Maxwell Grant - The Shadow - 211 - Xitli,God of Fire

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XITLI, GOD OF FIRE
Maxwell Grant
This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
? CHAPTER I. AZTEC DRUMS
? CHAPTER II. STRIFE BY NIGHT
? CHAPTER III. PATHS OF DARKNESS
? CHAPTER IV. THE THRONE OF XITLI
? CHAPTER V. THE MAYAN MUSEUM
? CHAPTER VI. WITHIN THE MUSEUM
? CHAPTER VII. CRIME'S NEW CHANCE
? CHAPTER VIII. ALONG THE WATERFRONT
? CHAPTER IX. TRAIL DELAYED
? CHAPTER X. THE CULT OF XITLI
? CHAPTER XI. KILLERS BY NIGHT
? CHAPTER XII. CRIME'S SEQUEL
? CHAPTER XIII. FIENDS OF THE FLAME
? CHAPTER XIV. MINIONS OF MURDER
? CHAPTER XV. LINKS IN CRIME
? CHAPTER XVI. CRIME BRINGS CALM
? CHAPTER XVII. TRAILS LEAD HOME
? CHAPTER XVIII. THE CHANT OF XITLI
? CHAPTER XIX. XITLI SPEAKS
? CHAPTER XX. THE FINAL DUEL
CHAPTER I. AZTEC DRUMS
KENT ALLARD stood by his window in the Hotel Hidalgo, overlooking Mexico City. He was watching
the ever-mysterious transformation that dusk was bringing to the Mexican capital, a change unparalleled
elsewhere.
By day, the city had lain basking in a gigantic bowl, its valley rimmed by the surrounding mountains,
which included the great peaks of Popocatepetl and Ixtacihuatl. With darkness wiping away those
summits, the city alone remained, its lights forming a twinkling carpet patched with areas of blackness.
Mexico City was taking on life. Even the traffic denoted by moving lights, was moving faster and more
steadily. All afternoon it had stalled around the fourteen-acre Zocalo, or Plaza de la Constitucion,
blocked by a protest parade of school children who disapproved of certain teachers and wanted the
government to know it.
Tomorrow the cab drivers threatened a parade of their own, demanding compensation for the fares that
they had lost while traffic was jammed the day before. But in between those daytime problems, Mexico
City would enjoy a night of glitter and gaiety, as was its wont.
To the keen eyes of Kent Allard, each new spot of light that appeared below possessed a significance.
The lights were like living things that were being rallied and regimented to fight off night's encroachment.
Modern though Mexico City might be, it still lay in the great valley amid the plateau of Anahuac, once the
heart of the Aztec empire. Here, until the death of Montezuma, last of the Aztec rulers, had stood the
strange citadel of an even stranger race.
With darkness, all the weird legends of the past seemed to close in upon the modern city, creeping down
from the time-haunted slopes of the Ajusco Mountains. The Aztecs lived anew, not merely in men's
imaginations but in their descendants, the Indians of the mountainsides.
There were nights when the rarefied atmosphere of Mexico City carried distant throbs that were true
echoes of the past, yet actual symbols of the present. This was one such evening, and Kent Allard
recognized it. When the shrouding darkness thickened to a point where his keen eyes could not pierce it,
his acute hearing served him.
From beyond the night-deepened waters of Lakes Chalco and Xochimilco, where remnants of famed
floating gardens still drifted, Allard caught the faint thrum of Aztec drums, beating in a steady, gloomy
rhythm. Those Aztec drums were bringing in some message from afar to the capital city, where a barbaric
emperor no longer ruled.
They were carrying an old story, those drums; one that had been repeated, at intervals, during several
centuries. The throbs were tuning: "Loot - loot - loot -" telling that once again hostile searchers had come
across some buried treasure, once the property of Montezuma or other Aztec kings, and were taking
possession of the wealth.
Centuries ago, such drumbeats would have summoned hordes of Aztec warriors to the scene where the
evil was in progress; but the armies of Montezuma existed no more. Though the drum throbs carried far
and wide, they were little more than protest.
