Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 330 - The Shadow's Revenge

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THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

A BELMONT BOOK--October 1965.

In the tall grassland, between the mountain and the jungle wall, a lion roared. At that moment

the sun jaded from the purple African sky and dusk rose up from the hot land itself. Then silence.

An uneasy silence. The heavy purple sky held its breath. The mountains and the jungle waited.

Animals lay fiat against the ground or moved furtively. The air itself hovered thick, waiting.

In the village at the edge of the jungle the people stopped their work to look up at the sky.

They looked at the mountains and the silent jungle. They looked behind them, uneasily. Their

eyes showed white as they searched the gathering darkness.

At the instant of total night the drums began.

Distant drums from many corners of the night.

The people of the village moved together to the open, sunbaked heart of the village where the

ground had hardened to the smoothness of stone under the years of dancing feet. An old man

stepped to the pyre of tall logs and set it afire. The fire blazed up In the night. The people moved

close to the flames despite the thick heat of the night.

A distance away, at the edge of the village, a tall man stood on the covered verandah oj a

house much larger than the huts of the village. The flames of the fire flared up from time to time

revealing his thin, pale face and European clothes. His dark eyes were staring out into the night

toward the south and the jungle wall.

The man had been standing on the verandah for some time--since before the drums began far

of]. There was more than uneasiness on his pale white face as he listened to the drums. He knew

what they told. They told of the coming of the Demon.

The Demon came.

The sound came.

A sound torn from the dark throat of the jungle. A sound like a long, violent scream. Wailing,

rising, echoing through the night and out across the grass-land to the mountain wall. A sound as

sharp and piercing as a knife. Steady, rising higher and higher.

The Demon appeared in the blazing light of the fire.

High, floating in the air.

The single shining eye glistening down at the cowering people of the village.

It hovered--floated in the air as if suspended on the long, screaming sound that filled the dark

night sky of Africa.

On the verandah of the house at the edge of the village the tall man gripped the rail and

stared toward the glare of the fire and the demonic figure that floated in the night.

A giant figure shimmering in the flames. Black boots on Its glistening feet. Skirt of

shimmering feathers and the long tail of a lion. Tunic of a soldier gleaming with the color of

medals. The head of a giant bird with the sharp, hooked beak of an eagle. In the center of the

head the single shining eye.

The Demon floated, hovered, swooped high above the dancing flames.

A wide, shimmering, undulating halo above its eagle head. The tall man on the verandah at

the edge of the village turned quickly and went into the large house. Inside, he bent over a small

radio transmitter. He manipulated dials, spoke urgently. He spoke for no more than a moment.

THE SHADOW'S RE

VENGE

He stopped. He listened. Quickly he stepped to a corner of the room, bent, raised a small section

of floor, and vanished beneath the floor. The trap door closed behind him.--

Moments later the silent men entered the room of the large house. Six men, dark-skinned,

wearing pieces of uniforms and the skins of animals and the feathers of jungle birds. They moved

in silence from room to room. Then, in the empty house, they began to smash. They smashed, and

tore down, and ripped off the walls, and laughed like insane beasts as they smashed.

In the village the people broke before the Demon. They ran, terrified, to escape into the night

beyond the fire. Frantic, they ran for the cover of the darkness.

They ran into a wall of firing rifles, of automatic weapons. A single long volley. Then silence.

The natives of the village who had not fallen huddled again near the fire.

From the night on all sides of the village men began to walk into the light of the fire, their

weapons pointed, the Demon above.

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

THE COUNTRY is new. One of the many colonies in the heart of Africa that has become a country,

master of its own destiny. The former Belgian Congo is near, the countries where the white man

still rules are not far away.

The country is bordered on the west by a chain of high mountains, on the east by thick jungles

that reach to the distant Indian Ocean. The great river, the Lubilana, runs north through the land,

rising in the swamps below the Kanda Tract and ending somewhere to the north in the mighty

Congo. There is a single railroad from the capital in the southeast to the border in the north

where the mines are: the tin mines, and copper mines, and once rich but now abandoned silver

mines.

The second city, Marianville, is in the north near the mines. The railroad connects Marianville

and the capital in the south. There is now a highway between Marianville and the capital, once

named Frederick Augustus Town, now renamed Zambala in honor of the fierce warriors who

roamed the country before the white man came. Zambala is a modern city. There are wide streets

with cafes shaded by trees, and the buildings are tall and of white stone. The clothes are

European in Zambala,and there are buses and automobiles, and slums for the poor who live in

the wooden shacks that surround the glistening white buildings.

