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It was: "What is there about myself that your leader finds undesirable?"
"Huh?" Monk stuttered, at a loss for an answer. "Oh, Doc likes you all right. He likes everybody."
"I do not believe so," said the entrancing Mayan. "He remains aloof."
"Well," floundered Monk, "I guess that's just Doc's way."
"There is a girl — he is — ?"
"In love with anybody?" Monk snorted. "Heck no! There ain't a girl livin' who could make Doc's heart — "
Monk abruptly swallowed the rest. But it was too late. He had said the wrong thing.
Princess Monja spun on her heel and vanished among the large rocks. The trace of a sob lingered behind her.
Monk stood there in the moonlight a while. Then he went back to his sleeping quarters. Doc and Re
Just to ascertain that things were all right, Monk stepped into the adjoining room where Joh
All three were gone!
Monk's huge fingers curled and uncurled. He knew something was wrong now! All five of his friends would not be out taking the night air at once
A giant, animal-like figure, Monk sprang outside. His keen ears strained. They detected faint noises. To the right! He made for them, his leaps enormous, bounding.
Quite a number of men seemed to be receding furtively through the night. Monk put on a burst of speed to overhaul them.
The golden pyramid came in view.
On the left of it, Monk discerned the men he was following. Fully a dozen of them! They carried a limp, bound form in their midst
Monk had a technique for ru
He raced his best now. He tried repeatedly to see who it was the men — they were red-fingered warriors — were carrying.
Joh
Monk did not know Long Tom and Ham had already gone into the sacrificial well, or he would have been even more horrified than he was.
The red-fingered men had seen him now. They quickened their own pace, shedding caution. They ran out on the stone pavement around the sacrificial well.
Still fifty feet from them, Monk saw them lift Joh
Monk heard the loud, heavy thump come up from the well bottom!
That turned Monk into such a fighting devil as he seldom became. His great hands scooped up two rocks. He hurled them with the velocity of ca
Both rocks downed their men.
So sudden was the attack, so fearsome a figure did Monk present that the red-fingered group turned to a man and fled wildly into the brush. Monk overhauled one before they got away. He heaved the loathsome creature up like a feather and dashed him against a tree. The lifeless body bounced back almost to his feet, so terrific was the impact.
Into the undergrowth Monk dived. He searched like a terrier after rats. But the warriors knew the vegetation. They evaded him.
It was high tribute to the fright Monk inspired that they did not even dare throw a knife or a spear at him, but crept away like sneaking coyotes into the night.
Slowly, with his heart the heaviest it had ever been, Monk went back to the sacrificial well. He had heard that thump come up from the bottom — he knew the well must be at least two hundred feet deep.
Poor Joh
Nearing the well, Monk could hear the gruesome hissing and swishing of serpent bodies deep in the black Gehe
With an effort, he brought himself to look over the rim of the sacrificial well.
Out of the pit came Ham's sarcastic drawl.
"I ask you, brothers, did you ever see an uglier face than that?"
Chapter 14. DOC PULLS A RESURRECTION
So astounded was Monk that he came within a hair of toppling head-first into the sacrificial well. He hastily got away from the brink.
A sibilant "Sh-h-h!" came out of the hole, warning silence.
Joh
Long Tom was helped out next. Then Ham. They, too, were unharmed. And finally Re
At last, Doc himself appeared.
"You wait here," Doc whispered. "I'm going to the plane to get some materials."
He vanished like a bronze ghost in the moonlight.
"What happened to you birds?" Monk demanded.
"The red-fingered rascals got us, one at a time, bound and gagged us, and threw us in the well," Long Tom explained.
"Aw-w-w! I mean, what saved you?"
"How?"
"It beat anything you ever saw," Long Tom murmured admiringly. "Doc and Re
Monk looked, and perceived what he had not before noted in the moonlight. The two ropes, thin but extremely strong, were tied to a couple of the stout shrubs surrounding the paved circle. The ends of the ropes dangled in the well. The Mayans, too, had missed seeing them.
"Doc and Re
Long Tom laughed softly — but not very heartily. "When the red-fingered men tossed me in, Re
"And Doc simply swung out and caught them, one at a time, as they came down," Re
"You looked like you were crying when you stuck your mug into the pit," Joh
"Aw-w, fooey on you!" Monk gri
Doc came back, appearing with the silent unexpectedness of an apparition.
"Why didn't you and Re
"Because I reasoned he'd be thrown into the sacrificial well alive," Doc replied. "That is the customary ma
"What?"
"The warriors are our immediate trouble here," Doc explained. "If we can convince them we are really supernatural beings, we'll have half the battle won. Then we can concentrate on trapping this man who is behind the Hidalgo revolution scheme."
"Sure," Monk agreed. "But how to convince them is the catch." He rubbed his big knuckles. "I'm in favor of glomming onto Morning Breeze and the rest of them, and have an old-fashioned lynching party. That'd fix it."
"And have the rest of the Mayans on top of us," Doc pointed out. "No. I'm going to convince those superstitious fighters I am an extra sort of a guy. I'll run such a whizzer on them that they won't dare to listen to Morning Breeze telling them we're ordinary men!"
Doc paused dramatically, then revealed his plan. "I'm going to bring Long Tom, Joh
Monk digested that. "How?"
"Watch us," Doc suggested, "and you'll catch on."
Working rapidly, Doc pried up paving stones in a line to the thickest part of the surrounding jungle. In the soft earth beneath, he dug a narrow trench.