “The stone Jones had spoke
more apparent. But it was too complicated for with Monk’s voice in the South Seas. Why?”
a brief examination to disclose its secret. Tara nodded. “That is . . . one of the
There was one obvious peculiarity. faults of the thing. Or perhaps it is not a fault,
There was no loudspeaker in the thing. No because we can stop it. But the device
loudspeaker of the radio type. The conver- has . . . what you might call . . . a feedback
sion of sound from the inaudible wave form action within itself. The sound vibrations . . .
to the audible one was accomplished, in the in the ether-sound medium . . . go through a
final stage, by a type of quartz vibrating me- process of feedback buildup . . . until the de-
dium. vice suddenly repeats what was last said. It
Doubtlessly, the quartz was a type is a kind of echo . . . except that it repeats
similar to Rochelle salt, which has the prop- itself . . . at intervals . . . for days.”
erty of changing its linear dimensions when “Then,” put in Long Tom, “what Renny
subjected to electrostatic stress. In this case, heard was this repeating echo?”
it was not electrostatic stress which caused Tara nodded again. “Yes.”
the change, but the form which these Arri- Terrence Wire interrupted by stepping
bans had discovered. forward. “Look, we’re here in the west wing.
That’s where you all heard El Garrion say he
(The peculiar reaction of quartz and Ro- thought we were. We better go to the south
chelle salt to electrical currents, and conversely, wing. Give us more time to figure out some-
to sound waves is, of course, a phenomena long thing.”
known to science and widely used. The phe- Tara said, “Yes, we should go to the
nomena, known as piezoelectricity, was dis- south wing.”
covered by P. Curie in 1880. One of the com- There had been, during the time they
mon uses to which modern science has put the were talking, a series of jarring and muffled
phenomena is the common crystal microphone, blasts indicating that El Gorrion’s group was
working on the stone doors leading toward
 THE SPEAKING STONE 53

the west wing. The Arribans exchanged from the gray winter light that penetrated
glances, and the Queen Mother, whose word through the quartz glass. The furniture was
obviously carried a great deal of weight, nod- like the language, somewhat; anyone would
ded and gave the word. consider it comfortable.
Monk and Ham, suddenly conscious of
their long period of captivity and that they
THEY fled toward the south wing, were exceedingly tired, sank into chairs.
which was the most elaborate part of Arriba. Long Tom eyed them thoughtfully. He
The corridor ceilings moved upward until they was tired himself. He touched his swollen,
gave the place the vaulted impressiveness of painful lips.
a cathedral. The floors were less worn, as if “Seem to smell something,” he mut-
the place had not been used as much as the tered. “Guess it’s the danged medicine I
rest of Arriba. smeared on my lips. Smells like roses,
They got away slowly from the sounds though.”
that El Gorrion’s dynamite operations were Tara told him smilingly, “You smell the
making, although they could still feel the roses in our greenhouses. We raise many
thudding vibrations through the floor. The roses at this time of year.”
massive construction of the place was im-
pressive. Monk and Ham, who had spent
some time in Egypt, and were familiar with “THEIR roses,” said El Gorrion expan-
the pyramids, remarked on the similarity of sively, “will be the death of them.”
the construction of ancient Egypt with the He finished his hurrying around, super-
people who had created Arriba. intending the releasing of the poison gas into
That reminded Long Tom Roberts of the ventilating system which supplied Arriba
something. with its warmed and filtered mountain air.
“Hey, this language,” he said. “It has The gas, contained in metal flasks similar to
been puzzling me, and I’ve meant to ask the small acetylene gas tanks, was being
somebody about it. What kind of a language introduced into the ventilating ducts with all
is it?” the haste possible.
Tara answered him. “Arriban.” Everyone was wearing gas masks, but
“Huh?” they were of a type permitting conversation—
“The perfect language.” not loud, but of sufficient volume to enable a
“I don’t get you,” Long Tom told her. conversation to be conducted at a distance of
“The language sounds astonishingly easy.” several yards.
“It is. It should be. My people have Bear Cub said, “Roses, eh? I seem to
spent . . . two hundred years making it the smell roses.”
perfect universal language. ” She smiled at “It’s the gas,” El Gorrion explained. He
him. “You see, every race, every nationality, chuckled, the speaking diaphragm of his gas
would find the language . . . as easy- mask making ugly clacking noises from the
sounding and as easy to speak . . . as you force of his mirth. “I knew about the roses
have found it. It is a language founded . . . on they raise here this time of year. The gas has
the muscular structure of the voice organs of a slight odor that will warn you of its pres-
the human body. All of the sounds are . . . ence. That’s about all you notice about it be-
easy sounds for those organs to make.” fore you get too much of it. So I put rose per-
“I see. ” fume in the gas.”
“This language,” Tara finished, “is like No one said anything.
laughter. Everyone can do it.” He looked around at them. “Slick, eh?”
The girl herself was smiling, and Long E veryone hastily nodded, or otherwise
Tom became so intrigued with her beauty lost no time indicating applause or approval.
that he forgot about the wonders of the Arri- It was one of those times when El Gorrion
ban language. There were wonders, too; the was all leader and had better be treated as
stuff sounded much easier than Esperanto or one. All snake and a yard wide, as one of the
any of the other attempts at a universal lan- men muttered to himself. Or he thought it
guage. was to himself, until El Gorrion glared and
They came into the south wing, into demanded, “What was that?” His eyes were
large, pleasant rooms that were a little blue small and ugly behind the gas-mask glass.
54 DOC SAVAGE