In the rest of the country there are only small dirt roads and frontier-like towns and the grass

villages of the country tribes.

Mukulu is one of the frontier towns, the administrative center for the most backward and poor

district of the country. It is north and west of Zambala, on the Lubilana, and close beneath the

mountain wall at the northern edge of the desolate Kanda Tract. The railroad line from Zambala

to Marianville passes through Mukulu, but the highway is many miles to the east, connected by

only a rutted dirt road impassible during the rainy season.

The village where the Demon appeared is not far from Mukulu. A week passed since the

Demon appeared in the village. Now the village is deserted. The grass huts are empty. The fires

are out. The people have gone, vanished in an instant, their tools and cooking pots and weapons

and clothing left where they had been last used as if the people have only gone for a moment and

will return the next moment. But it is a week, and the people have not returned. The large house

with the verandah stands empty at the edge of the village.

On this hot day, in the thick and silent afternoon, the men of the patrol of the country's army

are out in the grass and jungle searching for some trace of the vanished people. A small United

Nations patrol of Ghurka soldiers from India are with them. They have found nothing in a week,

and the few men left behind in the deserted village doze in the sun and do not think that their

comrades will find anything this day.

In the village nothing moved. The soldiers left on guard rested in the shade of the grass huts

where it was cooler. Dust, stirred by a faint and sporadic breeze, hovered in the air and heat.

Even the lions on the grassland lay in the shade, their tails flicking at the flies that hovered about

them. No one looked up when the flight of birds rose from the bushes at the edge of the village.

The birds circled in the hot sun.

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

In the bushes the heavy shadows of the thick afternoon seemed to move. Blending with the

shadows of the African sun, a black-cloaked figure appeared, emerged from out of the sun and

stood observing the silent village. Beneath the wide brim of a black slouch hat, piercing eyes

watched the open area of the village. A fiery red gem glistened on the long finger of the cloaked

figure.

The Shadow watched the empty village, and then began to move through the bushes in a wide

circle. His black cloaked figure moved in and out of light and shadow, blending with the shifting

pattern of light and dark, like some wraithlike mirage of the light itself. His keen eyes searched

the ground as he circled the village unseen by the few yawning soldiers left on guard in the hot

afternoon.

From time to time the cloaked Avenger bent to study the ground as he circled. He was peering

closely at the marks of many feet in the bushes all around the deserted village. Once he bent

quickly and his long fingers picked up a small, shiny object. He put the object into his pocket and

continued his careful circuit of the village.

In the thick jungle growth to the south of the village, his circuit almost completed, the silent

crime-fighter suddenly stopped and bent down again. His glinting eyes studied a small black

stain on the grass and on the bushes beneath the tall jungle trees. He touched the black stain,

smelled it. He stood up, a tall black shadow among the myriad jungle shadows, and turned to

stare toward the village.

The Shadow froze immobile.

His keen ears had heard the soft footsteps.

They came swift and silent. The Shadow stood tall and black, a part of the jungle, and they

passed too far away to see their faces. Four figures in khaki uniforms; small men moving fast and

silently around the village. At the edge of the jungle they stopped to study the somnolent village.

Then they moved on around and vanished in the direction of Mukulu. The Shadow returned his

.45 automatic to its hiding place inside his cloak and glided through the jungle again. He came to

the large house with the verandah on the edge of the deserted village. The verandah leaned, and a

wall lay fallen-in from some fury that had ripped through the house. The Shadow floated across

the open space between the bushes and the house, a black shape in the moving pattern of sun. He

climbed the sagging steps, crossed the leaning verandah, and entered the main room of the house.

The room was a chaos of destruction. Chairs had been smashed, the walls themselves torn

open, tables broken, the missionary cross ripped down from the shattered wall and broken. The

Shadow found the small radio in the far corner of the room away from the door. It had been

pounded into a useless mass of twisted metal and broken glass.

The bedrooms and dining room of the house looked like a pack of wild animals had

stampeded through them. Everything had been ripped open, smashed, and there was nowhere for

anyone or anything to hide or be hidden.

The Shadow returned to the main room.

