"Not when you're in the outskirts of Hades," Wail replied grimly "And, brother, that's where you are. This is only a mild sample of what it's like down in the main area.

Driven beyond patience, Doc lifted a fist to strike the man, but the pointlessness of that stayed him. Wail was as terrified as man, or minor devil, could get, it occurred to Doc; if Wail wouldn't talk sensibly now, he never would.

"Get moving." Doc gave him a shove. "The crevice is over yonder."

"Oh, now you're willing to leave?" Wail snapped.

"Yes. We can come back later, with better equipment."

"Once you get out of here," Wail said, "you'll never come back. Not that you'll get out."

Doc shoved him violently They began to walk carefully and warily through the evil semi-glow. There were now an incredible number of boulders around them, and Doc's apprehension ran high, until they came abruptly to an end of the stones, and Doc released his breath in relief. Pleasure was short-lived, however, because they were confronted by a forest of what he took to be some kind of freak trees capable of growth in the cavern. They pushed forward, squeezing between the trunks of the trees, which were either purplish in color, or so tinted by the lighting. The tree trunks were spongy to the touch, like toadstools, and Doc soon found that he could force them apart by main strength whenever they became too thick to permit ready pa.s.sage.

"Let me set the course," he told Wail, when the latter seemed inclined to veer to the right. "We could get lost in here."

"What's the difference? You'll never get out, Wail muttered.

Seizing Wail, Doc flung him forward, jamming him through openings between the weird trunks. When the way became tight, Doc flung a shoulder against the tree nearest at hand, forcing it to bend, and instantly there was a Vicious hissing sound from the tree. The thing moved; he felt a clutching, slimy, tentaclelike thing around his ankle.

Doc's first thought was that they had disturbed a serpent of some kind; the idea that followed swiftly was that no snake, even a boa, could have such spongy softness. Then another tentacle fell upon him. And another. He struck out wildly; in the midst of his struggle, he heard Wail howling, and turned his head to discover the man was also being enveloped. Doc swung back to strike out again at the clammy attackers, but his arm was seized. A tentacle slid around this throat, ropelike, soft and yet strong. He endeavored to kick out, sought to use his arms. "I'm caught, helpless," he thought. "My G.o.d, what are these things? Can this really be h.e.l.l?" A moment later, he was dragged down, the spongy arms covered his face, his mouth, and then he could no longer breathe.

IX.

MONK Mayfair and Dr. Linningen, after Doc Savage had left them to go in pursuit of Mr. Wail, did not remain where they were for long. It was Monk's idea that they push ahead on the main purpose of the expedition, which was freeing the Sullivans from Bill Williams.

"Doc'll catch that Wail guy in no time at all," Monk stated. "He can retrace his way to this spot by the footprints Wail is making. So I can't see that we're needed here. Let's get along."

"I'm game," Linningen said in a tone which denied that he was very enthusiastic.

"You've got quite a bit of nerve," Monk told him approvingly "Don't get the idea I'm not scared," Linningen said.

"I don't care for this cave-crawling myself," Monk said. "Let's whip it up. The sooner we overtake Williams, the sooner gooses are going to be cooked."

They traveled rapidly, running whenever they could. Monk was inclined to be more reckless than Doc Savage, so that he took more chances with the precipitous going. Linningen, a spry man, managed to keep up, although his nerves began to fray "Take it easier!" Linningen blurted finally "I don't like the idea of getting killed in a fall."

"Not this close to Tophet, anyway, eh?" Monk chuckled hollowly Linningen breathed heavily, traveled in silence, and presently asked, "You still take no stock in the Hades story?" "Now don't start that on me!" Monk growled hastily "It was bad enough, listening to that guy Wail."

"But you don't believe a word of it, is that right?"

"That's right," Monk said.

"How," Linningen asked, "do you account for the several strange things that happened - Wail's presence on the yacht in the cabin where Gilmore Sullivan should have been, Williams paddling out into the tide rip, the accidents that nearly befell me and the other incidents?"

