Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 047 - Land of Long JuJu

VIP免费
2024-12-19 0 0 245.34KB 106 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
LAND OF LONG JU JU
A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? Chapter I. RUNNERS TO DEATH
? Chapter II. WHITE MAN’S VOICE
? Chapter III. THE SEALED BOX
? Chapter IV. THE BLACK HIDE-OUT
? Chapter V. DEAD MEN SIT UP
? Chapter VI. TWO LIVING HEADS
? Chapter VII. SHRINE OF LONG JUJU
? Chapter VIII. WHEN THE BOX OPENED
? Chapter IX. THREE BLACK HEARSES
? Chapter X. SOME STRANGE CRAFT
? Chapter XI. LAND OF LONG JUJU
? Chapter XII. THE KING IS DYING
? Chapter XIII. FEAR OF THE PEOPLE
? Chapter XIV. RAID OF THE SHIMBA
? Chapter XV. THE BAREFOOTED ARMY
? Chapter XVI. THE BURNING "WING"
? Chapter XVII. KING UDU’S RESURRECTION
? Chapter XVIII. THE ARMY STRIKES
? Chapter XIX. THE BURNING KING
Scanned and proofed by Tom Stephens
Chapter I. RUNNERS TO DEATH
Two weird figures came running in the white fog. Their queer garments flapped like the sheets of ghosts.
Runners of the jungle should not have been so dressed. The togalike attire was pulled above bony knees,
but the garments were hampering. Any white man who had been in Abyssinia would have identified these
sheets as the chamma. This was distinctive of royal or official rank.
These grotesquely clad runners were far south of Abyssinia. They were now below the great Taveta
forest of Central East Africa, in the foothills of the Parri Mountains. It was a green, fog-soaked
wilderness of silence just now.
Doubtless the place was too silent in the judgment of the taller of the two runners. The pair was
approaching a water hole.
The taller runner halted suddenly. He held up one long, skinny arm. The other runner became motionless.
Both listened intently.
There came only a strange, distant throbbing; like the hard heel of a human hand beating upon some
hollow vessel. The runners knew the sound for a drum. The stretched skin of a kuda, the great antelope
of the country, over the end of a hollowed senecio log.
The runners had been hearing the drum talk for two days and two nights. Five days and nights before,
when they had started, there had been six runners. Only these two had survived to reach this place.
"Safi maji,"
whispered the tallest runner hoarsely.
He meant the pool contained clean water. Some other pools had been poisoned. Two of the original six
runners had drunk of these pools.
These two had remained behind.
The taller runner directed his companion to drink while he kept watch. The skin drum continued to throb.
The shorter runner dropped to his hands and knees. He crept through the white fog to the pool. His
brown hands divided the broad leaves of a senecio tree.
No sound had been given forth by the fog-drenched leaves. The taller runner rasped a warning. The
shorter runner stretched on his stomach. His tongue lapped up water where his hand had pushed away
the scum.
Then he made a sudden, violent effort as if to rise. His neck seemed incapable of lifting his head. His face
splashed into the pool. Air bubbles arose around the man’s head.
The tall runner made no effort to rescue his companion. He whispered a word.
"Okoyong." Then he added, "Masai, the Long Juju."
The tall runner seemed almost to dissolve into the wall of the jungle. His companion was already a
stiffening body. A small dart had appeared behind one ear of the runner who had died beside the pool.
Though he had been running for five days and nights, halting only when overpowered by sleep, the tall
man slipped through the tangled vines of the liana with amazing speed.
THE tall figure was the last of the six runners. On the shoulders of this single man rested the burden of the
message that had been carried by six.
Whatever the encircling menace, the runner escaped temporarily. He carried but a single weapon. This
was a sharp-bladed, short-hafted stabbing spear.
He had said, "Okoyong" and "Masai." No fiercer tribes dwelt in all of Africa. The Masai were
blood-drinkers and head-hunters of this interior central country. The Okoyong were from a distant place.
They had come into the land of Kilimanjaro, bringing witchcraft, the worship of the Long Juju.