His burning eyes searched the room. There was no trace of blood, and no trace of a body. He

began to cover the room inch by inch. He saw nothing. He reached the corner of the room

farthest from the entrance and nearest to the smashed radio. His eyes saw nothing but the debris

of destruction. He turned to move away--and stopped. His trained hearing had heard the faint

difference of sound. A difference of sound when he walked here in the corner. He stepped again,

and moved away, and listened to the sound of his footfalls. In the corner near the radio there was

a difference of sound. A hollow sound. Faint, but unmistakable to the ears of The Shadow. He

returned to the corner, bent, and began to clear away the debris. He lifted a rattan rug.

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

Beneath the rug was the bare floor. Even the eyes of The Shadow saw nothing at first. Then

the faint outline of the trap door became clear to him. He lifted the hidden door and gazed down

into the blackness beneath.

There was a narrow ladder. The Shadow swung onto the ladder and plunged below.

The Shadow stood in a small, dark room. His piercing eyes, with the power to see in the dark

learned long ago in the Orient, searched the bare room. The walls were only dirt, and the room

was empty. From the age of the dry dirt walls The Shadow guessed that the room had been dug

long ago as a hiding place in the days of the wild Zambala warriors. But it had been used

recently. The Shadow detected the signs of someone having walked across the dirt floor. But

there was no one in the black room, dead or alive, and the signs led to a blank wall.

The Shadow glided close to this blank wall, his burning eyes glowing in the dark from the

reflected red fire of the girasol ring on his finger. His long fingers touched the hard earth wall.

He found the break low down near the floor. A small section of the wall came away and revealed

a dark passage. The section of wall was just big enough for a man to crawl through, the passage

hidden by an old iron plate cleverly covered with earth to match the dirt walls themselves.

The Shadow bent, crawled, and entered the small opening. He crawled for ten yards, and then

stood up. The narrow entrance had opened into a tunnel large enough for a man to stand up in.

There was no trace of light. Nothing but blackness made red now by the glow of the fiery opal

girasol on The Shadow's finger. The Shadow glided swiftly along the dark passage, his eyes

searching as he went. The Shadow moved on through the blackness beneath the earth until, at

last, there was a faint light ahead. Light and noise. A distant roaring sound, low but steady. The

sound grew louder as The Shadow approached the circle of light. He reached the exit from the

tunnel and emerged through a screen of thick bushes into the light and heat of the African

afternoon. The noise was loud now, and he saw the great river less than fifty yards away. The

Lubilana was high and moving fast toward the north.

Between The Shadow and the river was the dense growth of the river bank. Thick, tangled

bushes and trees that drew their sustenance from the water of the river's edge. A narrow path led

from the hidden opening of the tunnel to the bank of the river and a wide sand bar that jutted out

from shore into the heavy water. With the river high, the sand bar was half covered with the

rushing water.

Heavy twisted logs and other debris brought down by the river littered the sand bar.

From the shore The Shadow's eyes searched the debris-strewn sand bar. He turned away to

search the bushes between the exit from the tunnel and the river bank. Then, suddenly, he turned

back.

Something was not right out on the sand bar. Among the twisted and grotesque logs brought

down by the rushing Lubilana, The Shadow had seen something else. He looked out across the

wide sand bar.

The body of a man lay there with his feet covered by the lapping water.

The Shadow moved swiftly out and across the sand bar to the body. It lay among the

driftwood logs, all but hidden from sight. The body of a tall man in European clothes.

Impressions in the sand, filled with seeping water, led up to the body. The dead man lay on his

back in the African sun. The Shadow bent closer to inspect the body.

There was nothing in any of the dead man's pockets except some pieces of dry straw. The

pockets had been searched and emptied. The Shadow opened the dead man's bush jacket and

looked at the single bullet hole directly over the heart. There were no other marks on the body.

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

His clothes and shoes were intact. No debris from the river clung to the body. The Shadow stood

up.

The black-cloaked Avenger stood there in the African sun for some time. His piercing eyes

stared down at the dead man who lay as if asleep. With the bush jacket pulled over the single

wound there was no way to tell that the man had been shot. Slowly, The Shadow looked over the

sand bar. The water-soaked debris of the river reached far up the bar past where the body lay

with its feet in the water.