The beating of the drums was a duty passed down through generations, and the news no longer stirred
the blood of listeners. Yet Allard was intent when he harkened to the drums.
Had their rhythm changed, he would have known that a long-expected time had come - when surviving
Aztecs might rally to a cause far more important than the protection of treasure belonging to a vanished
dynasty.
The kings of the Aztecs had perished, and their power with them. But the gods of Mexico merely slept,
like the giant volcano, Popocatepetl. Once disturbed, those ancient deities might rise again to rule, and all
who acknowledged them would then obey.
There was a knock at Allard's door; as he turned to answer it the sounds of the drums faded, as though
imagination, along with hearing, had been needed to discern them. A Mexican lieutenant in full-dress
uniform was at the door.
"Senor Cuzana will see you," announced the lieutenant, with a salute. "He has requested that you come
with me, Senor Allard."
THEY rode along streets like boulevards, passing theaters and cafes, through parks where strollers were
enjoying the mild evening air. Near the leading park, the Alamedo, the car swung into the Paseo de la
Reforma and followed that magnificent promenade to the residence of Senor Cuzana.
There, guided by the lieutenant, Allard was ushered into a salon where three men were seated. One was
Senor Luis Cuzana, a bland but friendly Mexican official, connected with the presidential cabinet. The
others were Americans, whose names Allard already knew.
One was Graham Talborn, wealthy exporter from New Orleans, who had done much to stimulate trade
between Louisiana and Central America. Talborn was tall, affable of manner; so energetic that he seemed
youthful, except for his grizzled hair.
The other was James Carland, an oil operator who had, until recently, held large concessions in Mexico.
Carland looked old and haggard, with good reason. For two years he had been fighting to regain his oil
interests, which had been outlawed by the Mexican government.
All three - Cuzana, Talborn, Carland - studied Kent Allard with interest. They remembered a time when
he had been famous as an aviator; but at present Allard looked as though the world had forgotten him.
Allard was tall, and his gaunt features had a hawklike expression that suited a master of the skies. But his
shoulders were stooped, as from weariness; the cane that he had used did not hide his limp, the souvenir
of a forced landing some years before.
On Cuzana's table stood the model of a Mayan pyramid, which attracted Allard's eye. Cuzana lifted the
top of the model and it came apart in sections, showing interior compartments.
"A replica of the great pyramid at Chichen Itza," he said. "They are building a full-scale reproduction in
New Orleans to serve as a permanent Mayan museum."
"We have already built it," corrected Talborn. "The interior of this model represents the arrangement of
the new museum, not the ancient pyramid. We are quite sure that the museum will be open to the public
in time for the West Indian Exposition."
"Thanks to you, Senor Talborn," acknowledged Cuzana. "The museum could not have been completed, I
understand, if you had not supplied the hundred thousand dollars still required."
Carland thrust himself forward; his eyes were tiny, ugly beads that blazed from his haggard face.
"I was the man who promised that money!" stormed Carland. "I could still give my donation, Cuzana, if
your government had not robbed me of my oil concessions!"
"I am very sorry. Senor Carland," - Cuzana's tone was cool - "but the decision did not rest with my
department."
"But you could use your influence -"
"I have already used it. Nothing can be done. I tell you, officially, Senor Carland, that you can never
hope to regain the concessions. The decision is final."
Carland stared, swaying like a drunken man. Then, steadying, he flexed his features into a sneer. Turning
on his heel, he left the salon without bidding anyone goodbye. Cuzana gave a bland shrug, then said in a
tone of sincerity:
"I am very sorry for Senor Carland."
"You don't need to be," spoke Talborn promptly. "He bought those concessions for a song and made the
most of them while he had them. If he had salted away his cash instead of sinking it in other speculations,
he wouldn't have to worry.
"Let me tell you something about Carland" - Talborn's tone became confidential - "that may change your
opinion of the fellow. When he announced that he could not pay his promised contribution of one
hundred thousand dollars to the museum fund, it naturally worried many people, principally Eugene
Brendle, the contractor, who had a lot at stake.
