Wade lifted a quizzical eyebrow. Putting the arrow carefully aside, he stripped himself completely, donning a special lightweight suit he took from a locker. Tiny metal threads were woven through the fabric, making the light suit as effective as armor against the arrows of the Poison People. Bullets or machetes it would not turn, but Wade knew the savages would not possess rifles and he could defend himself against any enemy who exposed himself.
Finally Wade donned lightweight goggles and a flying helmet, also interwoven with a metal-thread lining. He was almost ready. From a compartment, he took several tubes and bottles and mixed their contents in a metal bowl. The resultant brownish paste he smeared like butter on the exposed surfaces of his skin, face, arms, hands—everywhere the armor-cloth did not shield him.
When the ointment dried, its presence was unnoticeable. Wade had learned the secret of this from a witch-doctor in Tanganyika, years before, after watching the native allow snake after snake to sink their venomous fangs into his body. Actually the paste dried into something vaguely resembling rubber cement, a pliable, tough sheath which not even a snake’s fangs could penetrate. Wade had found it useful before and it promised to be helpful now.
He armed himself carefully, taking a few gadgets from the lockers. Then he opened the door and sprang lightly to the bank. He moored the Thunderbug to a tree-trunk, set the locks and glanced up at the sun. He could see it now, though after he left the open surface of the lake shore for the dark, shadowed aisles of the forest, it would be invisible.
He struck out westward, following the riverbank. The mist was dissipating now, but the lianas and branches dripped with moisture. The faint, strange cry of a sloth sounded from far away. There was a movement in the distance, slight and furtive.
Wade patted an oddly shaped pistol at his belt. It resembled nothing so much as the sort of water-gun from which boys squirt water, milk and ink at their less fortunate companions. It was larger, though, and had at least one feature a child’s toy would not possess—a tiny ratchet wheel, like that on a cigarette lighter.
Wade didn’t wish to kill the savages. They were, after all, acting only according to their instincts in battling intruders. Frightening them would be far more effective.
SOMETHING thumped against his cheek and fell off. It was an arrow, one of the tiny, poisoned slivers of wood. Wade ignored it, as he ignored the next arrow that rattled against the right lens of his goggles.
From behind him sounded a booming thud, a concussion that reverberated through the forest. Simultaneously a white flash blazed out. Whirling, Wade caught a glimpse of dark figures springing away from the moored Thunderbug, which seemed sheathed in blazing flames. He grinned silently.
Ordinary fireworks, slightly adapted to the occasion, but they would keep the savages away from the plane. If that trick failed, the wired hull of the Thunderbug could carry a stunning charge of electricity, as more than one of Wade’s enemies had found, on trying to enter the craft. The pontoon supports, of course, were insulated. The Thunderbug was as safe as though in its own hangar in the South Seas.
Wade turned and kept on along the river bank. He was conscious of whispered consultation in the underbrush.
The natives were gathering. More than once an arrow flickered at him, but the savages seemed to have lost faith in their poison.
What manner of man was this who could turn arrows with his bare skin?
Wade saw the flash of a machete. He ignored it, but his hand moved closer to his holstered gun. A shout rose all around him.
Dozens of naked, lithe figures burst out of the jungle. Yelling murderously, waving machetes, they converged on Wade. The Poison People raced to the attack.
Wade knew better than to put his back against a tree. These bare-footed, sinewy savages could shinny up a trunk as fast as they could run. Once a number of them dropped on his head from above, it would be close to the end. The odds would be plenty tough, even for Thunder Jim Wade.
He stepped back into the shallows of the stream. As he expected, none of the savages tried to flank him. They didn’t like water, either because it harbored caymans and piranhas, or perhaps merely on account of its cleansing properties. Besides, if they tried to get at him by the river, Wade could hear the noise of their splashing approach. He was safe.
A wry grin flickered over Wade’s tanned, hard face. It was a reckless grin, as though Thunder Jim were actually enjoying this one-sided scrap. As a matter of fact, he was.