Monk spoke rapidly He'd clearly prepared the answers earlier for his own rea.s.surance. "Wail told how he got out to the yacht, in a rented boat. Gilmore left the same way. It just happened n.o.body saw either of them. As for Williams and the tide rip - we know now that Williams is not on the up-and-up, and he was trying to build up this devil story. That's why he paddled out into the tide. He and Wail are probably in cahoots in this thing."

"Oh, you think there's a plot underway."

"Don't you?"

"I confess I can't figure it out," Linningen admitted. "Do you feel they're after something? Something in this cave, perhaps?"

"I wouldn't be surprised."

"What, for instance?"

"An ore deposit down here, maybe. You know yourself that there could be. Maybe gold, maybe something more practical, like tin or a pitchblende deposit."

"I hope you're right," Linningen said fervently.

"I better be right," Monk said. "Because if it should turn out that this Wail put it straight, I'm going to be a little upset.

Linningen chuckled bitterly "Think of the problem we would have when we got outside and tried to make ourselves believed."

"I was thinking of that," Monk said. "Let's stop. Do you hear anything?"

They stood there, listening until their ears began the strange ringing that seems to be the human ear's response to silence that is too utter. Then they caught, from ahead and far below in the blackness, a clatter. Presently it was repeated.

"That's either Williams and his prisoners, or Doc," Monk said. "Let's not stand here."

They proceeded on with all the speed they could make and still maintain caution. Monk wrapped a handkerchief about the lens of his flashlight, to cut down the display of light to that barely necessary.

There came a moment when Linningen seized Monk's shoulder, thereby startling Monk nearly out of his skin, and blurted, "Look! It's Williams!"

Far below, outlined clearly by a splash of light, they could see Williams moving, driving two figures ahead of him. "Gilmore and the girl are still O.K.," Monk breathed. "See, Williams is keeping a gun on them, the way Doc had it figured."

"Come on," said Linningen grimly "Let's overtake them, end it or get ended ourselves, and backtrack out of here. I've had my caverning for today"

Monk hurried forward, drawing his pistol. He did not share Doc Savage's feeling that a firearm was a source of trouble and a crutch which a man should not come to depend upon, and whereas Doc never carried a gun, Monk went armed with a type of machine pistol which he and Renny Renwick, the engineer of their organization, had developed for their own use. The gun could get rid of an astonishing number of cartridges in a few moments, and handle a variety of missiles - explosives, armor-piercing, so-called mercy bullets, gas pellets, thermite slugs for melting metal and incendiary purposes.

As it developed, Monk would have done better to keep his hands unimpeded, because suddenly and at exactly the wrong moment, his feet slipped on a slimy chute of stone, the underpinning shot from under him, and down he went. He slid several yards with all the stealth of an unloaded truckful of brick. Worse, in the pawing for security - he didn't know what kind of an abyss he might slide off into in the darkness - he lost the machine pistol.

Smashing against a solid bottom finally, he lay gasping. Then there was an ear-smacking crash, the noise of a gun exploding. The bullet hit very close; the lead splashed and went into Monk's cheek skin like needles. He howled and rolled frantically in the wrong direction, too, because suddenly he saw Williams standing a few feet away and drawing a deliberate aim on him.

Then Williams barked in pain, and the rifle was smashed from his clutch. Linningen, from above, had hurled a large stone with wonderful aim.

Wondering where Williams had got the rifle, Monk dived at the man. Williams gave up an attempt to retrieve the gun, swung a shoulder and met Monk's charge with a straight-arm that was very good football. Driven aside, Monk managed to kick the rifle, which no doubt Williams must have found around the ledge, or perhaps in Gilmore's possession.

"d.a.m.n you, Williams!" Monk said, and reversed the rifle as a club. Williams instantly wheeled, fled; the darkness swallowed him. Monk yelled, "Stop! I'll shoot you, Williams, d.a.m.ned if I won't!"

Williams kept going. Monk, taking no time to aim, fired the rifle and was presented with one of the lucky escapes of his lifetime, because the rifle barrel had been bent, or more likely cave slime jammed into the bore, so that the whole breech went out, and violently Williams went on, faster if anything.

"Monk, be careful! For G.o.d's sake, be careful!" a male voice, evidently belonging to Gilmore Sullivan, shrieked from nearby.