"So Carland went to Brendle and borrowed fifty thousand dollars on very flimsy security. All that
Carland gave Brendle was temporary title to a few thousand acres of Louisiana swampland. Naturally,
Brendle supposed that Carland would use the money toward the museum fund. Instead, Carland spent
it.
"Poor Carland!" Talborn's tone was filled with contempt. "You should say 'Poor Brendle!' He would be
down and out if I hadn't saved the situation by donating the money that Carland had pledged but failed to
supply."
TALBORN'S denunciation put a new light on the matter. It brought a nod from Senor Cuzana, indicating
that he was not surprised to learn of Carland's double-dealing.
"Mexico is better rid of such men," declared Cuzana. "They represent the old regime's faults. They came
here at a time when men in power were willing to bargain away the republic's resources to the first
person who offered money."
Cuzana was assembling the model pyramid. He put it back in the box where it belonged. Then, unfolding
a map of Mexico, he spread it on the table and turned to Allard.
"I have bad news for you, too," said Cuzana, "but it is the sort that I feel sure that you will be glad to
hear. You came here, Senor Allard, to superintend a search, by air, for the missing expedition of
Professor Darius Hedwin.
"Quite fortunately" - and Cuzana gave a whimsical smile - "the expedition has found itself. As you know,
they started from Chichen Itza" - he laid his forefinger on a point in the peninsula of Yucatan - "and
started into the interior. For a while we heard from them" - Cuzana's finger was making a curve from
Yucatan, downward, then up toward Mexico City - "and then communications ceased.
"The reason, we have learned, was because they expected to arrive here before anyone had cause to
worry. But Professor Hedwin decided to stop at the ruins of Cuicuilco, less than twenty miles south of
Mexico City. He has been there nearly a week."
Talborn inserted a chuckle as Cuzana finished.
"And all the while," added Talborn, "the professor overlooked the trifling detail of informing us - until
tonight, when a messenger came in with word. However, Mr. Allard, I feel sure that we can use you later
in a search for undiscovered ruins as soon as we have raised more funds."
"How soon will that be?"
"Quite soon, I hope," replied Talborn. "For the present, my chief concern is the shipment of the Mayan
relics which Professor Hedwin has uncovered. Senor Cuzana is making such arrangements so that the
usual red tape can be avoided."
Taking the remark as an invitation to leave, Allard shook hands with the others. Cuzana politely
conducted him out to the front door, where a car was waiting. There, Cuzana remarked on the fact that
Allard had earlier noted: the clarity of the night air in Mexico City.
"Sometimes," said Cuzana, "you can almost imagine that you hear the beat of distant Aztec drums."
Allard's keen ears did hear such throbs. They were coming from the south, the direction of Cuicuilco.
Alone in the rear of the limousine to which Cuzana conducted him, Allard smiled as he rode away. Then,
from his lips, came a strange, low whisper, a sinister laugh, which carried anticipation, not
disappointment. Allard's business in Mexico City was simply an excuse for his presence.
The laugh marked him as The Shadow - the strange master who hunted down crime, no matter where it
might be. His mirth told that The Shadow was on the trail of evil, and had learned its location.
Cuicuilco, close by the town of Tlalpan, had become The Shadow's immediate objective. There, near the
very mountains that could be seen by day from Mexico City, The Shadow was to solve the riddle of the
Aztec drums!
CHAPTER II. STRIFE BY NIGHT
PROFESSOR DARIUS HEDWIN stood in the glow of a powerful electric lantern, directing a small
crew of swarthy men who were hacking deep into a stony passage that was cemented with volcanic
lava.
Frail of build, with a face as wrinkled as a mummy's, the professor might have been a Mayan god himself.
He looked something like a golliwog, for his dried-up face was topped by a mass of shocky white hair.
Near the professor stood his chief assistant, Andrew Ames. He was young, but his square-jawed face
and broad shoulders carried the build of experience. So did his manner as he watched the slaving
workers. But his face showed disapproval, which Professor Hedwin noticed.
"Come, Andy!" wheezed the professor. "Drop your moping and take an interest. I am sure that we are
about to uncover new relics of Xitli, the forgotten fire god."