“I said,” lied the mutterer, “that I’m Someone laughed. “It’s a shame some
danged if I see how you get such ideas, of them Arriban gals didn’t survive.”
when mine are so punk.” They went on, then, to see just what
El Gorrion felt better. the gas had done.
“Come on,” he snarled. “The gas will
have them by now. Let’s go on in.”
They began lighting dynamite fuses to Chapter XV
charges which had already been laid. Two THE CLAIRVOYANT
more doors went down, not without difficulty;
one required a second charge. WHEN El Gorrion saw Doc Savage ly-
Unexpectedly, they found that no more ing on the stone floor in the diamond-tinted
doors were fastened against them. That puz- light that came through the transparent ceil-
zled them. Then they discovered two Arri- ing, he was pleased. He was so pleased that
bans stretched out on the floor. he emitted a yell which blew off his gas-mask
“Ah,” said El Gorrion. “These two guys mouthpiece. He recovered it hastily and ad-
were fastening the doors against us.” justed it. Afraid all the gas was not yet out of
Wilfair Wickard, who had not been in the place, he did not laugh again. He was so
the front rank of the party at any time, caught scared, in fact, that he was a little green.
El Gorrion’s arm. There was a chance he had inhaled some of
“Look, maybe we’d better give that gas the lethal vapor.
time to work,” he said. Not for fully a minute did El Gorrion
El Gorrion stared at him. “You’re yellow speak. By then, he was convinced he was
enough to spit canaries. But at that, it’s not a unharmed.
bad idea. ” He turned his head, said, “Take it He waved an arm.
easy, the rest of you. This gas works fast, but “Spread out,” he directed. “Here’s Sav-
it won’t hurt to give it some time.” age. See if you can find the others.”
They eventually halted in a large room His men spread through adjacent
to kill time. One of the men glanced up at the rooms. Bear Cub and two others reappeared
quartz-glass ceiling. It was like a dome, seen hastily, tried to convey information by waving
from below. There was no metal interspersed their arms, then dashed forward.
anywhere in the glass, nothing but the trans- “We got ‘em all with the gas,” Bear Cub
parent material itself for support. It was im- reported. “That Monk and Ham are in yonder.
pressive, even in a day of modern structural So is Long Tom and Wire.”
miracles. “That’s swell,” said El Gorrion. “Get in
“Sparrow,” he said, “what we gonna do there and start searching them. We’ve gotta
with this place, now that we’ve got it?” find the dope we want on those speaking
“Lay off the Sparrow stuff,” said El Gor- stones.”
rion. “Call me Gorrion. I never did like the He watched the two dash back into the
Sparrow stuff.” room where they had found Monk and Ham
“Sure, sure! What do we do with the and the others.
place?” Then El Gorrion turned and sank to a
El Gorrion snorted. “What do you knee and grasped Doc Savage—and was in
wanta do with it? Up here on the mountain turn grasped by the bronze man.
like it is. To hell with it.” Surprise was then a thing like a gleeful
The man looked around. “Such a place! monster in the room. In the other rooms also,
We oughta do something about it.” judging from the howling and bellowing.
“That speaking-stone device,” El Gor- Doc Savage came to his feet as he
rion advised him, “will make us money by the took hold of El Gorrion. Came up and over,
tubful. We can sell the thing. We can use it and lifted the man bodily. El Gorrion probably
ourselves. Hell, you can see what it would do. was not made helpless by the bronze man’s
You can tune in on any kind of secret confer- clutch, although that was not gentle.
ence.” Amazement did something to paralyze him
The man who was impressed by Arriba for a moment.
rubbed his jaw. “Anyhow, it’s a shame to let a There were two other men in the room,
place like this go to waste, now that every- and Doc managed to slam El Gorrion against
body is dead.”
 THE SPEAKING STONE 55

