"056 (B028) - Repel (The Deadly Dwarf) (1937-10) - Lester Dent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robeson Kenneth)

Renny thumped, "How should I know?"
Renny and Doc Savage lowered the anchor carefully. It was very heavy, and until it got overside and into the water, it needed both their combined strength. They felt it land on the bottom, then carefully strung the long rope overside, so that it would not tangle.
"Ready?" Renny asked.
"Yes," Doc said.
A tiny blue light in one end of the bronze man's portable radio glowed faintly.
"Wait," Doc said.
He held the instrument close to an ear and changed the tuning knob. The next instant, his small strange, trilling sound, the exotic note that had no tune, yet a quality definitely musical, was audible.
"Holy cow!" Renny boomed. "What is it?"
He knew that sound always presaged something startling.
"Quick!" Doc rapped. "There's—"
"Ow-w-w-w-w!"
Monk squawled.
Doc and Renny didn't need the radios to hear Monk's frenzied howl from the cliff rim.
MONK was in the grip of three men. One had each arm, a third his neck. How they had come up so quietly he couldn't imagine.
Monk howled again. A bit joyfully. Physical combat was his joy. He ducked his head, managed to turn a neat somersault, and landed on his back—with one man under him. That fellow made a noise like a stepped-on cat and relaxed.
Ham had been a bit more fortunate. At the first alarm, he took one wild leap. It put him very near the cliff rim. But it gave him time to unsheath his sword cane.
Ham was the sword cane's master. The blade seemed to vanish, defying the eye with its speed, and did not become visible again until it rested in the arm of one of three more assailants who had rushed him.
More men were coming out of the jungle. Almost a dozen, all told.
"Yeo-w-w!"
Monk howled. "There ain't enough of you to give us a workout!"
The man Ham had stabbed sighed and lay down. The drug on the tip of the dapper lawyer's sword cane worked quickly.
Monk suddenly rose to his feet with a bound like that of a released spring. He spraddled his legs, began to whirl. The men on his arms lost their footing and swung out like weights on a governor. Monk ran toward the other assailants.
Results were remarkable. In an instant, men were down, howling, cursing, Monk with them. Ham's sword cane dropped another.
Monk hit a jaw. One of the victim's teeth flew out and hit Monk in one eye. That fortune of war was probably his undoing. It is hard for a man to wink one eye when excited. Monk blinked both of his. Somebody grabbed up a fistful of grit and rubbed it in his face. He was blinded.
Some one came running with a bush. He shoved it at Ham, and the dapper lawyer's sword cane cut through some of the tough hardwood, but not all. Tropical bushes are tough. Ham went down, his sword out of commission.
Buddy Baldwin and his sister came running up.
"Don't kill them!" Bess Baldwin gasped.
Buddy Baldwin used the blackjack which he carried.
The natives of the South Sea islands have a way of carrying a pig. They tie its legs together and swing it on a pole, and a man gets at each end of the pole.
Monk didn't think much of the means of locomotion. He made noises about it through his nose; his lips were taped. He could see Ham being carried the same way. Their little radio sets were gone. The machine pistols, which there had been no time to use, were no longer under their arms.
A plane droned overhead. It looked to Monk like the same plane which had been photographing the volcano and the lava stream. For the last hour, though, it had not been in evidence.
The men who carried Monk and Ham pig fashion were not natives of this part of the world. One or two had an Oriental cast. But most of them were white, Americans.
Jungle was all about them. Swarms of multicolored birds showered up ahead of them, and settled, squawking, behind them.
Monk twisted, jiggling up and down, trying to work ahead until he could kick the man with the front end of the stick. The man behind tapped Monk's head with a revolver barrel, discouraging that. Monk started swinging from side to side, making it as tough on the fellows carrying him as he could.
He stopped that abruptly. The plane noise was closer, louder. The ship must have seen something. It was coming to investigate!
Monk watched, and an instant later blew a delighted snort through his nose. For the plane swept low over them, a helmeted head cocked over the fuselage. Then it arched up and went away.
One of the men carrying Monk laughed harshly.
"Don't get pepped up, buddy," he said. "That guy is one of us. People think there's been a hell of a rush of newspapermen and cameramen to this island, but more'n half of 'em are our men. Our pal up there went after gasoline, and now he's back."
That gave Monk enough to keep him quiet.
The men were trotting. Both Monk and Ham could see Buddy Baldwin ahead—and his sister.
Monk all but strangled behind the tape when he saw Bess Baldwin. It was not the first time a member of the feminine sex had fooled Monk. But every blow seemed the biggest.
The party filed down into a canyon. Monk noted that they were taking pains to leave a plain trail. The cavalcade stopped.
Monk squirmed angrily. One of the men looked back at him.
"Here's where we set the trap," the fellow said.
Monk tried to say something. The other chuckled.
"Don't worry," he said. "It ain't an ordinary ambush. You've heard of the new photo-electric burglar alarms, ain't you?"
Monk had more than heard of them. As an electrochemist, he had done experimental work in developing them. You walked across a beam of invisible light, and that set off an alarm.
The other must have read his thoughts.
"We got the photo-electric rig off the trail, and there ain't nobody walked from this part of the trail to 'em," he said. "So there ain't a chance of Doc Savage bein' tipped off."
There was a noise up on the canyon side.