Tom Too was gliding the dead-motored plane at a very flat angle, getting the maximum distance out of his altitude. Probably this was by accident rather than flying ability.
"Holy cow!" groaned Renny. "Is he gonna get back to Shark Head?"
"He will come down about a hundred yards offshore," said Doc after a glance of expert appraisal.
The estimate was close. With a sudsy splash, the amphibian plunked into the sea. It pushed ahead for a time under its own weight. It stopped a bit less than three hundred feet offshore.
Then the ship began to move backward — blown by the offshore breeze.
"He'll be blown right into our hands!" Ham ejaculated.
"Or he'll find the plugged fuel lines!" Monk pointed out.
TOM Too wasted no time hunting for what had silenced the motors, however. Probably he was no mechanic. He appeared atop the amphibian cabin.
He was too distant for much to be told about his appearance. Even Doc's sharp vision could not distinguish the fellow's features.
One thing they did note — Tom Too carried a large brief case.
The pirate leader reached up and struck savagely at the plane wing. There was a knife in his fist.
"Hey!" squawled Monk. "He's lettin' the gas out of the tanks!"
It was worse than that. Tom Too backed up, struck a match, and flung the flame into the petrol drooling from the punctured tanks.
Flame gushed. It wrapped the amphibian until the craft was like a toy done in red tissue paper. Yellow smoke tossed away downwind, convulsing and boiling in the breeze.
Tom Too sprang into the sea. He swam madly for the shore of Shark Head Island.
Johnny gazed at the sharks cruising about the makeshift raft, then at the distant splashes that marked Tom Too's progress.
"That guy has got nerve!" grunted Johnny.
"Fooey!" said Monk. "A rat will fight a lion if he's cornered."
Doc Savage was standing up, still paddling, the better to watch Tom Too's progress.
Renny also watched. His eyes were second in sharpness to Doc's.
"There goes a shark for him!" Renny bawled suddenly.
They all saw the triangle of lead-hued shark fin cutting toward Tom Too.
"There ain't nothin' I like less than sharks!" Monk chuckled. "But I'm gonna find it hard to begrudge that one his meal!"
Tom Too had;seen his danger. He swam desperately. But he did not lose his head. He kept his eyes on the approaching fin. It disappeared.
Tom Too promptly stopped. Doc caught the faint glitter of a knife in the pirate king's hand.
"He's going to handle the shark native fashion!" Renny grunted.
Distance hampered their view of what happened next. But they knew enough shark lore to guess. Sharks do not have to turn over to bite an object in the depths, but commonly do so to seize a man swimming on the surface. The pale bellies offer a warning flash,
Tom Too disappeared from sight momentarily. There was a splashing turmoil in the water. Tom Too's knife struck repeatedly.
The pirate leader appeared. He swam for shore with renewed energy.
"He got the shark — dag-gone it!" Monk wailed.
TOM Too reached the beach without further incident. He sprinted for the jungle.
Doc's sharp eyes noted something the others missed — Tom Too no longer carried his brief case. Evidently he had dropped it in his short fight with the shark.
The plane was burning briskly. Flame ate into the fuselage. A Fourth of July uproar came as heat exploded machine-gun bullets in the craft.
The ship sank suddenly.
Tom Too vanished into the jungle.
Doc and his men continued to bend their paddles.
They reached the spot where the plane had gone down. A score of yards beyond, the shark Tom Too had slain floated near the surface. The water lashed in turmoil about the carcass — half a dozen other sharks were devouring it.
"Whoa!" said Doc.
Monk wore in his belt a knife he had picked up somewhere. It was a serpentine-bladed kris.
Doc grasped the knife, clipped the blade between his strong teeth, and dropped off the shaky raft. He disappeared in the depths.
"Jiminy!" Monk gulped. "With all these sharks around, Daniel in the lions' den was a piker!"
They waited anxiously. Bubbles gurgled up from the sunken plane. A minute passed. Sixty feet away, cannibal sharks fought with horrible splashings. Another minute groped into eternity.
Doc did not appear.
On the shore, coarse-voiced tropical birds cried like hideous harpies.
Three clapping shots interrupted the birds. Monk ducked as a bullet made cold air kiss his furry neck, nearly lost his balance on the ramshackle raft, but recovered himself.
Tom Too had fired at them — water does not wet the powder in modern pistol cartridges.
Doc's five men sprayed lead at the jungle. There was nothing to show they hit Tom Too. But they kept him from shooting again.
Renny glanced at a waterproof wrist watch. He nearly screamed.
Doc had been beneath the surface a full four minutes!
Ten seconds later Doc's bronze head split the water beside the raft. Doc's bronze hair and metallic skin had a strange quality; it seemed to shed water like the back of a duck; he could immerse himself, and his skin and hair would not seem wet when he reappeared.
Doc's shirt front bulged more than his chest should have made it.
Doc's five men wiped cold sweat off their foreheads. The fact that Doc had remained under water so long was not in itself alarming. They had seen the giant bronze man stay below for incredible intervals. But the sharks made these waters reek death.
"Have any trouble?" Monk asked.
Doc shrugged. "Not much."
At this point a second shark carcass appeared beside the first. The hideous creature had been slain with a single expert knife rip. Monk and the others recognized Doc's handiwork. He had battled the monster under water and dismissed it as "not much."
"Huh!" ejaculated Monk. "What were you doin' way over there? The sunken plane is under us."
"Tom Too had a brief case with him, but dropped it when the shark tackled him," Doc replied. "I dived for it from here, not wanting him to know I was after it."
"You get it?"
The bulge in Doc's shirt front gave answer.
THEY now paddled the raft to shore. Tom Too did not fire at them again — a wise move on his part.
"Make for the sampan!" Doc directed.
They sped northward along the beach.
Monk glanced over his shoulder. "Hey — lookit!"
Wheeling, the rest saw Tom Too. The master pirate had come out on the beach half a mile to the south. He was running for dear life, headed for the encampment of his yellow cutthroat horde.
"I'm in favor of going after him!" Renny boomed. Apparently it did not occur to him that they might not be able to whip several hundred slant-eyed pirates who had been fighters all their lives.
"The sampan!" Doc said impatiently. "We'd better get it and clear out of here."
They resumed their sprint for the sampan, smashing their way through the jungle growth in a short cut across a little headland and reached the beach in short order.
"Good!" rapped Ham, catching sight of the sampan where Tom Too had beached it. "I was afraid he might have jabbed a hole in the bottom, or something."
Renny pointed at the outboard motor.
"Look!" he roared. "The gasoline has been let out!"
The valve of the fuel tank was located in such a position as to spill the emptying fuel upon the sand, where it was hopelessly lost.