Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 15] Read online

Now, what to do with the remains of Old Murph? Burial was the obvious thing. But not at Eden. The animals were alone most of the time. He couldn’t take a chance on the cats digging him up. There were the piranha. They’d make quick work of Murph. He dismissed the thought. No, the old man deserved a dignified burial. Burial at sea. The Mori fishermen were due at twilight, bringing a fresh supply of fish for the lagoon. There were sails from a small catboat he used occasionally.

  The Mori war canoe arrived on schedule, manned by six husky fishermen, dragging in its wake a net filled with flopping fish. The catch was dumped into the lagoon. Now, the Phantom was no longer in a loincloth, but clad in his familiar hood and mask outfit. He explained the mission to the men, one that was not new to them. They sewed the body inside the canvas with rock for ballast, using netline. Then the Phantom went with them in the war canoe, out the mouth of the piranha-filled river, moving carefully in a hidden channel through the coral that only the Mori knew, and out into the sea.

  They were near the battleground of the sharks. None were in sight. He murmured a brief prayer over the canvas sack, then it was lowered over the side and sank rapidly. He hoped the sharks would not find Old Murph, but if they did ... he sighed philosophically. He was a jungleman, and he knew all life returned eventually to the sea.

  The Mori brought him back to land, but he did not return to Eden. He had planned a few more days there, but the death of Old Murph bothered him. He would get in touch with the Jungle Patrol, have them contact the Moru Benga and get to the bottom of this. But the same nagging little feeling remained. It wasn’t going to be easy. Somehow, they wouldn’t get to the bottom of it just like that. There was more to this than met the eye.

  “Damn thing . . . damn thing . . . true . . . true . . . how you like that . . Murph’s dying words. What did they mean?

  CHAPTER 2

  He heard the startling news as he galloped through the shadowy jungle trail on Hero, his great white stallion. As usual, Devil, the gray mountain wolf, ran alongside, his pale blue eyes glancing from side to side, alert for any sudden danger. The news came through the jungle stillness via throbbing tom-tom beats. Such news passed from tribe to tribe, picked up and relayed by a variety of drums, tiny and treble, big and bass. Heard from this distance, the orchestra of many drums sounded like a chorus of insects at night. He reined Hero to a stop, so that he could hear more clear-Jy. There was no mistaking the message. The sacred image Of the Llongo had disappeared. Stolen.

  This was a shocker. He had known about the Llongo sacred image all his life. So had the rest of the jungle folk. It seemed as eternal as the Misty Mountains. It had always been there. Llongo tradition held that the unique object was a gift of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. The son of their royal union, tradition also held, had founded the Llongo nation and brought the sacred object with him when his father died. The jungle firmly believed this legend. Not only was the sacred object obviously ancient and magnificent, it also had a special attribute—luck.

  “Lucky as a Llongo” was an old jungle saying. “Luck of the Llongo” was a fact. The Wambesi people were richer, with their vast herds. The Oogaan were more gifted, with their brilliant carvings and crafts. The Mori were bolder, the Tirangi fiercer, the Sezami smarter. But the Llongo were the luckiest.

  A storm might destroy the nets and boats of the Mori, sweep through the Wambesi fields playing havoc with crops and cattle, destroy Oogaan huts. But always, it seemed, the storm passed harmlessly over the Llongo. Floods might engulf the neighboring Sezami. The Llongo remained dry. Wild elephants might stampede the Wambesi fields; jungle cats might massacre a herd. The Llongo pigs and goats remained untouched.

  In games of chance, it was even more obvious. You played cards or dice with a Llongo at your peril. They always won. Bookies at the Mawitaan race track turned pale when the Llongo came to town. Same reason. Let the word get around that a Llongo had bet on a long shot, and the odds dropped at once because he usually won. In all games, this held true. Even in Bingo (a game introduced by the white missionaries). Never bet against a Llongo.

  It followed that they always won the prettiest girls. After many generations of this, the Llongo men were the handsomest, their wives the most beautiful, of all jungle people. The Llongo, and the rest of the jungle, attributed all this good luck to their sacred image.