Absorbed in his study of the sand bar and the body, The Shadow did not hear the boat until it

had rounded a curve in the wide river and was approaching the sand bar. The secret Avenger

looked up and saw the boat. An outboard motor boat coming fast toward both the sand bar and

The Shadow who stood black and clear in the sun. Five men were in the boat, all armed, and one

man stood pointing toward the black apparition of The Shadow.

"You there! Remain where you are!"

The call came from the man who stood in the bow of the boat with a pistol pointed toward

The Shadow.

The boat came closer. The Shadow could see the men clearly now. Small, dark men wearing

the British-made uniforms of the Indian Army. Ghurkas, their curved kukris visible at their belts.

All the Ghurkas wore United Nations armbands on their uniforms. The Shadow turned and began

to float away across the sand bar.

"Halt! You! Halt!"

The Shadow moved through the debris and driftwood, his black-cloaked form blending with

the twisted shapes of the logs. The Ghurka officer raised his pistol to fire. The soldiers fired. A

single volley that shattered the stillness of the jungle. Birds flew up, crying out, and crocodiles

scrambled into the river. The soldiers prepared to fire again. They did not fire.

The Shadow had vanished.

In the boat that now touched the sand bar the soldiers stared around them. The Shadow had

melted into the sunlight itself. The bushes at the edge of the jungle did not move now, there was

no sound anywhere except the steady roar of the river.

The Ghurka officer still held his pistol pointed toward the edge of the jungle. The officer

rubbed his eyes and looked all around again. He turned toward his men to ask them if they had

seen where the black figure had gone. But the officer did not speak. He was, suddenly, not sure

whether or not he had seen the weird black figure at all.

Angrily, the officer holstered his pistol and turned his attention to the dead body of the tall

man where it lay on the sand bar at the edge of the river.

LESS THAN a quarter of a mile away from the river and the body of the tall man, a covered jeep

drove slowly along a dirt road that wound narrowly between the tall jungle walls on either side.

The driver was alone in the vehicle. But not for long. As the jeep passed a thick clump of trees

close to the road, a tall black figure glided from the shadows and slipped into the empty front

seat beside the driver. "All right, Stanley," The Shadow said, "back to Mukulu." Stanley--

chauffeur, bodyguard, agent, and friend of The Shadow--stepped on the accelerator. The jeep

began to move fast along the dusty dirt road. The Shadow climbed quickly into the back seat.

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

Hidden from any observer, The Shadow swiftly removed the long black cloak, the wide slouch

hat, and the fire-opal girasol ring. He folded the special garments into amazingly small size and

bid them in the secret pockets inside the clothes of the man who now sat in the back seat. The

Shadow was gone, and in the Avenger's place was Lamont Cranston, wealthy socialite,

businessman, and close friend of Police Commissioner Weston of New York.

Lamont Cranston returned to the front seat of the jeep. Where he sat beside his chauffeur,

Stanley, he looked straight ahead along the winding jungle road. The immobile face and half-

closed eyes of the socialite and businessman were in marked contrast to The Shadow's piercing

gaze. His hawklike features were impassive, immobile, and his hooded eyes were quiet and

steady as he spoke.

"He's dead, Stanley."

"Dead?" Stanley said. "Mr. Vickers?"

"Shot, Stanley," Cranston said grimly. "From the look of the body I'd say he's been dead a

week."

"The same night he disappeared--right, Boss?" Stanley said.

"It looks that way," Cranston agreed. "There were many tracks around that village. Some bare

feet and some heavy boot marks. There must have been a lot of them. It looks like Vickers was

interrupted while he was trying to send that message, and escaped through a trap door under the

floor. A tunnel led out to the river bank. That was where I found the body."

"Any ideas who they could have been, Boss?" Stanley asked.

Cranston shook his head. "Not yet, Stanley. But T found a black patch in the jungle, motor oil

from the smell of it. And I found this." Cranston held out a small, circular, brass object. It was a

button. Stanley glanced down at the button as he drove on through the dim afternoon jungle.

"A uniform button, right?" Stanley said.

Cranston nodded thoughtfully. "Some Naval uniform, French I should say. It's odd, Stanley, I

can't think what a French naval officer would be doing here. As far as I know the French had

nothing to do with this country, and we're a long way from the sea."

"'I guess uniforms can be stolen or bought, Boss," Stanley said.

"I'm sorry about Mr. Vickers, he was a good man."

"And a good friend, Stanley," Lamont Cranston said.