"Good enough," returned Andy, "but why can't you do the excavating by day and spend the nights in
Mexico City?"
"So civilization lures you, Andy!"
"Not at all, professor. I'm speaking from the standpoint of common sense."
Hedwin gave a head-shake.
"You are wrong, Andy," he said. "These workers prefer to work at night. They sleep in the daytime.
That's when they take their siestas."
"Siestas by day," returned Andy, "and fiestas by night. It's one and the same, professor. They won't work
unless you drive them, and that goes for either day or night."
The professor told the workers to rest. He drew Andy aside and began to wag a scrawny forefinger.
Andy braced himself for what was coming. He could see the strange gleam in the old professor's eyes.
Hedwin was going to confide the same facts that he had spoken a dozen times before.
"Many have found relics of the fire god," whispered Hedwin, "and have believed that a strange cult
worshipped that mysterious deity - a cult that began with the Mayas and survived among the Aztecs,
even to this day.
"But only I" - the professor drew himself up proudly - "have learned the name of the unknown fire god. I
have identified him with Xitli, the volcano which disgorged its mass of lava to cover and preserve the
ruins of Cuicuilco."
Andy nodded. It was always wise to humor the professor. Hedwin did not take the nod as a criticism, for
he knew that Andy understood the history of Cuicuilco.
By day the two had roamed over the pedregal, the fifteen-mile "stony place" of rough volcanic lava,
broken with deep cracks and yawning cisterns. The pedregal, site of the Cuicuilco ruins, told its own
story of a volcanic overflow in Mayan times, and would naturally have been attributed to the fire god.
Since the name of Xitli belonged to the volcano, which had become extinct, Andy was quite willing to
agree that the fire god bore the same title and that the eruption had been regarded as proof of Xitli's
wrath. But he still didn't agree with the professor on the matter of making excavations at night.
"Listen, professor," argued Andy. "When we left Yucatan we had a tough road ahead of us. I'll admit it
wouldn't have been safe to hit the jungle without Panchez and his guards. But now that we've reached
Cuicuilco we don't need them. While we're digging for relics of Xitli, Panchez and his mestizos are
roaming the pedregal, up to their old game."
"Their old game, Andy?"
"Sure! They've been hunting for treasure all along, professor. They know that when the Spaniards put
Montezuma in a tight spot, the Aztecs buried their gold and jade near the temples of the ancient gods,
hoping that it would mean protection. I'll admit that Panchez and his crowd cleared the jungle for us, but
only because the faster we went the more loot they could find."
Professor Hedwin shook his head.
"When Carland was in charge," he said, "he hired Panchez. When Talborn took Carland's place as
financier of the expedition, he said that everything could continue as before. So I kept Panchez -"
"Of course," interrupted Andy. "Good enough, while we were in the jungle. But right now, Panchez and
his bunch might as well be in Mexico City looking at a double feature. We're not going to run into hostile
tribes of Indians around here."
"You think not?" Hedwin cocked his head wisely. "Haven't you heard the beat of Aztec drums?"
"Yes," agreed Andy. "But what do they mean? Nothing but an old ritual carried on by a lot of Indians
who don't do anything more dangerous than weave baskets!"
PROFESSOR HEDWIN turned away. He felt that he had won his point. He ordered the workers to
chop deeper into the lava, and his manner told that he intended to ignore Andy entirely. It did not hurt
Andy's pride; instead, it was the very thing that he had been hoping for.
Using his flashlight, Andy walked a few hundred yards to the deserted tents that made the headquarters
for the expedition. As he expected, he found no sign of Panchez nor any of the mestizo guards. They had
all gone to the pedregal again, which explained why some of the professor's workers talked of lights that
had danced above Cuicuilco on previous nights.
Such lights, according to tradition, meant places where treasure lay buried under the protection of
unknown deities like Xitli. But Andy Ames took a reverse view of the phenomenon. To him, the lights
meant Panchez and the mestizo crew. If treasure figured, it would only come into the case should
Panchez Co. uncover it.
In his tent, Andy put fresh batteries in his flashlight and picked up a supply of .38 cartridges to
supplement the loaded revolver that he always carried. Then, keeping his light close to the ground, he
started for the pedregal in search of Panchez.