  As he rode through the jungle, the quiet broken only by the distant drums, the Phantom recalled the last time he had seen the image. About three months earlier, he had made a ceremonial visit. The occasion was the birth of a son to the beautiful eighteen-year-old bride of the eighty-five-year-old High Chief Llionto. More Llongo luck. After admiring the handsome baby and wading through a gargantuan feast, he strolled with Llionto to look at the sacred image. And once again, the High Chief told him the legend of Solomon and Sheba.

  The image was on an altar under a frond-covered roof, open on four sides. A ceremonial guard remained on duty day and night. Though he had seen it before, it was always breathtaking. It was glittering, beautiful. The body was about two feet long. There was a lowered head at each end, sprouting long curving horns. The body was made of deep green jade, inset with massive emeralds, diamonds and rubies. Golden strands coiled about the jewels and sharp horns. In bright sunlight, it was so brilliant one could look at it for only a moment, then blink, turn away, and look again. About it was a sense of antiquity, ancient skills and arts lost and forgotten.

  Whether or not it originated with Sheba and Solomon, it was obviously a rarity, a priceless object. Though it stood on an altar, the Llongo did not worship it as an idol. It was a good luck charm, symbol and soul of the people. It was not behind locked bars because the people always wanted it free and open, where they could see it. Though thievery was not unknown in the jungle, it never occurred to anyone that the image might be stolen.

  On that, day, as they stood before the gleaming image, he asked High Chief Llionto about possible theft. Llionto laughed.

  “Would any man, woman or child of Llongo steal his own good luck?”

  “Not by a Llongo. By an outsider, Llionto.”

  Llionto no longer laughed. His face was serious as he spoke. “There is a curse upon it. Only one of Llongo blood may touch it. Let anyone else—and he dies.”

  The Phantom’s silence may have been interpreted as skepticism. High Chief Llionto went on to explain. Originally, the curse had been laid upon the image by that son of Solomon who founded the Llongo people.. It is well known that Solomon was familiar with djinns and demons, and the son had learned his father’s secrets. Needless to say, the legend was not often challenged. But when it was . . . Llionto recalled an episode of his youth. A thief had come by night, a man of mixed blood (Llionto spat out the phrase showing the Llongo disapproval of intermarriage). This half-breed had gotten his hands on the image and reached the front gates. There, eyewitnesses swore, the image had twisted and squirmed in his arms, finally stabbing him in the chest with its long sharp horns. He died on the spot.

  “And this is not gossip,” said Llionto. “For that man was known to us, the illegitimate son” (he used a coarse Llongo phrase) “of Onatta of Oogaan and a pale outsider.”

  No, the sacred image had always been there, and always would be. And was, until now.

  The sound of the waterfall was louder now. Both Hero and Devil pricked up their ears and ran faster. They were nearing home, the Deep Woods. The thickets and underbrush were almost impassable here. If you didn’t know the hidden twists and turns in the heavy growth, you’d need a tank to get through. Hero and Devil knew the twists and turns. Now a sharp little face appeared among the leaves in a tree above. Another little face rose out of a thicket, then the little shoulders and muscular arms. They held small bows and arrows, and they smiled happily as the great white stallion picked out his way through the dense vegetation.

  These were the outer sentries -of the Bandar, the pygmy poison people, and the sight of them would send any jungle-man, even the bravest warrior, into he
adlong flight. For their poisons, bringing instant death, were well known. The Bandar were peaceful little folk who liked the privacy of their shadowy world and resented intrusions.

  But this was no stranger. They greeted him happily in their click-clack tongue, and a young pygmy, Huran, son of their Chief, Guran, dropped from a bough onto Hero’s broad back. Only Huran dared such intimacy, since the Phantom was his godfather. Together on Hero, the grinning little youngster and the powerful hooded rider, a giant in comparison, plunged through the roaring waterfall that was the secret entrance to the heart of the Deep Woods, and the fabulous Skull Cave and Skull Throne of the Phantom, the Ghost Who Walks.

  He was greeted happily by Rex, his twelve-year-old ward, Rex’s buddy Tomm, their tutor Miss Tagama, Chief Guran, Old Man Mozz (the Teller of Tales), and a dozen pygmies. After kisses and hugs for Rex and salutations for the others, he asked about the Llongo theft. They’d heard about it, but the pygmies were not interested. What went on in the outside world among the big people was remote and unimportant. But Rex, Miss Tagama and Old Mozz wanted more details. He told them all he knew about the image, including the death of the would-be thief Llionto had told him about. Miss Tagama frowned at that, but Rex was enchanted.