Stanley drove on through the dim jungle light, the dirt road deserted between the tall jungle

walls, and Cranston sat in silence now. He was thinking about Gerald Vickers and how this had

all begun. How The Shadow had come to Africa.

It was a week ago now that Commissioner Weston had called Cranston to the private room in

the elegant Cobalt Club in faraway New York. Weston had not been alone.

The impeccable, white-haired Commissioner waved Cranston to a seat. Weston's face was

concerned, worried. The Commissioner nodded toward the third man in the room.

"This is Kurt Rohrbach, Lamont," Weston said. "He's from Interpol. I'm afraid he's got some

disturbing news. Gerald Vickers is missing."

"Vickers missing?" Cranston said. "From his Mission?"

"He wasn't at his Mission, Mr. Cranston," the Interpol man, Kurt Rohrbach, said. "He was

doing some field work at a small village on the edge of the Kanda Tract. The Missionary Society

says that Vickers was particularly interested in the legends and taboos of the Kanda area, so he

went down there. He was living in a house in a village right on the edge of the Tract. The place is

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

rather isolated, about fifteen miles from the administrative center of the district at Mukulu, and

the house had a small radio transmitter.

"Last night someone, or something, attacked that village. Vickers started to send a radio

message through to Mukulu. Tie must have been surprised because he only got a few words

through. After that the District Commissioner of the area, a Colonel Mnera, tried to call Vickers

back but Vicker's radio was out of commission. Mnera sent a patrol immediately. When the

colonel and his patrol got there they found everyone gone, the whole village including Vickers.

The whole population is missing, and there were no bodies nor signs of struggle except that

Vickers' house had been ransacked."

Cranston looked at Weston when Rohrback finished speaking. The Commissioner seemed

more than concerned or worried. Gerald Vickers had been a friend of Weston's. Cranston, too,

bad known Vickers well. The missing man had been a dedicated missionary, a very human man

of God, and a man who had spent all his life trying to help the less fortunate of the world both

spiritually and with more practical aid. Both Weston and Cranston were members of the Board of

the Missionary Society that had sent Gerald Vickers out to Africa this last time.

"And he is still missing, Mr. Rohrbach?" Cranston asked.

Rohrbach nodded. "Without a trace. They all are. There are tracks, signs in the village, of an

attacking force of some kind, but there is no trace of where they came from or where they went.

They've just vanished into thin air."

Cranston's hooded eyes were impassive. "What were the conclusions of the local authorities?"

"None," Rohrbach said. "They claim to have no idea who, or why, or how."

"You don't believe them?" Commissioner Weston broke in. "I'm not sure," Rohrbach said.

"There's something very strange going on in that area."

"Strange?" Cranston said.

Rohrbach nodded, "Yes, and I'm afraid that is all I'm at liberty to divulge."

Cranston leaned forward in the silent room, his impassive features set in a slight frown. "Just

why is Interpol interested in the disappearance of a missionary, Rohrbach?" he asked. "Vickers is

hardly a man to be involved in international crime.

It would seem more a concern of the local authorities and the United Nations in the area."

Rohrbach stood up in the quiet room of the Cobalt Club and began to pace. The Interpol man

was small and dark, and his face took on a grim expression as he paced. He seemed to be trying

to decide just how much he should reveal.

"Let me put it this way, Cranston," Rohrbach said at last. "We don't know what Vickers may

be involved in. All we know is that he has vanished along with all the inhabitants of a village. I

am not authorized to tell you just why Interpol is working in the country, but I can tell you that

Vickers is not the first man to disappear there. In fact, two of our agents have vanished right in

the Mukulu district."

"Two agents?" Weston said. "Disappeared?"

"Without a trace," Rohrbach said. "That is why we're so interested in Vickers. You see, his

abortive message is the first hint we have of what might be going on down there."

"What was his message, Rohrbach?" Cranston asked.

Rohrbach continued to pace. "It was only a few words, Cranston, he did not have time for

more, it seems. It said only, 'Village attacked. Don't know who or why. The Demon leads. Send

help at once. Demon flies, I think I know. . .' And that was all."

This time the silence in the elegant club room had an ominous feeling. Commissioner Weston

stared at Rohrbach as if not sure he had heard correctly. Cranston's hooded eyes flashed once

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

with a hint of the power of The Shadow. Rohrbach continued to pace slowly, uneasily. Weston

was the first to break the heavy quiet of the room.