Perhaps the tall runner had no hope of escaping with his life. But his message must be delivered verbally.
More than one drum was talking now. The taut skins throbbed from four points of the compass.
The runner’s face was different from that of other tribes in the Kilimanjaro and Taveta forest country. His
skin was lighter than the smoky black mostly to be found. The nose was thin and hawklike, an arching
bone that might have belonged to an ancient Roman rather than to a native of Africa.
The thin nostrils now were twitching. The runner’s keen olfactory sense told him he was not far from his
goal. The odor was that of meat being cooked as only an inglesi would want it. All white men were
inglesi, or Englishmen.
The runner came to a wide, open glade beside a flowing stream of white water. His thirst was very great,
almost unendurable.
The man hesitated for less than five seconds. His long legs plunged him forward into the open space.
Then he cried out, only once. The impeding chamma fell down around his knees and entangled his legs.
The stabbing spear flew from his hand.
The man lay still, except for a twitching of his muscles. From his back, between the shoulder blades,
protruded a long spear haft. Ostrich feathers, dyed red with ochre, quivered in the wind.
"IT was in this direction I heard it," spoke a deep, resonant voice in English with a broad American
accent.
A white man pushed aside the vines. He started into the open space where the sheeted figure lay with a
spear in his back.
A big native, wearing only a garment of colobus monkey fur, thrust an ebony arm in front of the white
man.
"No like, b’wana!" he grunted. "Me first go see!"
But the white man was bigger. He pushed past the restraining arm. He looked like a giant beside the
other. His figure was huge, an immense bulk of perhaps more than two hundred and fifty pounds.
"Thunderation, Souho!" he boomed. "That fellow’s still living! Maybe we can save him! Here, grab a
hatful of water!"
The huge white man swept off his helmetlike, tropical hat and thrust it into the native’s hands.
"Hurry, Souho!" he commanded. "We’ll see what we can do!"
"Will make do, B’wana Renwick," muttered the native.
Souho obeyed the order of B’wana Renwick. He reached the stream by keeping close to the jungle wall.
"Come, give me a hand, Mapanda," said B’wana Renwick. "I’ve got a hunch that fellow was trying to
get to our safari. Maybe he’s from old King Udu himself."
A quick-moving youth with a yellowish skin and snapping black eyes moved behind the white man.
Mapanda was of an Arabian cast, probably from one of the upper coastal tribes.
B’wana
Renwick had faced too many dangers in too many outlandish places to betray any fear.
For the white man was Colonel John Renwick, world famous engineer. To thousands he was known
simply as "Renny." He was one of the world’s most noted group of adventurers.
Clark Savage, Jr., known to the world as Doc Savage, was soon to know of this dead native runner in
the African jungle. For, as Renny lifted the head of the dying native in the strange chamma, Doc Savage,
in New York, was attempting to get in touch with the giant engineer over the world’s most powerful
short-wave radio.
WHEN Souho, the native hunter, brought the hat filled with water, the dying runner gulped some of it.
Renny lifted the man in his arms. Death was certain. The blade of the spear had pierced the man’s body.
"B’wana—B’wana
Renwick?" whispered the dying man. "It is good you come—Rag Udu—the king of Koko is going—"
The runner’s head dropped. Renny quickly produced a small hypodermic syringe. In a few seconds, the
man opened his eyes. Whispered speech came to his lips through bloody foam.
Renny held him in his arms. The words were partly English and partly a native patois.
"Yes?" he said, when the runner halted and choked. "King Udu wants the railroad? And what is this
other?"
The runner could say only a few words. His speech ended. Renny pulled the chamma over the man’s
face.
"Doc’s got to know about this," he said slowly to himself. "Come, Souho! Mapanda! We’ll take the
body to camp! He must be buried!"
Souho and Mapanda, Renny’s head carrier, did not relish this task. Souho, the hunter, was a brave man.
He had faced a man-eating simba, the great lion of the Taveta, with only his spear. But he carried the
body of the dead runner as if it were some dangerous high explosive.
Equatorial night descended upon Renny’s camp as they arrived with the body. Already the carrier boys
had a great fire going.