The oddly shaped gun he held in his left hand, for Wade was ambidextrous. His other hand was balled, waiting.
A yelling, filthy savage, waving a machete, ran in. Wade’s tense body seemed to explode into sudden action. He ducked under the screaming steel and his fist smacked against the native’s jaw. It wasn’t really a hard blow, but the Indian went over backward like a tenpin, the machete sailing up into the air. Wade caught it as it came down.
The other savages were getting dangerously close. He squeezed the trigger of his gun. It spat fire like a flame-thrower, a raving red streak that lanced out in a long arc, missing the natives, but scaring the breech-clouts off them.
ACTUALLY the gun shot out a fine spray of kerosene, a needle-thin jet that spurted twenty feet before its effect was lost. A flint, working like a cigarette lighter, kindled the gas when the trigger was pulled. The gadget was fairly harmless, used under these conditions, for the natives wore no clothing to catch fire and the dripping trees were safe against flame. But burns inflicted by the gun were painful and the psychological effect on the superstitious Indians was sudden and violent.
The onward rush halted. The savages scattered before the blazing stream. Arrows flickered toward Wade, but these were harmless. A machete was hurled at him. He countered with his own blade and sent it spinning.
“Manco Capac!” a native cried. “The Sun God!”
A chorus of angry cries silenced him. The Indians hesitated, came or again. Wade played an arc of searing flame around them. At last he did not try to miss. Deliberately he moved the muzzle of the gun in a swift curve so none of the savages suffered more than slight burns.
This time they discovered that the fire could hurt as well as terrify. They scattered and vanished like shadows into the dark, dripping aisles of the trees.
Without hesitation Wade resumed his course along the river bank, but his senses were keenly attuned to the slight noises that would betray another attack. His mind was working swiftly.
One of the Indians had cried “Manco Capac,” but he had been silenced immediately by his fellows. Presumably, then, the natives knew something of white men’s weapons. Remembering the pill-box fort he had seen, Wade nodded grimly. The Poison People knew what guns were—ordinary guns, at least. It was pain rather than fear that had driven them back temporarily.
Savages, degenerate descendants of a once mighty race, a tribe of ancient, cultured Inca Empire, now they were skulking in the forest darkness, striking from ambush. La gente del venono, in truth. Invading white men from old Europe had been responsible for the ruin of the Incas and the degradation of the Indians. Once again unscrupulous, resourceful white men were carrying death to the Poison People.
Degenerate and bloodthirsty though they were, Wade could not help feeling a touch of sympathy for these Indians. They guarded their own lands and they did not invade others. Laissez faire was their motto—let be! But savagely, bitterly, furiously, with their secret and deadly weapons, they fought against intrusion from possible destroyers.
Wade followed the river’s course upward. The ground slanted gently, so that the stream ran with smooth swiftness over its sands, a reddish-brown flood sliding down to join the Madre de Dios and thence to the great Madeira, which poured into the Amazon at Manaos. These waters would travel more than fifteen hundred miles before they reached the Atlantic. Those fifteen hundred miles of mystery and jungle were the last stretches of the earth’s unknown frontier.
Presently he glimpsed the mountain wall through the thinning forest. He m
oved carefully after that, sliding soundlessly through the undergrowth, occasionally cutting a tough liana with the machete he had acquired. Though there was no trace of the Poison People now, Wade did not relax his vigilance. Perhaps, he thought, they were afraid to approach the mouth of the gorge too closely.
HE LOOKED out across the sloping plain. Silent and enigmatic, the pill-box stood guarding the canyon. It had been built between the river and the cliff wall. On the other side of the stream, the precipice mounted steep and unscalable. The only way into the gorge was the bottleneck between pill-box and river, in plain sight of any watchers.
There was another way, though, Wade realized—the water itself. A good swimmer could make his way against the current, under the surface. Yet surely that danger would have been foreseen. A line of cork floats at the river’s mouth gave Wade the clue.
