Read Online The Avenger 16 - The Hate Master by Kenneth Robeson - Free Book Online Page B

vaguely that he had been hoisted in through a sort of trapdoor, and then he felt movement.
    It was the strangest movement! It was without sound, without effort, as if he were on a raft floating downstream.
    In a minute he got it.
    This was an airship, a small blimp, possessing engines so beautifully muffled that they could be heard only a short distance. It was now not using even them. It was drifting slowly away from the road, and Ritter’s car, with the wind.
    Josh opened his eyes. For a moment he saw nothing at all. Then he dimly perceived that he was on the floor of a small cabin. Three men were in the cabin with him. The three at the moment were staring downward.
    “Another car coming down that road,” said one of the three in a low tone.
    “So what?” said another. “It’s a public highway.”
    “Not very public,” protested the first. “We picked it because not three cars a night usually use it. This could be one of those three, but I don’t like it.”
    “Aw, dry up! Nobody can see us a couple hundred feet up on a starless night without lights—”
    “Hey, our friend is awake,” said the third suddenly.
    One of the men kicked Josh.
    “So you’re out of it, huh? Thought I slugged you harder than that. Who are you, black boy?”
    Josh said nothing. The kick was repeated.
    “Talk! Who are you? Who’re you working for? Where do you fit in this?”
    A lie would be quite justified, under the circumstances, but Josh couldn’t think of any.
    “Open up, or I’ll—”
    Josh opened up, all right. He let out a howl that from the ground must have sounded like the cry of some weird sort of night bird.
    So they hit him on the head again, and the next time he opened his eyes it was over a gag that almost kept him from breathing, let alone making a noise.
    They tried no more to get him to talk. Josh had a hunch that this was ominous. The hunch was confirmed a minute later.
    “There’s the lake,” said one of the three. “We’re drifting right toward it. We’ll float along till we get a couple miles out, then heave this guy over the side and start our motors.”
    “Yeah,” began another. Then, voice sharp, he said: “Hey! Ain’t we losing altitude?”
    “Don’t know why we would,” said the first. He stared downward for a minute; stared hard because it was too dark to see anything well. Then an oath crackled from his lips.
    “We are down! Heave out some of the sand.”
    “Wouldn’t that be a smart thing to do,” jeered the third man. “Heave out some sand and keep on drifting out over the lake. So ten miles out we ain’t got any more sand to heave, and we sink down into the drink. You sap, lower away and we’ll have a look at the bag before we go farther.”
    Josh couldn’t see the lake because he was lying on the floor, but he could smell the expanse of water, and he uttered some heartfelt sighs of relief when the blimp began nosing downward. It was a short reprieve anyway.
    It seemed it was to be a long one.
    The cabin bumped, dragged, and the blimp hauled on the grappling hook. Two of the three men got out, leaving the third to keep an eye on Josh.
    The two men seemed to have stepped into a basketful of snakes, the way they thrashed around.
    Josh heard yells and muffled noises.
    “Who is he? Where’d he jump from?”
    “Whadda you care? Ouch! Grab that—”
    There were no more coherent words, just a lot of grunts and then two blows in quick succession. Josh blinked at the heavy smacking sound of those blows. He would have thought that only one man on earth could hit that hard. But it was impossible for that man to turn up here, of course.
    The precise nature of what was happening outside, however, was of less importance to Josh than the fact that something was happening. It gave him a chance to do something about the fellow left to guard him, while that person’s attention was distracted.
    The man was leaning out the cabin window when Josh got him.
    The gangling Negro’s hands had