them, piling one down on the floor. The other whack across the skull from one of the bola-
man endeavored to walk backward out of the like gadgets which she could use so well.
mêlée, at the same time trying to draw his Tara did not hit the man hard enough.
gun. He crawled away, got up, tried to run. Tara
Doc released El Gorrion, then hit him threw her gadget, brought the man down.
flat-handed against the gas mask. El Gorrion Monk dashed into the room, which was
sat down foolishly cross-legged, gagging and a kind of elaborate central hall. Monk went
hacking at a mixture of gas-mask mouthpiece from one door to another, popping in and out.
and teeth. He seemed disgusted.
Monk was squalling somewhere. Monk “War’s over, dang it,” he complained.
liked noise with his fights. There was no pat- He came to El Gorrion, who was still in
tern to his howling. He would just whoop, misery with his teeth and the mask fragments.
holler and yell for the glee of it. “Feel fine, huh?” Monk asked him.
Bear Cub burst out of one of the rooms, El Gorrion made a gargling noise.
running so hard that his feet slid on the floor “That’s great,” said Monk. “You wanta
as if he wore skates. He skidded off for one fight some more, maybe?”
of the doors. El Gorrion had no comment.
Long Tom Roberts followed hot on “Know what happened?” Monk asked.
Bear Cub’s trail. Long Tom’s hands were El Gorrion obviously didn’t.
empty, a thing which Bear Cub did not seem Monk told him, “Doc thought of that
to know. Or maybe it was the thing in Long trick of perfuming the gas with roses. So he
Tom’s heart that was scaring Bear Cub. had Tara and these other Arribans shut off
Wilfair Wickard seemed to be scream- the ventilating system to this part of the place.
ing somewhere, without reason. No one ap- Then we all played like we had been
peared to be harming him, for his noise was gassed.”
not interrupted. He sounded utterly scared. Conversation appeared to be some-
Doc Savage worked on the two men thing El Gorrion didn’t care for.
who had been with El Gorrion. The bronze “Sucked you in, didn’t we?” Monk in-
man was having what, for him, was a great quired.
deal of trouble. Ordinarily, odds of three to El Gorrion suddenly got up and tried to
one, with surprise on his side, would not run. His objective was a revolver someone
have bothered him. But he had been a long had lost on the floor. Monk hit him. Monk
time without enough sleep, and the altitude took his time, even blew on his knuckles first,
hampered him. El Gorrion and his men must and the blow was hard enough to make El
have been using oxygen shots which had Gorrion turn a very remarkable handspring.
kept up their strength. Their gas masks were “Some acrobat, ain’t he?” Monk re-
also equipped with self-contained oxygen marked amiably.
supply.
El Gorrion rolled on the floor, fighting
his own face with both hands, trying to clear MONK had not gotten full satisfaction
the smashed mask. out of the final fight, but he did get more
Doc reached the man trying to draw a pleasure out of the developments that wound
gun, got the fellow’s arm. He used a trick that up the affair.
did not need much strength, a drop to one First, he found Habeas Corpus. Ha-
knee and a twist which sent the man into the beas was Monk’s pet pig, and he was fat and
air, then down on head and shoulders! Doc contented. The Arribans had been taking bet-
then chopped expertly at the man’s temple. ter care of Monk’s hog than they had taken of
The fellow became as slack on the floor as a Monk. They were—the Arribans were—very
sleeping dog. apologetic about this, now, but Monk was
The one man who was still in condition satisfied. He thought a lot of his runt hog.
to do much came half to his feet; then, with Ham’s pet chimpanzee, Chemistry, was with
his head twisted over his shoulder to watch the pig, which did not please Monk, to hear
Doc, he began running away. He ran straight Monk complain about it, but was very agree-
into Tara without seeing her! Or almost into able with Ham. They had been wondering
her, because she brought him down with a what had happened to their pets.
56 DOC SAVAGE

