The Man of Bronze (ds-1) by Kenneth Robeson

Author:Kenneth Robeson [Robeson, Kenneth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: det_action

Chapter 12. THE LEGACY

"But this land is all yours."

"In the eyes of civilized law, probably so," Doc agreed. "But there's another way of looking at it. It's a lousy trick for a government to take some poor savage's land away from him and give it to a white man to exploit. Our own American Indians got that kind of a deal, you know. Not that these people look so savage, though."

"They've got a pretty high type of civilization, if you ask me!" Renny declared "That's the cleanest little city I ever saw!"

The men fell to watching the on-coming natives.

"They're every one a pure Mayan!" Johnny declared. "No outside races have intermarried with these people!"

The approaching Mayans were going through a strange maneuver. The bulk of the populace was holding back to let a group of men, all of whom were garbed alike, come ahead.

These men were slightly larger in stature, more brute-like, of a thickness of shoulder and chest advertising powerful muscles. They wore a short mantle over the shoulders, a network of leather which had projecting ends rather like modern epaulets. They wore broad girdles of a dark blue, the ends of these forming aprons to the front and rear. Each man wore leggings not unlike football shin guards, and sandals which had extremely high backs.

They carried spears and short clubs of wood into which vicious-looking, razor-edged flakes of stone were fitted in the manner of saw teeth. In addition, each had a knife with an obsidian blade, and a hilt of wound leather.

Every one of these men also had his linger tips dyed scarlet for an inch of their length! None of the other tribesmen seemed to have the red fingers.

Suddenly the man who led this group halted. Turning, he lifted his hands above his head and harangued his followers in a voice of vast emotion and volume. This man was more stocky than the others. Indeed, he had Monk's anthropoid build without Monk's gigantic size. His face was dark and evil.

Doc listened with interest to the Mayan dialect as shouted by the speaker.

"That fellow is Morning Breeze, and the gang he is talking to are the sect of warriors, his followers!" Doc translated for his men, giving his own accurate deductions rather than the gist of Morning Breeze's speech.

"He looks more like an alley wind at midnight to me!" Monk muttered. "What's he ribbin' 'em up to do, Doc?"

Angry little lights danced in Doc Savage's golden eyes. "He is telling them the blue plane is a holy bird."

"That's what we wanted them to think!" said Renny. "So it's all right if — "

"It's not as right as you think," Doc interposed. "Morning Breeze is telling his warriors we are a human offering the holy blue bird has brought to be sacrificed."

"You mean — "

"They're going to kill us — if Morning Breeze has his way!"

Monk instantly whirled for the plane, rumbling: "I'm gonna meet 'em with a machine gun in each hand!"

But Doc's low voice stopped him.

"Wait," Doc suggested.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.