Smiling crookedly, he cached the flame-pistol in a hollow tree and took from his pocket a light, serviceable automatic, wrapped in oilskin. He checked it to make certain that it was still waterproof. Then he brought out a tiny, immensely strong pair of pliers, with razor-sharp blades. He would need these soon.
His preparations made, Wade slid the machete into his belt and drifted silently toward the river. There was still no sign of the Poison People as he lowered himself into the water, which was icy from the snows of the upper peaks. The current was not too swift, for the channel was wide and the slope slight, so Wade made good progress.
He had plucked a hollow reed from the bank. He used this to breathe through when he rested under the surface, clinging to projecting rocks or roots. The prospect of piranhas did not worry him, for he doubted if even their savagely sharp teeth could penetrate the rubbery sheath that coated his exposed skin. The goggles he wore protected his eyes.
At last he reached the barrier, an anchored and buoyed net of reinforced barbed wire that guarded the river mouth. It was strong enough to keep out Indians, but the white man’s tough little pliers made short work of the wire.
Still swimming under water, Wade slipped through the gap he had made and swam on. Here the real danger began, for he had no idea what was in the gorge. When he poked his head out of the water, he might be greeted by an immediate salvo of rifle-fire. He was swimming through a murky darkness. The overhanging cliffs above shut out the direct sunlight.
At last he rose in a clump of reeds that effectually concealed him. Breathing deeply, Wade waited for a moment, then gently parted the rushes to peer at what lay outside. His eyes widened in amazement.
At this point, the gorge was nearly a quarter of a mile broad, though cliffs almost met far above. The vegetation, of which there was little, was of a sickly yellow color, for lack of direct sunlight. A cold, bitter wind blew continually down the canyon from the chill peaks of the Andes.
There was a building here, an ancient Inca ruin, apparently, that had been repaired by modern hands. Cement blended incongruously with crumbling, carved walls from dim antiquity. Something familiar about the structure made Wade’s eyes study it closely. It was a moment before he discovered its strange familiarity.
The building in the jungle looked exactly like a factory!
Chapter VI
Invitation to a Fortress
STARTLED, Wade glanced up to where the black mouth of a tunnel opened into the wall of the gorge. From it a path led down to the nearest renovated building. As he looked, Thunder Jim saw a flat-bottomed car come sliding swiftly down on an overhead cable. It entered a gap in one of the structures and vanished.
There was no other sign of life, however. No smoke drifted up from the buildings. Wade pursed his lips thoughtfully. Presumably an illicit mining business was going on here.
Those who operated it did not wish to draw attention to this spot. If there were any smelters, they would be run only at night, when the smoke would not attract attention.
Were they after gold, silver or copper? The presence of the Inca ruin hinted at that possibility, for the Incas had owned many mines. Some of them were later worked by the more thorough invaders who had followed Pizarro from Europe. But why should a mine deep in the jungle, far from possible probing eyes, require such secrecy?
A group of smaller buildings was clustered about a large central one, which once might have been the Inca temple. Cement and corrugated metal had made it into a fortress as well as a factory. Narrow windows here and there showed the snouts of several machine-guns.
Parts of the wall were of ancient, carved rock, built long ago by the Inca race. It looked incongruous against the concrete additions. There was still no sign of life. The vague, twilit gorge might have been a ravine on the moon, dead and silent save for the wailing of the icy wind as it swept down from the upper slopes.
As Wade stealthily emerged from the water, he shivered in the fiercely chill air. What would happen next? He took his automatic from its oilskin pouch and slipped it into a holster. Marat and Argyle were here somewhere, unless they were back in the pill-box at the gorge’s mouth. How could he find them?
Abruptly Wade stiffened, drawing back into the clump of reeds. From the largest of the buildings a figure had emerged and was walking purposefully toward him. It was a girl, dark-eyed and dark-haired, built like a co-ed athlete and walking with an easy, swinging stride. She came directly toward Wade.
Had she seen him? Perhaps, or perhaps not. But in a moment it became evident that she had, for the girl kept on walking straight toward the clump of bushes. Wade scowled in uncertainty.