"The Demon?" Weston said. "A Demon that flies?"

"Yes," Rohrbach said.

"What does it mean? Was Vickers all right? Perhaps he was under some strain." Weston said.

"I don't know what it means." Rohrbach said, "and I don't know what condition Vickers was

in. That is one thing we want to know. We want to find Vickers, if he is still alive."

"You think he is still alive?" Cranston asked.

"We think there's a chance," Rohrbach said. "As I said, his house was ransacked but there was

no trace of blood, and no sign of Vickers. Until we find him, there is hope."

Weston nodded slowly. The Commissioner looked at Lamont Cranston. It was Cranston who

asked the important question.

"Just what do you want us to do, Rohrbach?"

Rohrbach paused in his pacing, hesitated and stared for a long minute out the high window of

the Cobalt Club room at the sharp and jagged towering skyline of New York. Between and

beyond the tall, sky-reaching buildings, the wide Hudson River was visible with its piers and the

ships bound for the ends of the earth. Rohrbach turned to Cranston.

"We want you to go down there," Rohrbach said. "We want some private citizen who knew

Vickers well, who was involved with the missionary work, to go down there and help find him.

The Commissioner says that you are our man, Cranston. You knew Vickers, you're a member of

the Missionary Society Board, you're known to travel a great deal."

"Why a private citizen, Rohrbach? Why not continue to handle it yourself? After all, I would

have no official standing, and I'm not familiar with the situation," Cranston questioned.

"Precisely because of that, Cranston. As I said, two of our men have vanished. We think

whoever, or whatever, is down there is on to us, perhaps knows most of our men by sight. But

more than that, we have a strong idea that Vickers is no more than an innocent bystander caught

up in something by accident. If be is still alive he may be in hiding, frightened, and with no idea

of who to contact, who to try to reach. You see, as far as we know Vickers knows nothing about

Interpol, and he may not know who he can trust down there."

"And you think that if I appear, someone he knows, he will try to contact me?" Cranston said.

"Exactly."

Cranston considered. "But you can't, or won't, tell me just why Interpol is down there?"

"We think it safest not to, Cranston," Rohrbach said. "As I said, we don't think Vickers has

any connection with our problems. We think he was just caught in the middle. We also think that

whoever attacked that village may also know that Vickers is no more than an innocent pawn. We

don't want to jeopardize Vickers by trying to reach him ourselves in case they know us. And we

think that the less you know, the more you are simply a private friend looking for Vickers, the

safer both you and Vickers will be."

Cranston smiled. It made sense, and yet he knew that the Interpol man was not telling the

exact truth. Interpol did not know Gerald Vickers, and they did not know whether or not Vickers

was innocent or involved in whatever it was they were investigating. They did not want to reveal

anything that might give aid to their enemies down there. The less Cranston knew, the less he

could tell Vickers or anyone else.

"In short," Cranston said, "you want me to try to find Vickers, and keep my eyes open for you

while I'm at it."

"We could use help," Rohrbach said simply.

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

"What do you say, Lamont? You've worked with me so often, another time should interest

you," Weston said.

Cranston nodded. There was too much about this that he did not know, but Vickers was a

frien& and something very strange and very evil appeared to be going on down there. It was The

Shadow's chosen work to battle all evil wherever he found it. Vanished villages and strange

Demons were The Shadow's work, and The Shadow did not believe in evil Demons, only in evil

men.

"You can help your friend," Rohrbach said, "and law and order." "Very well," Cranston said.

"I'll start today."

Now, a week later, he had found Gerald Vickers--dead. He had found the vanished

missionary after waiting days, and after a long search. And Gerald Vickers had not died naturally

or by accident. He had been shot through the heart. Vickers had been dead all the time, even

while Rohrbach had been talking back there in New York in the quiet room of the Cobalt Club.

In the jeep, approaching the tiny outpost of Mukulu that was the administrative center of the

district, Cranston frowned behind his impassive gaze.

"A week, Stanley," Cranston said. "Dead a week, and yet the body was not found. I would

have thought that one of the patrols would have discovered the body much sooner. That sand bar

is quite open." "Maybe it was out of sight and only got washed out there recently," Stanley said

as he drove.

