Dragon-lizards were probably crocodiles, Wade realized. He nodded shortly. “Well, we’ll have you out of here in a minute.”
“Then you must flee into hiding,” Natthiya added. “You are in deadly danger here. Tabin Naung will not hesitate to kill you. But if you escape, you can rally your people.”
Kamanthi’s slanted eyes narrowed. “And you?”
“The white lords go to find their magic chariot, and I will guide them. With it, they say, they can conquer Tabin Naung.”
“And am I to flee like a jackal?” Hot anger tinged the girl’s tone. “Nay! I go and fight with you! We fight together!”
Wade bit his lip as the last chain clanked free. “Is that wise? You’ll only hinder us, Kamanthi.”
“I can wield a sword,” the priestess said. “Better than that false sawbwa! I should have killed him long ago. This time I shall not fail.”
Wade slipped the pick-lock into his pocket. Simultaneously Kamanthi sprang up and turned to the door. She pushed it open and stepped out.
A brawny, bare arm slipped about her throat. Wade went for his gun, but it was too late. Two guards suddenly were struggling with the priestess on the threshold, pinioning her motionless. A spear moved forward till its point pricked Kamanthi’s breast. Then Tabin Naung’s deep voice spoke.
“Do not move, white men. You are fools—all of you! I expected Natthiya might return by this secret tunnel.” He laughed. “So I set my trap, and caught more than I expected. Throw your weapons into the corridor, or my spear finds Kamanthi’s heart.”
Wade caught the eyes of the others and shrugged. There was nothing to do save obey. He tossed his Colt through the doorway, and Argyle and Marat reluctantly did the same as he did.
“And the small man’s knife—quickly!” snapped Tabin Naung.
Dirk whispered an oath, but complied. Four guards then slipped into the dungeon.
“They will search you,” Tabin Naung’s voice mocked. “Do not resist, or the priestess dies.”
Natthiya’s face was twisted with hopeless fury. Yet he had no alternative, for Kamanthi’s life hung in the balance. Not till the four men had been thoroughly searched was the spear withdrawn from the priestess’ breast.
WADE and his companions were forced from the dungeon. They were instantly surrounded by guards with drawn swords. The guns were nowhere in evidence. Presumably one of the soldiers had carried them away to a safe place.
Tabin Naung wore the golden headdress of Palinwan royalty, and had donned richer garments. His bronze, handsome face bore an amused smile.
“The dragon’s teeth are drawn,” he said. “Put the priestess in the cell again. Lock her in her chains. She will stay there now until the devils of the swamp claim her.”
Kamanthi made no effort to resist. Wade met her eyes and said quietly:
“Keep your chin up, lady. I’ll get you out of this.”
If the priestess heard, she made no answer. She was conducted into the dungeon, and the chains locked upon her once more. There she was left, with the door bolted, a prisoner.
Wade did not know how much English Tabin Naung had learned in Mandalay, so he spoke to Marat and Argyle in a tongue the sawbwa could not possible know—the Spatari Radio-Code, the “universal language” without grammar or vocabulary, based on the notes of the musical scale. The three adventurers had used this trick often before. To an unenlightened ear, it sounded as though Wade was merely humming a rather tuneless melody.
Actually, he signaled, “We’re not sunk yet. Keep ready. If there’s a chance to break away and get to the Thunderbug, we’ll take it.”
“Bring them along,” ordered the treacherous Tabin. “They are to die—all of them. But first I shall show them what they long to know—the secret of making the sacred metal.”
“Thanks,” Wade said dryly.
The sawbwa smiled at him. “It will make your death harder if you see riches almost within your grasp.”
The white man shrugged. “You can’t understand it, but I’m not after the gold. Listen, Tabin Naung. I’ll make a bargain with you. Set Kamanthi free, destroy the device that makes gold, and I’ll give you more treasure than you can imagine.”
“And if I do not?”
“Then,” Wade said very softly, “then you die, Tabin Naung. That’s a promise. I keep my promises.” Briefly the dark eyes were veiled with ice, cold, remorseless, and deadly.
