DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) Read Online Free

guess,” finished the man-twin.
    “If you guessed that we’d dry-gulch you on this godforsaken isle,” Dang said, rubbing his already-aching belly, “you guessed dang right.”
    The lengthening faces of the twins told that this was what they had guessed. Exactly.
    “There’s ample time,” interrupted Poetical Percival, “to commit that crime.”
    “What good are they?” Dang shot back. “We got the blasted box.”
    “Do we know what’s in it? Besides fog, that is?”
    “No,” Dang was forced to admit.
    “Then they live,” Percival said firmly and his eyes met Dang’s without flinching.
    Ordinarily, Dang Mi took orders from no one, and was further inclined to do something violent to anyone rash enough to suggest what he should do. But Poetical Percival had just raked his chestnuts out of the fire, so he merely scowled and gestured that the white-skinned Oriental twins should be made to accompany them.
    Corsairs surrounded the odd pair. They allowed themselves to be marched back to the wreck of their plane under the points of unsettling wavy-bladed Malay daggers called krises .
    Poetical Percival heaved himself upon the plane in a manner which showed that, for a gawky human beanpole, he was physically strong. Instead of climbing onto the ungainly craft, he went to work searching the plane, probably for loot.
    It was then that Poetical Percival Perkins got a hint of the fabulous thing that was the mystery of the infernal Buddha, as it was later known.
    Poetical Percival had been inside the plane cabin, rifling it for perhaps five minutes before he popped out. His mouse-shaped mouth was pinched tight. His face was several shades paler than before.
    “Better take a look,” he told Dang Mi, in his agitation forgetting his rhymes.
    Dang put his head in. A notebook was held up to his face, the pages open to his eyes. He began reading.
    For some time, he remained as a man in a trance, half in, half out of the ship. He withdrew his head, and he looked wide-eyed, startled. His lips moved as if making words, but the sounds did not come out.
    His pirates, who had drawn near, became frightened at this unusual behavior by a man hitherto without fear. The brown men retreated uneasily—but were careful not to flee all the way into the jungle, for the good reason that some of their companions had been shot for trying to escape. They greatly feared fat, innocent-looking Dang Mi, and they were literally his slaves.
    “Hah!” Dang snorted. “This stuff don’t sound reasonable!”
    He had the notebook clutched in one plump fist. He cracked it open and started perusing it from the first page. He kept on reading.
    DANG MI did not look up from the words for a long time. His eyes were distinctly popping.
    The pirates exchanged ugly looks. One ran a finger along his kris’ razor edge, then cast a meaning glance at the exposed back of Dang Mi’s unprotected neck. Mutiny was in their vicious eyes.
    Poetical Percival Perkins made a throat-clearing noise that was entirely unheard by the absorbed pirate chieftain.
    Then they all squirmed and looked afraid, and fell to peering at the strange twins. One reached down and touched the Eurasian girl’s hair, then drew his hand back as if he had been stung when Dang Mi suddenly yelled, and spun about.
    He was staring at the girl.
    “Dang my soul, the thing must be true!”
    They returned to the Devilfish in relays, using the little dink.

Chapter 3
Into the Fire
    IN DANG MI’S cabin was a hidden safe. A stout one, modern. They locked the strange blue box in that. The notebook they kept out, poring over it for the better portion of an hour.
    The almond-eyed Chans stared at them levelly when the pirate pair came slinking into the main cabin, in which they had been kept under guard. Dang Mi and Poetical Percival looked happy enough to purr.
    “You’ve been in Shanghai,” Dang accused the Chans.
    “Making experiments,” said Percival.
    “With the Buddha’s Toe,” added Dang.
    The