"Perhaps, Stanley," Cranston said. "But I must know more about what happened here that

night of the attack. Was Interpol here? And how was Vickers killed? From the look of that house

I don't think anyone found that trap door, and yet Vickers was found and killed after escaping

through the trap door and the tunnel."

"He probably walked into a gang of stragglers, Boss," Stanley said. "Native attacks are like

that. Chaotic, bands of killers wandering all over the jungle."

"Possibly, Stanley," Cranston said, "but I. . ."

Behind the quiet and hooded eyes of Lamont Cranston the keen vision of his true self, The

Shadow, was still there. And now, as Cranston spoke to Stanley, this keen and darting vision saw

the faint glint, the small flash of reflected evening sunlight, an instant before the shot was fired.

A flash of light from a gun barrel or the lense of a telescopic sight, high and off to the left of the

dusty road as the jeep neared the edge of Mukulu.

The shot rang through the silent jungle.

As Lamont Cranston, or as any of the other alter-egos of The Shadow, all the secret and

mystic powers of The Avenger were still part of him--except one. The power to cloud the minds

of men, learned long ago in the Orient from the great Chen Ta Tze, required the black cloak, the

black slouch hat, and the fire-opal girasol glowing on the finger of The Shadow. A power of the

mind, its true source unknown even to the Master Chen Ta Tze himself, it could never be used

without the presence of The Shadow as his true self, as the Avenger of Evil. Only one man in

each generation could use this power, and Chen Ta Tze had chosen The Shadow long ago in the

Master's hidden retreat high in the mountains of the Orient. The Avenger had never betrayed the

Master's trust.

But the keen sight, the super hearing, the great muscular control, and all the other powers

learned in the Orient were still there behind the impassive face of Lamont Cranston, and now he

moved.

The faint flash glinted. The shot rang out.

THE SHADOW'S REVENGE

Between the flash and the shot Cranston had moved and jerked the wheel, swerved the jeep,

and the bullet smashed through the windshield two inches to the right of Cranston and ricocheted

whining through the silent jungle.

Cranston was out and running.

Stanley lay in the cover of the jeep, his automatic drawn and covering the running Cranston.

Cranston ran swift and alert toward where he had seen the brief flash that had saved his life

this time. His keen eyes searched the dim jungle as he ran. He saw nothing, and there was no

second shot. There was, now, no sound at all in the ominous jungle. Cranston reached the spot

where he was sure the shot had been fired.

Nothing moved.

His sharp eyes searched the jungle above him. He saw the platform high in a tall tree to the

left. A hunter's platform, used for night hunting at stakeout. The platform was old and partially

overgrown by climbing vines, but there was no doubt that the shot had come from the platform--

the vines were torn to show where someone had recently climbed up to the platform. A single

cartridge case lay beneath the tree that held the platform. The .30 caliber cartridge of a high-

powered rifle.

Cranston found nothing else. The socialite turned and walked back through the darkening

jungle to the jeep. Stanley stood warily to meet him, the alert eyes of the chauffeur still scanning

the jungle for any further possible danger. Cranston climbed back into the jeep behind the

shattered windshield.

"No luck?" Stanley asked.

"He did not wait to greet me, Stanley," Cranston said grimly. "I think we will say nothing of

this for the time being. Leave the jeep out of sight from Doctor Arthur's hospital. If Colonel

Mnera asks any questions, the windshield was smashed while we were away from the jeep,

presumably by boys throwing rocks."

"Okay, Boss," Stanley said. "You think someone in Mukulu shot at us?"

"Perhaps, Stanley, or perhaps it was whoever attacked that village," Cranston said slowly,

"but there is something very strange here. Interpol has some problem that has brought them to

this country, Stanley, and it's time we found just what that is. There is work here for The

Shadow!"

Stanley nodded but did not speak again as the jeep drove out of the jungle and into the open

street of the district capital--Mukulu. The deep Lubilana ran loudly to the right of the village,

and the railroad line, a single track, cut across the single wide main street. Two soldiers stood on

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2THESHADOW'SREVENGETHESHADOW'SREVENGEABELMONTBOOK--October1965.Inthetallgrassland,betweenthemountainandthejunglewall,alionroared.AtthatmomentthesunjadedfromthepurpleAfricanskyandduskroseupfromthehotlanditself.Thensilence.Anuneasysilence.Theheavypurpleskyhelditsbreath.Themountainsandthejunglewaited.A...

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Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 330 - The Shadow's Revenge

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