Andy hoped to find the mestizo leader engaged in excavating of his own. Such a discovery might
convince old Professor Hedwin that Andy's ideas were right.
There was one job that Panchez and his men handled very well: the shipment of all the motley curios and
relics, such as the broken pottery and baked clay idols that Professor Hedwin uncovered. The willingness
with which the mestizos plowed the jungle with such burdens simply convinced Andy that they also
carried baggage that they considered valuable to themselves.
Lights were dancing above Cuicuilco. Andy located them, more than a mile distant, along the
rough-surfaced pedregal. He watched the peculiar way in which they dipped and reappeared.
Gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, Andy crept closer to the lights. All the while he could hear the
throb of Aztec drums, louder, closer than The Shadow had heard them in Mexico City.
The lights showed the stooping figures of men, but Andy could not see their faces. Some were pushing
heavy sacks out from a cistern hole in the lava. The pit could not have been open when they discovered
it, for Andy saw a great, chunky slab lying by the hole.
Four men were straining, as if prepared to push the slab back in place at an order from their leader, who
was probably Panchez; but four were not enough. More were coming over to help them.
This was Andy's time for action. Springing forward, he suddenly emerged into the lights, brandishing his
gun as he poured an order in Spanish for the prowlers to stop their task.
Like the snap of a whip came a countermanding order from a man back in the darkness. With one
accord, the stooping men quit their task and surged toward Andy.
His first shots, delivered in the air did not halt them. Finding the warning useless, Andy fired point blank,
then hurled his revolver at faces that he could not see. Knives were flashing toward him, and Andy's only
weapons were his fists, good enough against mestizos if he could use them quicker than the slashing
blades.
The surge reached him; with it came a quick-snarled order from the rear. Instead of stabbing knives,
Andy received the clutches of a dozen hands that thrust him backward toward the pit. The men at the
slab had dropped it; they were joining the onrush.
Shoved to the brink, Andy heard another call. With it, the knives began to flash. Instinct prompted Andy
to the only course. As he wrenched free from the gripping hands that had thrust his arms behind him, he
twisted back to the pit itself.
In that last instant on the brink, Andy Ames saw blackness that loomed fantastically from overhead.
Some monstrous shape that looked like a windmill off its moorings was falling toward Andy and his
mestizo foemen. Through the whirling shape, the night stars were blinking in kaleidoscopic fashion.
As knives slashed at the sleeves of Andy's flaying arms, the bulking blackness from above gave him the
crazed impression that the pit had inverted itself; that he was actually over the brink and falling into the
depths. The pricking knives, too, were forcing him to frantic measures.
Wildly, Andy made a sideward lunge, away from the knives, toward what he thought was the edge of the
engulfing hole.
Then his illusion was actuality. Blackness was not surging down upon him; he was plunging into it. His
hands had grabbed in the wrong direction; he had lost his balance and was pitching headlong into the
yawning hole.
Knives were no longer slashing, nor could he hear the snarls of the mestizos. The receiving blackness was
complete, lacking its starry blinks, but only for a single second.
It ended in a crash that brought a great burst of light, then darkness absolute, as Andy struck the bottom
of the rocky pit. Fortunately, the fall was shorter than he had supposed, and Andy did not strike
headfirst, because he glanced from obstructions on the way down.
But those details were lost to Andy Ames, for the jolt that he received was sufficient to render him
senseless.
CLINGING to the brink of the pit, the mestizos were the ones who realized the closer approach of the
spinning blackness that Andy had seen. It was almost upon them, a silently descending autogiro, a
wingless monster of the air, controlled by the whirl of its horizontal blades as it reached the rough surface
of the pedregal, landing less than a dozen yards from the open pit.
By then, the men who had conquered Andy were scattering to safety. They saw the autogiro bounce and
expected it to overturn as an ordinary plane would have. But the wingless ship held its own, stopping
short with a single turn of its landing wheels.
The ugly shout of Panchez told the mestizos that they had to deal with a human foe, not some prehistoric
creature sent here by an outraged Aztec god. Rallying to their leader's cry, the murderous crew surged
toward the autogiro.