Second development was the method “The devices,” Doc Savage explained,
Doc Savage used for disposing of El Gorrion “might be attached to captive balloons, and
and his men and also insure that the exis- run up to an altitude of about twenty thou-
tence of Arriba would continue a secret. sand feet, where they might function as plane
Doc did this by drugging El Gorrion and detectors.”
the others, and arranging to convey them by Monk nodded. “In that case, the gim-
plane to upstate New York, which would be a mick is worth a lot after all.”
long trip, but worth it. In upstate New York, Later, they loaded the prisoners into
Doc maintained a unique criminal-curing in - the planes.
stitution which had been in existence a long Long Tom was not very gentle with
time, but which was not advertised to the Bear Cub, whom he had caught and badly
public because its methods were a little unor- battered. Long Tom looked around to see if
thodox. Doc was near.
Patients consigned to the institution “Y’know, I got half a notion to kick this
were invariably criminals. They received devil out on one of these mountain tops after
brain operations which wiped out all memory we get in the air,” he muttered.
of past. After that, they were trained, taught Monk rubbed his jaw. “If he’d happen
trades and turned loose. The treatment had a to get away safe, it’d be too bad. ”
batting average of success close to a hun- “Safe!” Long Tom snorted. “He ain’t
dred percent. likely to fall up, is he?”
Terrence Wire announced he was go- Monk inspected Bear Cub critically. “I
ing to stay in Arriba. He would become an don’t see any wings,” he admitted. “Sure,
Arriban. let’s kick him out.”
Tara seemed to approve of that, which They walked away to hide their grins.
disgusted Monk and Ham somewhat. When Bear Cub did not seem, from the stark ex-
another fellow got a pretty girl, they were al- pression on his face, to be aware of their pol-
ways disgusted. icy of never deliberately taking a human life.
What surprised them, though, was Doc
Savage’s announcement that he would re-
main in Arriba for a short time in order to LONG TOM’S statement about the
study. The Arribans had developed many man not being likely to fall up happened to be
things which interested him. as full of future meaning as if Long Tom had
The most intriguing thing of all, the been a clairvoyant with a most efficient crys-
bronze man explained, was the mental atti- tal ball.
tude, the philosophy of life, which they had For example, here is a conversation
managed to mold by so many years of iso- between Monk and Ham which occurred
lated, and rigorously guided, life. within a few weeks. The scene is New York
Monk and Ham and Long Tom were to City.
take the prisoners to the upstate New York
criminal-curing institution. PATRICIA SAVAGE, Doc’s cousin, met
They were also to take the “speaking them at headquarters. Pat was sitting in the
stone” along, and turn it over to the United reception room, applying adhesive tape to an
States war department for what it might be extremely well-molded ankle.
worth. “I’m sure glad to see you, ” she said.
“The gadget,” Doc warned, “is not the “What is this green stuff?”
world-beater that El Gorrion thought it was.” “Fog, ” Monk muttered.
Monk stared. “Huh?” “Don’t be funny. Fog is gray.”
“It will hardly function at all at sea-level “All right, you can do what ’Im doing
air pressure, ” Doc told him. guessing at what it is,” Monk told her.
Monk had known the bronze man had Patricia Savage had many of the
conducted some experiments with the speak- physical characteristics of her cousin, Doc.
ing stones. He muttered, “That makes them She had his flake-gold eyes and his remark-
kind of bust, don’t it?” able bronze hair, a little of the tanned bronze
“Plane detectors,” Doc said. of his skin.
“Huh?” “What is wrong with Ham?” She stared
at Ham. “He doesn’t look right to me.”
 THE SPEAKING STONE 57

Monk chuckled a trifle horribly. “Ham is “Out of sight and no telling how much
on edge. He just saw a man fall up, and it farther,” Monk said.
upset him.” Pat contemplated them for a while.
“Up?” Pat frowned. “You mean up?” “Somebody,” she said, “has been dropped on
Ham whirled at Monk and yelled, “You his head. ”
shouldn’t have told that, you silly goon! No-
body will believe us!” The above is an excerpt from the book-
Pat became completely blank. “You length novel, “The Man Who Fell Up,” in next
mean to stand there in your skin and bones month’s Doc Savage magazine.
and tell me you saw a man fall up?”
“‘S a fact,” Monk said hollowly.
“How far up did he fall?” THE END

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
You Won't Believe It!

Neither did Monk, even though he saw it with his own eyes.
Nor did Doc Savage's other companions believe it; but be-
fore they were through with this adventure, they were ready
to believe almost anything. The amazing thing they didn't
believe about

THE MAN WHO FELL UP

and thus defied all laws of gravity led to more fantastic

things. You'll get a big thrill out of this novel, featured in
our next issue. Don't miss it!

DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE

10 cents—Everywhere
Now on sale the SECOND Friday of every month. Next
issue on sale June 12th.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *