"Golly!" ejaculated Big Eric, staring at the plane which was being rolled into view.
The craft was an airman's dream. It was an all-metal job, low-wing, streamlined to the height of aлronautical engineering. In the air, the landing gear could be retracted, making the ship little more than a flying wing. The three great radial motors were equipped with the latest design speed cowling.
"This is Doc's new ship," Ham told Big Eric and Edna. "He had another very like this, but it was destroyed in a terrible experience we went through in the South Seas. The present craft was delivered while Doc was away. This is the first time he has seen it."
The slick-haired prisoner approached mechanically at Doc's command. Doc told him to get in the plane, but the man did not have thinking ability enough to realize he must climb the small ladder which folded out of sight when the plane was flying. Doc lifted him in the craft as though he were a stupid puppy.
"Wouldn't it be quicker to take Monk, Renny, Long Tom, and Johnny along with us?" inquired Ham.
"It would," Doc replied. "But it is part of my plan that they should not be seen in our company in New Orleans."
Big Eric, overhearing this, was surprised. So the big bronze man already had a plan of operations! He was certainly losing no time.
Each minute in Doc Savage's presence was increasing Big Eric's respect for the prowess of the mighty bronze man.
Doc took his position at the plane controls. The motors started in quick succession.
Big Eric, noting the airport personnel standing around with open mouths, wondered what so interested them. Then he understood.
The plane motors were silenced! The sibilant swish of the propellers was the only sound. As Doc opened the throttle, this note became a terrific whine, like the noise of a great gale.
With a short run, the plane took the air. The landing wheels folded up. The ship sped like an arrow into the west.
Craning his neck, Big Eric got a glance at the air-speed indicator. His eyes popped. They were doing nearly two hundred and fifty miles an hour. Yet the motors were not straining.
"It don't take Doc long to go places," Ham grinned.
But even Ham would have been surprised to know Doc Savage had just finished a grueling flight of thousands of miles from his "Fortress of Solitude" far within the arctic. For the bronze giant showed no signs of fatigue.
Attractive Edna Danielsen had been strangely quiet the last half hour, but her eyes had followed Doc's every movement. She seemed to get a thrill out of merely watching the bronze man.
The big speed plane rushed through the night. Inside the sound-proofed cabin, only a steady, low moan told of their terrific momentum.
The prisoner lolled back in a seat. He slept. His mouth was wide open, revealing the gruesome insignia of the Cult of the Moccasin tattooed inside.
HARDLY five hours later, the plane sped across lower Mississippi. New Orleans was not far ahead. Not a cloud scummed the sky. The moon slanted bright beams against the plane.
Using the plane's radio telephone, Doc had kept in touch with various airport stations, obtaining weather information.
The remarkably bright moonlight enabled Doc to discover another plane flying some miles ahead. The craft was probably making a hundred and fifty miles an hour. But Doc's speed plane overhauled it as though it was standing still.
He altered his course slightly. The other plane also swung over.
"What do you make of that?" Ham growled. "Do you suppose the Gray Spider has sent that plane after us?"
"We'll soon see," Doc replied. "I have taken no particular pains to keep our coming secret. The Gray Spider might have heard me getting weather reports over the radio. He could use a directional radio loop and locate us."
Doc's ship held its course. The other craft drew closer. It was a high-wing monoplane, with a tube of a fuselage. As commercial jobs went, it was fast.
Suddenly the ship zoomed upward, as though to let Doc pass below.
"I guess it's just some plane making a night flight"
Ham never completed his statement.
With an abrupt dive, the other plane flashed in front of Doc's craft. At the same instant it released a tremendous gush of vile greenish vapor. The stuff spread rapidly.
"Poison gas!" bellowed the quick-thinking Ham.
Doc's speed plane could not swerve aside in time to avoid hitting the gas cloud. It had been released almost against the trio of flashing propellers.
Comely Edna Danielsen went white, and spread her hands over her face. Big Eric, a quick thinker himself, sucked in air to fill his lungs before the poisonous fumes came. The prisoner sat still, as unconcerned as a machinefor he couldn't think enough to realize there was danger.
The plane popped into the gas cloud. It came out. One minute passed. Two. The gas cloud was left nearly five miles behind.
Nothing had happened.
Doc banked the plane swiftly. He flung it for the craft which had tried to gas them.
"Hey!" puffed Big Eric, unable to hold his breath longer. "Ain't that gas gonna"
"The plane cabin is airtight," Doc Savage pointed out. "Haven't you noticed you have experienced no difficulty in breathing during the flight, although we flew above twenty thousand feet much of the time? That was because the cabin is air-conditionedfurnished with oxygen stored in a special supply tank."
The gas plane was striving frantically for altitude, after the manner of combat craft. But it was like a clumsy buzzard fleeing from a speedy hawk. Doc's great racer came alongside. He saw the other pilot was wearing radio earphones.
"Landimmediately!" Doc's powerful voice boomed into his own radio transmitter.
The excited actions of the other flier showed he was tuned in on Doc's wave length. He had located Doc's plane by radio!
INSTEAD of landing, the pilot banked swiftly. A machine gun, synchronized to shoot through his propeller, mouthed nasty red tongues.
The burst stopped shortfor Doc's sky streak had flipped far to one side with a lightninglike maneuver.
Then the entire forward edge of the wing of Doc's ship seemed suddenly outlined in terrible little red electric bulbs. An awesome vibration swept the craft. For there was no less than ten Browning guns installed in the wings of the plane!
The other craft, able to fly but a little more than half as fast, and with only one rapid-firer, was helpless before this ultramodern sky terror. The Gray Spider pilot knew he had caught a Tartar. He shrieked and put his hands over his face as lead popped and tore and screamed about his ears.
The metal storm ceased.
Fearfully, the pilot peered up. He jumped as a commanding voice crashed in his radio ear phones.
"You have one more chance to land!"
Such a fearsome quality did that great voice hold, even though distorted by the metal telephone diaphragms, that the vicious pilot put the nose of his plane down as though his very life depended on reaching the ground in less than nothing flat.
The fellow was such a nervous wreck that he washed out his plane in landing. Coming down too heavy, the landing gear was wiped off, the propeller beat itself into a ravel of metal, and both wings were knocked askew.
Unhurt, the pilot bounded out. He looked up. Doc's plane was flashing in like a great bat. The would-be killer ran. The nearest brush was but a few rods distant.
But long before he reached it, a giant of bronze overhauled him. Arms that could be compared only to steel trapped him. He thought for an instant that the awful strength of the grip was going to crush his life away.
That did not happen. He was carried to the speed plane. He tried to struggle, but the sinewy bronze hands tightened and hurt him so he could only tremble and scream.
A small needle gouged the man, and suddenly the man ceased all action. He was the second victim to undergo an injection of Doc's special serum.