The Second Murray Leinster Megapack Read Online Free PDF

horrible poison of the Indios of Matto Grosso, in Brazil. It drives a man mad, murder mad. It is as if he were possessed by a devil. His hands first refuse to obey him. His feet next. And then his body. It is as if a devil had seized hold of his body and carried it about doing murder with it. A part of the brain is driven insane, and a man goes about shrieking with the horror of what crimes his body commits until the poison reaches that portion of his brain as well. Then he is mad forever. That is what I face, amigo mio . That is why I beg you, I implore you, to kill me or assist me to the side of the ship so that I may fling myself overboard! The Master had it administered to me secretly, and demanded treason as the price of the antidote. He deman—”
    Steady and strong, rising from a muttering to a steady roar, the sound of airplane motors came through the port. Bell started up.
    “Hold fast,” he snapped savagely. “I’ll go get that package when it lands. Hold fast, I tell you! Fight it!”
    He flung out of the cabin and raced up the stairs. The door to the deck was open. He crowded through a group of passengers who had discounted the dampness for the sake of a novelty—an airplane far out at sea—and raced up to the upper deck. The roaring noise was receding. The siren roared hoarsely. Then the noise came back.
    For minutes, then, the ship seemed to play hide-and-seek with the invisible fliers. The roaring noise overhead circled about, now near, now seeming very far away. And the siren sent its dismal blasts out into the grayness all about. Then, for an instant, a swiftly scudding shadow was visible overhead. It banked steeply and vanished, and seemed to have turned and come lower when it reappeared a moment later. It was not distinct, at first. It was merely a silhouette of darker gray against the all-enveloping mist. But its edges sharpened and became clear. One could make out struts, an aileron’s trailing edge.
    “Got nerve, anyhow,” said Bell grimly.
    It swept across the ship and disappeared, but the noise of its engines did not dwindle more than a little. The blast of the siren seemed to summon it back again. Once more it came in sight, and this time it dived steeply, flashed across the forecastle deck amid a hideous uproar, desperately, horribly close to the dangling derrick-cables, and was gone.
    * * * *
    Bell had seen it more clearly than anyone else on the ship, perhaps. He saw a man in the pilot’s cockpit between wings and tail reach high and fling something downward, something with a long streamer attached to it. Bell had an instant’s glimpse of the goggled face. Then he was darting forward, watching the thing that fell.
    It took only a second. Two at most. But the thing seemed to fall with infinite deliberation, the streamer shivering out behind it. It fell at a steep slant, the forward momentum of the plane’s speed added to its own drop. It swooped down, slanting toward the rail.…
    Bell groaned. It struck the rail itself, and bounced. A sailor flung himself toward it. The streamer slipped from his fingers and slithered over the side.
    Bell was at the railing just in time to see it drop into the water. He opened his mouth to shout, and saw it sink. The last of the streamer followed the dropped object down into the green water when it was directly below him.
    His hands clenched. Bell stared sickly at the spot where it had vanished. An instant later he had whirled and was thrusting wide the wireless room door. The operator was returning to his key, grinning crookedly. He looked up sidewise.
    “Tell them it went overside,” snapped Bell. “Tell them to try it again. Ortiz is in hell! To try again! He’s dying!”
    The operator looked up fascinatedly, his fingers working his key.
    “Is he—bad?” he asked with a shuddering interest.
    “He’s dying!” snarled Bell, in a rage because of his helplessness. He had forgotten everything but the fact that a man below decks was facing the