The skin drums had never ceased talking. The throbbing was spaced between beats like dots and dashes
of the regular Morse telegraph code.
The carriers were eating. Their meal was a delicacy with them. It consisted of elephant feet baked for
two days in a hot pit.
"Hyrax no make much talk, B’wana Renwick," said Souho. "The spear is of Masai, b’wana. It means
they make do war."
"Holy cow!" growled Renny. "And if they make do war, as you call it, they’ll bust up the whole railroad
scheme! Them Britishers won’t back any steel into war country right now!"
The night was oppressive. There had been no visit of the small colobus monkeys. Renny had been on this
railroad survey for nearly six weeks. The small monkeys had followed the camp.
Only an engineer of outstanding ability could have plotted the line of steel from Muoa Pemba, on the
Indian Ocean south of Mobasi, through the Parri Mountains to the great Taveta country. The line was
intended to open up the rich lands of the Kilimanjaro mountains.
Renny believed their camp was being closely watched. The silence of the hyrax and the absence of the
monkeys in the dense jungle could mean only one thing. Many men must be close to the camp.
RENNY brought from his tent a huge square box. From this he produced a radio transmitter. The
transmitter was one of Doc Savage’s system. Its short wave made it possible for his men to reach him
across many hundreds of miles.
Renny set the dials to the wave lengths employed by the Doc Savage group. Mapanda’s black eyes
glittered. To this native’s mind, B’wana Renwick was a greater sorcerer than the most powerful Juju
priests.
The generator started humming. Still the drums were talking.
Suddenly one of the carriers let out a wild screech. Others of the native boys threw aside their platters of
elephant feet.
The screech became a death scream. A native boy arose. His bony body teetered back to its heels. He
fell in the edge of the big fire. His flesh burned sickeningly.
The blade of a long spear stuck through the carrier’s throat. Before Renny could get to his feet, two more
native boys were impaled. The other carriers howled and dashed toward the denser jungle.
"Come back, you fools!" roared Renny. "Make cover here!"
Renny was whispering into his tent. Screams of agony came from the jungle. Souho, the hunter, threw
himself flat on the ground. His hands had grabbed the most powerful gun.
This was a .450 Express, a British model. Souho exploded the big-game killer. But its high-velocity
bullets only clipped leaves from the jungle where no one seemed to be moving.
Renny came out with a clumsy looking weapon. It was a superfire machine pistol, loaded with a drum of
quick-firing bullets. The pistol made a noise like an immense bullfiddle. But its slugs only mowed a path a
little to one side of where the carrier boys were running.
Perhaps most of the score of native boys had been killed. The others had slithered away. Renny muttered
grimly.
"Holy cow!" boomed Renny. "If I could only get an eye on some of them devils!"
While the guns were whooping and banging, no more spears had fallen. If three boys had not been lying
transfixed by the murderous blades, it would have seemed there had been no attack.
This was amazing. The tribal warriors usually accompany their attacks with much shouting.
Chapter II. WHITE MAN’S VOICE
ONLY Souho and Mapanda had remained with Renny. The big engineer ordered them behind the tents.
A faint moaning came from the jungle bush.
Renny judged this must be one of his carrier boys. He was about to investigate, when Souho interfered.
"Masai make some trick, b’wana," he warned. "Him be Juju voice. Most good stay now."
Renny, always ready for an open scrap, was somewhat bewildered. He listened carefully. Souho’s
warning had been well judged. The moaning voice was not that of a man in pain.
Renny started to pull away the body of the dead carrier closest to the fire. A whistling wind fanned his
head. A long spear, ornamented with red-dyed ostrich feathers, jammed its blade into the ground.
Around the haft of the spear a white paper was tied. Renny unrolled the white paper. There was a note
printed in English:
COLONEL RENWICK MUST LEAVE THIS LAND AT ONCE. THE RAILROAD WILL NEVER
BE BUILT. THIS WILL BE THE ONLY WARNING.
"So there is a white man mixed up in this," growled Renny. "That poor devil they got was right. This is
something Doc must know at once!"