Two dozen strong, they expected to overwhelm the sky ship and the daring enemy who had landed it on
the pedregal. But before they could reach their goal, a figure lunged to meet them. They did not see their
challenger; instead, they heard him.
Blackness from blackness: a cloaked shape driving from the giro's center - a fighter who issued a peal of
uncanny mirth more weird than the continuing thrum of Aztec drumbeats that seemed to form a musical
background with their cadence.
Strange, shivering, that mighty laugh chilled the mixed blood of the startled mestizos, stopping them with
upraised knives in their hands. They knew, in that instant, that they were faced with a foe more
formidable than any they could have imagined.
They had heard the laugh of The Shadow!
CHAPTER III. PATHS OF DARKNESS
GARBED in a flowing cloak of black, wearing a slouch hat that belonged to his shrouding costume, The
Shadow was a living mass of dynamite, quite different from Kent Allard, the taciturn veteran aviator who
had flown by autogiro from Mexico City only a short while before.
Though the guise of Allard was his real identity, The Shadow always gave it a weary pose, even to the
pretended limp that everyone identified with Allard. Once cloaked, he became a knight of darkness
whose challenging laugh was but the spear point of his attack. The Shadow knew that he had startled his
foemen almost to confusion; but such did not spell victory.
Once scattered, the mestizos could prove more dangerous than when assembled, unless they first felt the
power of The Shadow in physical combat. With that design, The Shadow drove in upon them as silently,
as ominously as his autogiro had dropped down from the sky.
His tactics were the opposite of Andy's. The Shadow had two guns, big .45 caliber automatics, but he
did not pull the triggers. Instead, he used them as sledge hammers, smashing down the knife blades that
flashed in belated style; reaching the owners of those weapons with hard blows that met human skulls.
To Panchez, bringing up the reserves, the scene was one of dark confusion; he could see figures
sprawling upon the grimy gray surface of the pedregal; others rolling, stumbling in search of safety. But
the center of that human flywheel, the forceful fighter who flung mestizos right and left, was no more than
a core of blackness, so evasive that it could only be seen in chance glimpses.
The men with Panchez were armed with carbines. Snarling, the mestizo leader pointed his revolver in The
Shadow's general direction and fired a shot to start the carbineers. The clear air echoed with the volley
from half a dozen guns; then the reverberations were stirred by a mocking answer: The Shadow's laugh!
Not a single shot had reached the foeman from the sky, and Panchez alone realized why. He had chosen
the foreground near the autogiro as his target, thinking that The Shadow would be wheeling back toward
the plane that he had left.
Instead, the cloaked warrior had whisked in another direction, finding some entrenchment on the
roughened pedregal.
To Panchez's men, the thing was uncanny. They were dropping away, leaving their leader to guess where
The Shadow had gone; a thing impossible to tell from the elusive laugh itself. Then, from the darkness,
came a wild, half-gloating cry, uttered by one of the mestizos who had scattered earlier.
The man had stumbled upon The Shadow and was trying to knife him. Two figures came grappling
upward from a lava bulkhead against a grayish ledge that showed them plainly. They whirled, and
Panchez saw the mestizo sprawl from a hard gun stroke.
But The Shadow, whirling away, was still vaguely visible; moreover, he had lost his refuge behind the
volcanic mound. Again Panchez fired, and his followers began to blast away with their carbines. As
before, they were too late, but this time The Shadow answered in kind.
He picked out the marksmen by their gun blasts, stabbing shots that wounded them in their tracks. It was
a system that he had used often in dealing with dangerous foemen, but it did not scatter the present breed
of warriors.
Like Panchez, the unwounded mestizos dropped low and began to copy The Shadow's own tactics.
Trained to convoy parties through the jungle, this was the very type of battle that Panchez and his tribe
liked.
The Shadow was ahead of them, both in shifts and gunfire, but his moves were so quick that his rapid
shots could not take effect.
He had to keep battling while on the go against these sharpshooters, who had demonstrated their skill by
very nearly clipping him. Nor could The Shadow change tactics, for he knew that the men with knives
had rallied and were crawling in toward him.