  “Bloody fairy tales,” she said.

  “All true,” said Old Man Mozz, the ancient Teller of Tales, who knew everything and forgot nothing. “More than once it happened in this way, and more than once the image struck down the outsider as the curse of old times foretold. I could tell you many a tale about that sacred image,” continued the old man in his singsong voice.

  “Later, Old Mozz,” said the Phantom, for Rex, grinning wickedly at Tomm, had just handed him a small blue envelope.

  “It’s from Diana. I could tell from the. perfume,” he shouted happily to Tomm. “It came tonight by monkey mail.”

  The Phantom chuckled, patted Rex on the head and walked casually into the Skull Cave. As soon as he was out of their sight, he rushed to the closest burning wall torch. As he opened the envelope and took out the note, he thought of the voyage this small letter had had—from Diana’s desk by her garden window, to a mailbox, a plane overseas; picked up at Mawitaan’s general post office, Box 7, Mr. Walker (for the Ghost Who Walks); taken by the boy, Tona, to the jungle’s edge where the regular jungle delivery took off fleet relay runners, clad only in loincloth and mailbag; on to the edge of the Great Swamp and the cages of chimps, where the old man put the letter in a leather pouch tied to a chimp’s back; the chimp swinging through the trees over the Great Swamp to his perch and the reward of a banana near the Skull Throne. Shorter messages—cables and the like—came by air, tied to the leg of Fraka, the Phantom’s fierce falcon.

  “Darling,” the letter began in Diana’s fine script. The Phantom read on:

  Will this come to you by monkey mail? How marvelous!

  I only wish I could be there to see it arrive out of the trees on the back of one of those dear chimps. I am well—lonely without you. How long has it been? Ages.

  I’m going to Paris next month with my UN medical team for one of those conferences. (The kind that go on and on.) If you would just happen to be on that part of the planet at the same time, wouldn’t it be wonderful? Just a long shot, but I thought I’d mention it.

  All my love, Diana “All my love.” The words seemed to bum off the page. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? Yes, Wonderful, fabulous, Diana, he said half aloud, visualizing her cloud of black hair, her large gray eyes, her perfect lips. Ah, Diana. Yes, it has been ages.

  Once again, the old conflict. Could he ask this girl to live in a cave, surrounded by pygmies, as his mother and all the wives of the Phantom had done before her? Diana-raised to wealth and comfort, loving theater, opera, ballet. Diana—Olympic gold medalist (high dive), now a vital cog in the United Nations medical program. He had often thought about this. So, he knew, had she. So far, no answers.

  He noted the dates, the place where she’d be staying. Who knows? he told himself. Her letter could be an omen that something just might happen to take him to “that part of the planet.”

  He was busied with numerous details during the next few weeks. On his return, he had immediately contacted the Jungle Patrol headquarters in Mawitaan. Using his radio transmitter in the Skull Cave, he sent word to Colonel Worobu, black commanding officer of the Patrol, to query the Moru Benga concerning Old Murph. Word came back a week later. The captain of the Moru Benga, reached at the port of Ivory-Lana up the coast, knew nothing. The deceased had not been a passenger aboard the ship, and was unknown to Mm. That seemed to end that.

  Further queries made by the Patrol in and about Mawitaan gave no clue to Old Murph’s death. He hadn’t been seen in his usual hangouts for some time, had no known enemies. Everybody liked Old Murph. He was known to be fond of the bottle. The consensus was that he had gotten drunk in one of those waterfront saloons and had toppled off a pier. When the wharf crowd heard he was gone, nobody was surprised. Old Murph had one too many and had stumbled once too often. That was his epitaph.

  This exchange of information, Skull Cave to Jungle Patrol Headquarters, took place over what was known to patrolmen as the X Band. This was the private frequency of the Commander of the Jungle Patrol, who stood at the top of the chain of command (Colonel Worobu was just below); whose private office, containing only a bare safe, was always locked, and who remained anonymous and unknown. This fact always puzzled Patrol recruits. After a year or two of .asking questions, and receiving no answers, they would give up.