Renny whipped back toward his tent. He twisted the dials of the radio transmitter.
Possibly the leader of the natives concealed in the jungle had never seen a radio broadcast from so small
an instrument. Renny started speaking. Almost at once, a low but penetrating voice replied.
"Doc speaking, Renny. I can hear you clearly."
The voice of Doc Savage never was raised. It had a peculiar timbre, a great carrying quality.
"Doc, there’s trouble breaking over here!" boomed Renny. "The richest region in Central Africa is about
to be invaded. King Udu of Kokoland sent six runners to me. Only one arrived, and he was dying."
Souho gripped Renny’s arm. The hunter raised the heavy express rifle. He was pointing it at the thick
foliage beyond the fire. More than leaves had suddenly appeared. Red ostrich plumes suddenly marked
the green wall.
"Don’t shoot!" snapped Renny, catching Souho’s arm.
"Doc—I’ve gotta talk fast—I’ve been ordered out—this King Udu has a son, Prince Zaban, in New
York—the kingdom is about to be overthrown!"
GUTTERAL, snarling cries came from the bush. A fantastic figure dressed in the hide and the mane of a
lion, leaped into the circle of the fire. Souho’s rifle exploded.
One of the red blotches came from the wall. A huge warrior with a red ostrich headdress slammed on his
face.
"They’re on top of us, Doc!" roared Renny. "King Udu has sent men to guard his son in New
York—one of his former subjects lives there—he is called Logo—King Udu has sent him a—"
Spears hissed across the fire. Renny paused to pull the transmitter out of immediate range of the spears.
"What did King Udu send?" came Doc’s clear voice.
"King Udu has sent the kingdom’s royal—"
Souho roared with pain. The haft of a spear had struck him over one ear. Two luridly painted warriors
sprang from between the tents. They were dragging Mapanda between them.
"Holy cow, Doc!" shouted Renny. "See Prince Zaban— he’ll know—the Long Juju has—"
Renny was completely ringed by the attackers. In the language of the Masai, a white man’s voice
emanated from the lion’s head.
"Seize him! Break up that box!"
Half a dozen warriors hurled themselves back of the tents.
Renny heaved to his feet. He was suddenly facing a ring of long-bladed spears.
"If you are wise," said the lion-clad man in English, "you will not resist. We want only that you should
forget this crazy railroad and leave the country."
"Not in a thousand years!" bellowed the enraged engineer.
He sprang between two of the spear blades. One fist, many pounds in weight, mangled the headdress of
the nearest warrior into his skull.
Renny hurled himself straight toward the English-speaking leader. He saw only what looked like the
shadow of some flying object. A war club covered with painted knobs cracked across the back of
Renny’s thick neck. As he fell, Renny let out one thunderous roar. He was close to the radio transmitter.
RENNY’S yell traveled a few thousand miles. It roared from the loud-speaker of a radio board on the
wall of Doc Savage’s laboratory in the heart of Manhattan.
The man before the radio was bigger than the huge Renny. He did not appear to be as big, due to the
symmetry of his massive figure. The skin of his face and of his hands and bared forearms was of the
smoothest golden bronze. His hair fitted closely to his skull. Its color seemed almost a continuation of his
skin.
At Renny’s yell, a childlike voice spoke anxiously.
"Howlin’ calamities, Doc! Now Renny’s gone an’ got himself into some sure enough trouble!"
The speaker could easily have been mistaken for a dressed gorilla. Red, furry hair covered all of his
visible parts.
"Looks that way, Monk," stated Doc quietly. "Undoubtedly we have just been listening to an attack of
warriors in the heart of an African jungle."
"African jungle?" crackled a dry, sarcastic voice. "Now, that’s right up Monk’s alley. Maybe if we go to
Africa, we’ll succeed in leaving him with his kinfolks!"
This speaker was an elegantly clad, waspish-waisted man. His face was thin and his eyes were keen.
"Dag-gonit, Ham!" squeaked the hairy one. "Renny’s in a jam, an’ you go makin’ shyster jokes that don’t
mean nothin’!"