Even a trifling wound might mean disaster for The Shadow; and he faced the same fate should his guns
run out of ammunition. The knifers would come with their deadly machetes, and backing them, Panchez
and the men with carbines would complete the mopping-up process.
But The Shadow had a way to avoid such consequences. Taking a reverse spin as he fired at a
carabineer, he went straight for the pit where Andy had disappeared, reaching it while guns were blasting
in the wrong direction.
AT the mouth of the pit, The Shadow encountered a rising mestizo who had picked that very refuge after
the original fray. Again gunners heard a shout, and aimed in the direction that Panchez pointed out to
them.
The volley brought results, flattening a figure that came reeling from the pit. Panchez and his men charged
forward.
A laugh greeted them. They had felled their own man, not The Shadow. Instead of shoving his adversary
down into the pit, The Shadow had hauled him out and whirled him about as a shield, all in one speedy,
superhuman action.
It was The Shadow who held the pit, clinging to the rungs of a crude ladder that Andy had missed in his
fall, but which the lurking mestizo had known about and used.
The Shadow's laugh was like a call to action, addressed to unseen fighters who served him. It should
have stopped Panchez and his men, making them prey for The Shadow's remaining shots.
But Panchez had come too far; he was beside the huge slab that belonged on the opening of the pit.
There he found himself among men who were creeping in with knives.
With one accord, they grasped the big slab. Four of them managed to tilt the huge lava-hewn stone as a
shield against The Shadow's bullets, but they could move it no farther, until another arriving pair ducked
behind the same shelter. The new hands tossed aside their carbines and helped with the slab.
Overturning, the huge chunk settled into the rough hole, muffling The Shadow's laugh. For the moment
Panchez and his crew thought that they had settled their foe permanently, but as they started in the
direction of the autogiro, they heard the taunting laugh trickle from a crack beneath the rock. The slab
had not fully settled in place.
Panchez ordered a few carbine shots, which was a bad mistake. In answer, fiery stabs came from the
crack beneath the slab. In closing the pit partially but not entirely, the mestizos had given The Shadow an
effective pillbox wherein he could not only fire, but reload. He was evidently determined to nick any
persons who attempted to approach his precious autogiro.
Snarling at first, Panchez changed his tone to glee as he withdrew his men across the pedregal. He was
telling them that The Shadow, or La Sombra, as Panchez termed him, would simply experience a slow
but merciless death, far greater misery than that which bullets could deliver.
"The professor will not know," said Panchez in Spanish. "We will tell him that Senor Ames has gone to
Mexico City. Tomorrow the professor will follow, without crossing the pedregal. Later we can return,
when La Sombra is too weak to give us battle. We will close the slab and destroy his autogiro."
Quiet settled over the pedregal, though the atmosphere still held the quiver of The Shadow's last laugh. It
had carried a strange tone, that mirth - like a signal telling certain men to wait. Then, with Panchez and his
mestizos gone, The Shadow's laugh came anew, low-toned, like a summons.
Figures stirred from within the autogiro, two squatly shapes that approached the sunken slab. They were
Xinca Indians, belonging to a Guatemala tribe which Kent Allard ruled as a white king. He had brought
them with him from Mexico City, but had kept them in reserve.
About to summon them when the slab fell, The Shadow had countermanded his order by a laugh of
another tone. At present he needed them.
THE Xincas reached the slab, which had required six men to lift. Each Xinca had the strength of two
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XITLI,GODOFFIREMaxwellGrantThispagecopyright©2001BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.com?CHAPTERI.AZTECDRUMS?CHAPTERII.STRIFEBYNIGHT?CHAPTERIII.PATHSOFDARKNESS?CHAPTERIV.THETHRONEOFXITLI?CHAPTERV.THEMAYANMUSEUM?CHAPTERVI.WITHINTHEMUSEUM?CHAPTERVII.CRIME'SNEWCHANCE?CHAPTERVIII.ALONGTHEWATERFRONT?CHA...

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分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：76 页 大小：197.8KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-23

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