The sawbwa hesitated, his smile vanishing. Then, with a curse, he stepped forward and struck Wade across the mouth. A trickle of blood ran down from the split lips, but Thunder Jim said nothing. His eyes met Tabin Naung’s unwaveringly, and the brown giant knew fear.
“Bring them where I lead,” he growled. “If they try to escape, cut them down.”
He started along the passage. The soldiers hustled Wade and the others after him. Thunder Jim found the old priest at his side.
Natthiya’s lips did not move, yet his whisper was clear and distinct, heard by Wade’s ears alone. It was a very handy ventriloquistic trick.
“If we can slay the false sawbwa, the people will rise. Tabin Naung’s soldiers will be leaderless. There are not many of them. The people love Kamanthi, and hate the usurper.”
Wade whispered back, “If we can reach my magic chariot, all will be well.”
The tunnel slanted up steadily. They paused at last before a metal door. Tabin Naung flung it open and gestured for the others to follow him across the threshold.
It was a big room, and a dozen guards lined the walls, swords ready. A few oldsters in the garb of priests were working before an altar of either metal or stone, Wade was not certain which. The altar was engraved with symbols in which there was a vague hint of familiarity, bearing the same relation to ancient Sanskrit as old Saxon does to our English tongue. Certain carvings Wade recognized as being of Tibetan origin. The altar was incredibly old! Perhaps it had been created by the forgotten, highly civilized race of which only legends have come down through the mists of the past. A race that had had its curious sciences.
Tabin Naung was smiling. “The priests were willing to tell me the secret—once I convinced them,” he murmured.
He rapped a command, and one of the old men bent over the altar, touching a concealed spring. The entire top flew back, revealing a blaze of furious, blinding brilliance. The priest reached in, drew out some object, and closed the altar again. He extended a short rod of metal to Tabin Naung, who took it, examined the bar, and passed it on to Wade.
“Who made this magic device I do not know,” the sawbwa admitted. “It has been here always, tended by the priests.”
Wade stared at the rod. It had originally been lead, but already the atomic alteration had begun. The blunt ends were of solid gold, and a thin golden patina covered most of the surface.
Tabin Naung took the bar back, and the priest slipped it into the altar furnace.
“In a few hours it will be the sacred metal, all of it,” Tabin Naung commented. “Are you satisfied?”
“I get the general idea,” Wade replied slowly, and spoke to Marat and Argyle. “Whoever built that thing, and how long ago, we’ll never know. It’s incredibly compact. I don’t know the source of power—speeded-up radioactivity, maybe. Can’t tell. But apparently those ancient scientists set the device to transmute lead into gold. The modern priests don’t know what makes it work, or how to adjust it. They simply worship the thing, follow a ritual, and put lead into the altar where it’s turned into gold.”
“Be silent,” the sawbwa snapped with quick suspicion. “Speak in my tongue, which I can better understand.”
“All right,” Wade said wearily. “What’s next?”
“You will show me how to enter and operate your flying chariot.”
Marat chuckled. “Guess he tried to get into it and couldn’t.”
“Be silent, I say!” Tabin Naung snarled. He smashed Dirk viciously across the mouth. The little man grinned, feline hatred flaming in his eyes. But he did not speak again.
Red clenched his good fist and stared at it meditatively, but he made no move. Time enough for that later.
The sawbwa barked a command. The prisoners were taken back into the passage, conducted a short distance, and then hustled into a large, luxurious underground chamber lit by torches. Natthiya pressed close to Wade.
“That blue curtain on the wall,” he whispered. “It masks the opening leading to the temple room where your chariot rests.”
The sawbwa fingered his sword. “You will show me how to work your magic bird-machine?”
“All right,” Wade pretended to capitulate. “Lead the way. I suppose there’s nothing else to do. But you must set us free if I do as you wish.”
Tabin Naung laughed. “You, alone, will show me what I want to know. Your friends will be held hostage. You will be bound and held by guards while you tell me what to do. Nor will you be allowed to enter the chariot. You will call your instructions in to me, and if you attempt trickery, both you and the others will die instantly.”
Wade hesitated. His plans would have to be changed, then. Tabin Naung was no fool, and his precautions would fetter Wade helplessly. No, there must be another way.