"Renny’s probably having the time of his life," observed Ham.
"Ham," Theodore Marley Brooks, was the legal luminary of Doc Savage’s group. He was one of the
country’s smartest lawyers.
"Monk" was Andrew Blodgett Mayfair, noted industrial chemist. Monk was still glaring at Ham. Doc
ignored their dispute.
"It is to be regretted Renny was unable to inform us what King Udu has probably sent to New York,"
said the bronze man. "First, we shall have to make contact with this Prince Zaban, if he happens to be in
Manhattan."
"Renny said this African potentate has sent men to New York," said Ham. "An’ that fellow he called
Logo? Maybe we could find him. The only trouble is, he’s likely living over in Harlem under the name of
Brown or Smith or something."
"You are possibly correct," said Doc Savage. "However, I believe we shall learn something of Prince
Zaban in a very short time. This King Udu is old, but he is a remarkably well-informed ruler. He is king
over nearly forty different tribes, some of them wild, but his own race seems to have sprung from an early
invasion of the Kilimanjaro country by the ancient Romans."
DOC SAVAGE and his men were to hear news of Prince Zaban very soon. For, as the man of bronze
discovered all further effort to contact Renny was useless, two groups of strange, dark-skinned men
were approaching the towering skyscraper.
Brilliant morning sunshine afforded an unusual atmosphere for the grim tragedy which was closely
impending.
A uniformed messenger was hurrying along one of the narrow streets. This thoroughfare converged with
another at the intersection above which the glittering skyscraper reared its tower.
On this intersecting street was another messenger. This was not unusual, but each of these messengers
was swarthy of skin, and each had a thinly boned, arching nose. Each hurrying man carried a package
wrapped in heavy manila paper.
A short distance behind each messenger, half a dozen or more men threaded their way through the dense
crowds. They, too, were of dark skin. These men wore the turbans of native Hindus of India. Yet any
observer would have noted these men were not Hindus.
The noses of all these men were flat and very broad. Their turbans were tightly wrapped. The folds of
cloth concealed their ears.
One messenger carried his package under his arm. He had nearly reached the street intersection.
Turbaned men suddenly shoved other pedestrians aside and sprang toward the messenger.
A woman emitted a scream. One of the turbaned men had torn the package from under the messenger’s
arm. Another clamped his hands on the messenger’s throat.
Four or five wearing the turbans had blocked off others on the sidewalk. Smart pedestrians sprang away.
A husky, Irish traffic policeman let out a shrill alarm from his whistle. He had seen the beginning of the
attack.
The copper had his gun in his hand. He yelled, "Hey! Get ‘em up, you devils, before I blast yuh!"
Perhaps the traffic officer saw an opportunity to cover himself with glory. No weapons showed in the
hands of any of the turbaned men.
The turbaned men ignored the policeman’s order. The one who had seized the package, ripped off the
manila covering. The object inside looked like a solid block of polished wood.
The turbaned man let out a yell of triumph. The man in the messenger’s uniform had ceased to resist. A
queer smile played suddenly over his face.
That smile was his last. It was a sardonic grin. Possibly it should have warned the men who had seized
him.
The man holding the strange block fumbled his fingers along one edge. This man was almost completely
obliterated. The block exploded with a terrific impact. The blast ripped open a small crater in the
sidewalk.
THE traffic policeman’s revolver exploded in the grip of a hand that probably was already dead. A score
of persons were hurled onto the sidewalk and into the building where plate glass was shattered.
In the intersecting street, the attack of turbaned men upon the other messenger had been almost
simultaneous with the terrible explosion. This messenger put up a fierce fight.
No weapons were used. But two of the turbaned men were knocked down before one wrested the
package from their victim. Then one of the attackers struck the messenger with what appeared to be a
small, pointed dart.
The messenger’s nostrils dilated. He emitted a strange, terrible laugh. The heavy paper was being torn
from another object that was apparently only a block of solid wood.
The polished oblong gave forth a hissing. The turbaned man holding it crumpled to the sidewalk. The
block struck and burst into flames.