Already lunging after Williams, Monk shouted, "Is Leona O.K.?"

The voice said she was. It added, "Careful of Williams! He's a devil!"

Which statement, considering the circ.u.mstances, meant more to Monk than it would normally have conveyed. Gilmore Sullivan's voice had the thin, weary, desperate quality of a loose fiddle string. Monk imagined him as a collection of bones held together by a few threads of hopelessness. That was, come to think of it, about the way he had been described by Linningen, the man who had found him on the rock in the sea.

The chase lacked nothing in feverish effort. Monk had much the same experience as Doc Savage earlier -his quarry began showing signs of speed and endurance beyond the human. In Monk's case, however, astonishment was not as intense, because he recalled hearing Williams had been a former football notable.

Williams, a noted football man?

"Who says so?" Monk thought wildly. Monk himself was a sports fan, one of the breed who read all the records and can quote from them for twenty years back. "I don't remember any guy of his description!"

Williams had held forth to be a radio commentator in the sports field, as well."On what station? I never heard of him!"

Monk got no further with his mental inspection of Williams. Two things made a sudden appearance to black his mind of anything but action and terror. First, there was the sudden feeling that Williams didn't need any light, that the fellow could move full speed through the blackest of stygian murk without illumination. Before that could fully develop in Monk's head, Williams popped into a narrow crevice that slanted somewhat from the vertical, and disappeared.

Plunging into the crack after Williams, Monk found himself in an unnerving position. He was a sitting duck, in case Williams had another gun and chose to use it. Williams would certainly choose; the fact he didn't cut loose now seemed proof he didn't have another. And there was Monk's claustrophobia.

Monk's revulsion against tight places applied particularly to stone. Now, squirming sidewise through a crevice which seemed to be narrowing, Monk began to have the ghastly conviction that the stone, several billions of tons of it, was slowly sliding together to close the crack. The fact that the inroad of terror immediately made his apish body swell was no help.

Finally, he wedged helplessly, and had to sink his teeth in his tongue to keep from bawling in an agony of frustrated terror. This happened about twenty-five feet from the far end of the crevice, and Williams, completing the pa.s.sage, immediately pounded on a loose stone and hurled it into the slit in an effort to brain Monk.

The hard-thrown rock was a blessing Monk badly needed; it hit his head, laid open his scalp, kayoed him for a moment. The brief unconsciousness forced his body to relax; thus loosened, he became free in the crevice and sagged. Also, dazed rage replaced terror, so he did not tighten his muscles until he had scrambled out of the thin pa.s.sage.

Williams ran. Howling incoherently - the roaring was characteristic of Monk when violently aroused - Monk pursued him.

The cavern gave a weirdly different impression now; there was a feeling of vast s.p.a.ce without there really being s.p.a.ce. There were columns, pa.s.sages, weirdly meandering tunnels. A vile pale glow-yellow, it seemed to Monk, although there was later argument about that, gave some illumination.

The tangle of stone increased, became labyrinthine, unreal. It was exactly like a forest. It was a forest, Monk suddenly concluded; the stuff around him was not stone, but felt spongy and nasty to his touch. It was moving! Swaying, writhing, the things about him seemed to be clutching at him!

Now Monk did what he had been planning to do as a last resort - hauled out one of Doc's explosive grenades and pulled the pin and got rid of it. He threw the metal pellet carefully, sending it through an opening in the impossible thicket of slimy, clutching objects. The grenade exploded about thirty feet distant.

Sheeting flame, noise. Then an odor, sickening and weird, a smell that Monk knew instinctively to be thescent of fear. And then silence. Utter stillness and motionlessness, and Monk, who had been knocked off his feet by the blast, chanced to touch one of the tree-like forms that had been slimy and spongy, and now it was as hard as stone.

There was a voice, Doc Savage's voice, shouting, "Monk! Where are you?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know where I am," Monk croaked. "It beats me."

"Did you come in through that crevice?"

"Yeah."

"Get back to it. Fast."

Monk said, "Williams is in here somewhere. There's some kind of tree-sized weeds, or something, that grab at you, and I threw a grenade and - "

"And you'll never get out of here unless you move fast! Run, you idiot!" Doc interrupted.