He hummed a few notes. Argyle and Marat apparently did not notice.
Then Wade went into action!
Chapter VII
Conquest of the Temple
SURPRISE was the vital element. All along Wade had played upon the psychology of his captors, striving to make them believe that he had lost hope. And, too, he had studied them, noticing almost imperceptible habits. The guard on his left, for example, from time to time shifted his grip on his sword. Just as he was doing that, Wade’s fist crashed against his jaw.
He got the weapon, whipped its blade against steel driving in at him, and sent the other sword flying. Dirk Marat caught it deftly, pretended to fumble, and slid the length of steel through the throat of a guard who dived unwarily at him. Red Argyle got this third man’s sword. Then the three were armed once more—and the dragon was no longer toothless!
Steel sang and crashed and whirled there in the red torchlight. Marat was grinning fiercely as he fought with lithe, catlike movements. Argyle depended more on smashing blows that were difficult to parry. And Wade fought like the jungle beast he was, driven by the deadly fury against evil that had made his name feared by criminals all over the world. Yet they were badly outnumbered.
“Here!” Natthiya called. He was at the blue curtain, yanking it aside, a sword gleaming in his wrinkled hand.
Wade barked a command; Marat and Argyle moved with him swiftly to the mouth of the passage. Behind his men, Tabin Naung yelled in fury.
“Slay them! Slay them, you dogs of carrion eaters!”
“I want a crack at that guy,” Marat said between clenched teeth. “His hammy talk needs cleaning up.”
“No time now,” Wade cautioned. “We’ve got to get to the Thunderbug.”
“The passage can be blocked,” Natthiya said. “A great block of stone can be let down.”
“Then we haven’t time to waste,” Wade snapped. “We don’t want Tabin Naung blocking the tunnel before we reach the Thunderbug.”
“He may do it afterwards,” the priest said, cutting deftly at a guard who screamed and fell back, clutching a bleeding arm. “Then we cannot get at him.”
“There’s enough explosive in the Thunderbug to blast through rock,” declared Wade. “Don’t worry about that. Come on!”
They retreated, backing up the passage. Light gleamed redly before them. Glancing over his shoulder, Wade could see the Thunderbug, a black, motionless ovoid body.
“Quick!” Natthiya gasped. “Before Tabin Naung blocks the way! He may be waiting to crush us beneath the stone.”
There was a rumbling overhead. Powdered rock spurted down suddenly. The soldiers hesitated as the roaring grew louder.
And simultaneously Red’s big body crashed against Wade, sending the lighter man hurtling a dozen feet backward. Thunder Jim went reeling out of the passage into the torch-lit vastness of the temple just as a great block of masonry crashed down, blocking the tunnel mouth completely.
“Red!” Wade’s voice was unsteady. “Red!”
There was no sound. No din of battle could carry through that huge cube of rock. Had Argyle been crushed beneath it, in his desperate attempt to save Wade’s life? No—no!
Wade was white-lipped as he stood up, his fingers gripping the sword-hilt with painful strength. The temple was empty. The metal doors, he saw, had been repaired in a make-shift fashion that barred any exit.
DISTANTLY, stone grated on stone. Wade turned to the blocked passage again. But the noise had not come from there.
Abruptly another section of the wall bulged inward. Water spouted through the cracks. The masonry seemed to leap into the temple, borne on the crest of a seething flood. Instinctively Wade dived toward the Thunderbug.
He guessed what had happened. The ancient builders of Palinwa had tunneled through to the swamp, so that its waters could be released into the temple itself in time of need. Now, thinking Wade trapped there, Tabin Naung had sent the flood pouring into the underground room.
The Thunderbug was the only sanctuary. Wade was carried toward it by the crest of the water. He was flattened against the door while his deft fingers flew at the multiple locks. It did not take him long, but the water rose steadily.
Wade scrambled up to the emergency port in the Thunderbug’s turret. It was just awash, but the locks were no barrier now. He slipped through the manhole, dropped into the cabin in a gush of stinking swamp-water, and the port slammed shut after him.
Something squirmed under his foot. He reached for a switch and clicked on the light, finding a snake had been washed in with the swamp water. A quick slash with the sword killed the reptile, and then Wade could turn to the next problem.