What was the next step?
The girl solved that problem for him.
“They’ve seen you, Wade,” she said quietly. “They sent me out here with a message.”
Thunder Jim’s eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t answer. The girl halted a few feet away, staring at him.
“You needn’t hide. Dellera doesn’t want you killed. But he says your two men, Marat and Argyle, will be killed unless you surrender.”
Wade shrugged and stood up, shaking the water from his garments. He stripped off the goggles, put them in his pocket and walked to dry land.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s have it. Who’s Dellera and who are you?”
“I’m Astrid Bentley. I—I own this mine.” Her red lips drew down bitterly. “Or I did, anyway, till Dellera took over. He’s been keeping me a prisoner here.” Abruptly she stepped forward, put a slim hand on Wade’s arm. “There’s nothing either of us can do now. Dellera has the whiphand. Play along with him and wait for your chance.”
“Keep talking,” Thunder Jim said quietly.
SHE frowned nervously. “There’s not much time. They’re watching from the temple. Did you get that message Carnevan and I sent out?”
“The code tattooed on the shrunken head?” He nodded. “Is Rupert Carnevan here?”
“Yes. It was his idea. I had access to the heads and he told me what to do.”
“This man Dellera,” Wade said. “You say he was expecting me?”
“He saw the Thunderbug, when you tried to land this morning. That made him suspicious. He guessed who Marat and Argyle were and figured you’d try to get into the gorge, if you were still alive. So he posted men to watch and sent me out with a message when he saw you just now.”
“And he’ll kill Marat and Argyle unless I surrender, eh?”
“He will!” Astrid’s voice shook. “He’s a devil, Wade, remorseless as a fiend! Come back to the temple with me. You’ll be safe for awhile. He’ll want the pleasure of gloating over you as a captive. He’ll put you to work in the mine, with the others.”
From the temple came a faint hail. Wade shrugged.
“Okay,” he said. “There’s nothing else I can do right now. Come along. We’ll talk as we go. What’s the set-up here?”
Astrid tried to match Wade’s long strides. “I’ve been a captive here for months,” she said hurriedly. “I inherited this property a year ago and flew down with Dellera to investigate it. He’s an engineer I ran across in Callao. There were legends that the
Incas once had a gold mine here and a temple. It was true.” She pointed toward the cliff face. “It belonged to the ancestors of la gente del venono—the Poison People.”
“So?” he pursued.
“The natives live in the forest. They’re afraid of this gorge. They say the spirits of their Inca forefathers live here. It’s taboo. They won’t let any white man enter it. We managed to get in only because they didn’t expect us, but we escaped barely in time. The gorge isn’t taboo to the natives when they’re protecting it from invaders.”
Wade nodded shortly. “What then?”
“There’s a cavern up the slope, leading into the mine. It was a sort of underground temple, filled with statues of gods. Dellera said they weren’t made of gold, but I saw that at least some of them were. When we got back to Lima, he made a lot of phone calls. I tried to find out what he was up to and the next thing I knew, I woke up here. He’d drugged me, slipped a powder in my coffee. I’ve been here ever since, a prisoner. Dellera’s afraid to let me go, for fear I’ll expose his racket.”
They were nearing the metamorphosed temple now.
“Just what is his racket?” Wade asked.
Astrid shook her head.
“I don’t know. They’re getting gold out of the mine. Dellera set up machinery here for extracting it. But it’s a very pure vein and he’s smelted plenty of ingots already.”
“How did he get his machinery in here?”
“Up the river from the Amazon. The stream’s navigable to the mouth of the gorge. He paid for it with the gold statues we found, I suppose. At least they’re gone now. He had the machines set up in the temple and he’s got a crew of hired killers working for him. Patek brings in the miners.”
“Slaves, you mean,” Wade supplemented. “I thought as much. He uses those Indian heads as bait when he flies into Lima and kidnaps men whose disappearance won’t be noticed.”
“White men, mostly.” Astrid nodded. “The cholos aren’t strong enough. Too many of them died.”
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