Five men wearing the peculiar turbans fell down. One clawed madly at his eyes. It pulled the turban
loose. Parts of his ears seemed to fall away. But they were still attached. They were the lobes of the ears,
horribly distorted into great rings of flesh.
All of the men who fell died almost instantly. Close to the ashes of the oblong block lay the messenger
who had carried it. Across his lips was a sardonic grin. A small dart protruded from his neck.
Radio police cars and ambulances screamed into the two blocks. Nothing remained of either of the
oblong packages. It was plainly evident one had been packed with high explosive.
It was equally evident the other had been the container of some deadly, instantly effective gas.
A captain of detectives found a small piece of manila paper intact. He stared at it.
"You might have known he would have something to do with this!" he growled. "Joe, have headquarters
get in touch with Doc Savage!"
On the salvaged bit of heavy paper was the name CLARK SAVAGE JR. The package had been sealed
with a blue wax. Where this had been broken appeared the imprint of a curious seal.
The small figure in this seal was grotesquely ugly.
Chapter III. THE SEALED BOX
IF the white messenger bearing a third package had known of the first two, he might not have so jauntily
entered the elevator in the glittering skyscraper.
The tragic explosion took place while he was shooting toward the eighty-sixth floor. Arriving at the
eighty-sixth floor the messenger was directed to Doc Savage’s door.
Almost immediately the messenger became somewhat dizzy. He had walked over to a door that looked
like a panel in the wall. It had neither lock, knob nor latch. Clark Savage, Jr., appeared in small bronze
letters.
Before the messenger could reach for the buzzer, the door opened silently. The fuzzy, ugly face of Monk
glowered at the visitor. Monk reached for the package.
"Gimme your book an’ I’ll sign for it," said Monk.
"Got to deliver this personal to Mr. Savage," said the messenger. "He’s got to see me!"
"Yeah?" piped Monk. "He’s already seen you. I’ll take it."
A hand at the end of an incredibly long arm flipped the package from the messenger’s hands.
"You’ll stand right here!" snapped Monk. "An’ don’t move!"
Monk’s foot did something to the thick rug of the big reception room. The messenger heard nothing. The
door by which he had entered was no longer in evidence. He was looking at a smooth, unbroken wall.
Monk carried the package through the library with its thousands of scientific and other books, into the
laboratory. Doc Savage turned from the radio.
"There seems no doubt but they’ve got Renny," he stated. "I have called Johnny. He will know the
whereabouts of Prince Zaban."
"JOHNNY" was William Harper Littlejohn, geologist and archaeologist. When strange visitors came to
Manhattan, Johnny nearly always made contact with them.
Monk shifted the oblong package in his hairy hands. The manila paper covering was sealed with blobs of
blue wax.
In each of these seals was a grotesque miniature. It had somewhat the shape of a scorpion.
Monk started to tear off the paper. Ham caught the package.
"Wait a minute, insect," snapped the lawyer. "Probably that package is for Doc."
"Yeah, sure," said Monk. "I was just goin’ to open it."
Doc Savage’s flaky gold eyes were fixed on the parcel. In those eyes life stirred like the movement of
small whirlpools.
The big laboratory was suddenly filled with a fantastic sound. It was a low, mellow trilling, as if a wind
were playing over reed instruments.
Monk hastily deposited the package on a table. Doc’s trilling sound seemed to emanate from his whole
body. Sometimes it warned of impending danger. At others it announced the bronze man was on the eve
摘要：

LANDOFLONGJUJUADocSavageAdventureByKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?ChapterI.RUNNERSTODEATH?ChapterII.WHITEMAN’SVOICE?ChapterIII.THESEALEDBOX?ChapterIV.THEBLACKHIDE-OUT?ChapterV.DEADMENSITUP?ChapterVI.TWOLIVINGHEADS?ChapterVII.SHRINEOFLONGJUJU?ChapterVIII....

展开>> 收起<<
Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 047 - Land of Long JuJu.pdf

共106页,预览22页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：106 页 大小：245.34KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-19

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 106
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注