He was in no danger from the rising flood. The Thunderbug was completely air-tight and could, if necessary, be operated as a submarine. But in this cavern there would be no room to maneuver. What was important at this moment were the torpedo tubes in the Thunderbug’s hull.
Wade’s eyes held cold, deadly rage as he went to work. He forced his mind away from the thought of Red Argyle, perhaps lying crushed and broken beneath the stone block. Instead, he thought of Tabin Naung, and his smile was not pleasant to see.
A searchlight glared out from the Thunderbug and penetrated the murky waters. The tumult had died; presumably the temple was completely filled. Wade touched the controls and swung the tank broadside to the farther wall, as far away from it as possible. The armored hull could resist concussions, but there would be danger in releasing a torpedo here.
Yet it was necessary to aim directly at the block that barred the tunnel. Wade made careful adjustments. Then he released the torpedo and waited.
The concussion nearly toppled the Thunderbug over, temporarily deafening Wade. He scrambled up from where he had been hurled, staring out one of the ports. The waters were lowering. That meant the torpedo had breached a hole in the wall through which the flood was pouring.
The stream rushing through the temple was decreasing somewhat. There was scarcely three feet of water covering the floor now. Wade found a gun and scrambled out of the conning tower, taking the sword with him. It took only a second to relock the Thunderbug.
The stone that had blocked the inner passage had vanished. In its place was a ragged hole through which water poured, green and ill-smelling. Wade shrugged, put the sword through his belt, and dived.
There was a minute or two of chaos during which he was tossed about and bruised against the walls. Then the flood disgorged him into a room knee-deep in water, a room filled with fighting men. Wade hurled himself away from the torrent that was threatening to carry him through the farther door, and sprang up. His gaze swept about the room.
Hot relief flooded him. Red Argyle was not dead. The giant was fighting back to back with Dick Marat against the swordsmen who were attacking the two
. But that attack was only half-hearted now. Natthiya was nowhere in sight.
“Jim!” Marat howled. “You did it!”
Wade ripped out his sword to tackle a guard who came splashing toward him. “Where’s the sawbwa?” he yelled.
“He took a powder! Natthiya went after him.”
Wade disarmed his opponent. “He went after Kamanthi—the sawbwa, I mean,” he deduced. “To kill her. Can you hold off these tin soldiers for awhile?”
“Sure,” Red called back. “Go get that gal. She’s got too much nerve to be butchered.”
Wade hesitated no longer. Evading the guards who tried to intercept him, he made for the door through which the waters were pouring. The flood was swiftly decreasing in force, but it was still strong enough to carry him along faster than he could have run.
Down the passage he shot, gripping his sword. Naturally Tabin Naung would head for Kamanthi’s prison to kill the priestess so that the throne of Palinwa would be vacant. It was the logical thing for him to do. And Natthiya? No doubt the faithful old priest had tried to stop him. But Natthiya would have no chance against the giant sawbwa.
The tunnel was a river. A few flambeaux still burned above water-level. The open doorway of the dungeon swept into view.
Wade twisted like an eel, found solid footing, caught the edge of the door. A flambeau in the corridor cast red light across the threshold. Water was gushing into the prison, pouring down through the tunnel that led to the swamp. Kamanthi, still chained, was struggling to reach two figures locked in murderous battle.
Tabin Naung and Natthiya! The gallant old priest was trying to wrest the sword from the sawbwa’s hand. How he had managed to avoid being killed before now Wade did not know, but he wasted no time. With a bound he was beside the struggling pair. His fist cracked solidly against Tabin Naung’s jaw.
The sawbwa staggered back, grinning with pain. He aimed a cut at Wade with his sword. Natthiya scuttled toward Kamanthi and began to work frantically on her fetters.
It was difficult to keep footing in that pouring flood. The roar of the racing waters was deafening, drowning Tabin Naung’s shout of fury. Wade countered the traitor’s blow—and his own blade snapped off at the hilt. Instantly he dived in, carrying the sawbwa off his feet. Locked in conflict, the two men toppled into the flood.
Thunder Jim Wade Page 31