  The mystery of Old Murph and his dying words were filed somewhere in the Phantom’s memory bank, not to be forgotten. And the theft of the Llongo sacred image faded from his mind for the time being, engrossed as he was in a dozen odds and ends—rescuing a missionary from bandits, finding a lost Wambesi child, destroying a killer leopard, and so on. During all this, Diana’s letter remained fresh in his mind. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? Would they meet on that part of the planet? Was the letter an omen? As it turned out, it was. But he wouldn’t know that until later. Like most omens, it would be revealed by hindsight.

  He began to consider a return to Eden, when Fraka, the falcon, whizzed down from the sky like a rocket. In the cylinder attached to his leg was a brief message:

  “I need your help. Please visit my people. Luaga.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Dr. Lamanda Luaga, Llongo-born Rhodes Scholar, 10th Degree Judo-Karate black belt, Olympic light-heavyweight champion, had served with Diana Palmer on a United Nations medical team in the Bangalla jungle. During the civil War, he fought against the insurgent General Bababu, and was elected first President of the new nation of Bangalla. The Phantom had aided him in some of this, and they were fast friends. A request from him was serious and urgent. The Phantom wasted no time. Within minutes of having taken the message from Fraka, he saddled Hero and raced through the waterfall with Devil close to Hero’s flying heels.

  “What was that all about?” asked Miss Tagama.

  “He didn’t say,” said Rex.

  With the Phantom, to think was to act. When he vanished through that waterfall, they never knew if he was going for a dip in a nearby pool, or leaving the continent—to be gone an hour or a month.

  He rode for a day and a night, making only brief stops to rest, water and feed his animals and himself. Hero grazed »n the rich grass along the streams where they camped. Devil ranged for meat, returning with hare, one for himself, lone for his master. The long gray wolf preferred his meat uncooked. The Phantom liked his medium-rare. After a meal iand an hour of sleep, they would be off again, the hoofs of the great white stallion thundering through the quiet woods. Small animals scurried out of sight. Monkeys chattered in the trees, birds scattered. A leopard watched them from a high bough, but decided against a leap. The man, horse and wolf looked too formidable. And so they were. With Hero’s sharp hoofs, Devil’s long fangs and the Phantom’s firepower, they were a match for anything that moved in the jungle. In this fashion, rac
ing, resting briefly, moving again, they reached the Llongo gates. It was immediately apparent to him that there had been a change.

  Part of the wall was smashed by a huge tree that had fallen on it, evidently the result of a recent storm. Inside the walls, several huts had been demolished, perhaps by the same storm. How long had it been since he visited here? About five months. How long since the image had vanished? About half that time. As he rode through the gates, one of which hung loosely on a broken hinge, he glanced at the covered altar where he had last seen the image. It was empty. No guard in sight. A crowd gathered quickly around him, but it wasn’t the same happy laughing crowd he remembered from that last visit. They were quiet. They looked despondent. They seemed frightened. He walked on to the big hut of Llionto. The High Chief was seated on a pile of straw. As the Phantom approached, two warriors helped the old man to his feet. He stood with some difficulty, leaning on a cane.

  “I had a small accident,” he explained as the Phantom looked at him questioningly. “A leg of my throne broke. I fell—almost broke my back.”

  There was quiet sobbing from a comer. The beautiful eighteen-year-old bride sat there, almost unrecognizable, her face swollen out of shape.

  “Stung by a swarm of bees,” said Llionto.

  “Please, don’t stand on my account,” said the Phantom anxiously.

  “Now that I’m up, it’s easier than sitting. Oh, Phantom friend, since we lost our sacred image, it’s been awful. Everything has gone wrong.”

  “Llionto, a swarm of bees, a breaking chair—those things can happen to anyone,” said the Phantom.

  “You saw the tree that destroyed part of our wall? Last Week. A terrible storm. It demolished three huts as well. Then, the next night, a tiger got into our goat pens. It was terrible.”

  “Llionto, you are a wise and rational man. You must know these things are coincidence.”

  “Coincidence?” snorted the High Chief. “We no longer win at the track. Not one winner in three weeks. Whilst in MawL-taan, my own son Lomo got into the usual poker game at the Blue Dragon, lost every cent he had, plus IOU’s. Even that money was borrowed, for he had been robbed by bandits on the way to Mawitaan.”