Monk got into motion, wheeled, and ran in the direction of Doc's voice. He saw the bronze man presently. Doc was running also, and they sprinted in silence to the crevice.

Doc said, "That crack is a tight fit, but try not to kill any time getting through."

"I don't plan to," Monk told him, and he stretched his arms above his head and began to sidle through the crevice with more speed than he had imagined possible.

Doc Savage, following close behind Monk, said, "It was a good thing you used that grenade. It saved things for me.

"It didn't do me any harm either," Monk a.s.sured him. "Something was closing in on me in there, and the explosion - I think it was really the flash of flame - put a stop to it."

A scrambling and whimpering came from behind them. Doc, turning his head, decided that Mr. Wail was following through the crevice. Wail made good speed. He was on Doc's heels when they finished negotiating the narrow pa.s.sage.

"I don't like this place," Wail gasped. "Let's get out of here."

Which could well be, Doc reflected, the understatement of the day.

X.

"THEY'RE following us!" Monk said, and pointed at the crevice.

Gold sweat stood on Doc's face as he stared back into the split of a pa.s.sage. He saw that the far end of the crevice was filling with dark ma.s.ses. They either had no real shape, or there was not the light to give them form.

"Get back!" Doc shouted into the crevice. "Get back, or we'll use another grenade!"

The warning had no effect. The pa.s.sage continued to fill with dragging, inexorable figures, and now they were making a sound, a clicking and hissing, a sound that was rage and hunger and b.e.s.t.i.a.lity.

"Run!" Doc told Monk. "Linningen and the Sullivans are back there somewhere. Keep shouting so theycan identify you. And keep a hold on Wail, if you can."

Wail shrieked, "Throw fire at them! Flame will stop them. They're afraid of flame! Throw - " Monk seized him by the collar and hauled him away Doc Savage, searching in his pockets, found only two more of the explosive grenades. He unpinned one, smothered a frenzied impulse to throw it directly among the horde of pursuers that now packed the crevice far half its depth, and dropped it at a point where he hoped it would loosen a slide of rock that would fill the crevice.

When the explosion came, he was yards away and running hard. The solid stone seemed to jerk away under his feet from the blast force, making him stumble. Somewhere overhead and to the left, a great shaft of stone broke free of the ceiling and fell with a jumbled roar that mixed with and accented the avalanche of stone that was closing the crevice. He could hear loose boulders hopping down inclines.

Sounding far away, he heard Linningen begin bellowing anxiously demands about their safety.

"Go on!" he shouted after Monk. "Keep running!"

He waited until he saw the white ghost of Monk's flashlight beam, felt absurdly grateful that Monk had retained the little flash, and wheeled to watch the ma.s.s of stone, now jagged and jumbled where the crevice had been. He put his own flashlight beam on the spot.

Several minutes pa.s.sed. He could hear the excited shouts as Monk and Wail joined Linningen and the Sullivans; he heard them continue onward. Their sounds nearly died away.

Then he heard weak, horrible sounds coming from the ma.s.s of fallen stone that had filled the crevice. He heard the sounds grow stronger, until at last they became movement, and a hideous figure began to drag itself from an aperture between the blocks of broken stone. The creature, a hideous caricature of humanity, spread itself over the broken stone, clawing, whimpering.

It began crawling toward Doc Savage, moving on all fours, stiffly and on dead limbs. "Help, help!" it wailed. "We must go back. Help us to go back."

Clawing its way to Doc's feet, the creature clamped its paws about his ankles. "Help!" it gasped.

Suddenly, Doc screamed, probably the first shriek of unadulterated terror he had given in his lifetime. He kicked wildly at the creature, which had buried its bony claws in his legs.

He fought madly The thing began to climb up his body, sinking clawlike fingers into his flesh, reaching upward for another handhold. Doc slugged, pitched about; with ghastly persistence, the thing clung to him getting nearer and nearer his face. Then the creature was at his throat, trying to drive small blunt teeth through the skin. Doc stumbled and fell, conscious of the thing gnawing, gnawing like a vile rat, seeking his jugular and his blood.