The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1919-03-08
The
LIGHTNING RAIDER
CAST.
CAVE OF DREAD.
eighth Episode.)

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This episode shifts the action of
1.-THE Lightning Raider" to Brazil.
Lightning and Tom, having made the
long voyage in safety are disclosed
hiring guides to take them up the
Amazon and its tributary, to Calluchi
Cave. Not long after they start WI
Fang arrives in hot pursuit. He has
great influence among the natives and
soon dispatches a fast runner to over
take the guides who are with Light
ming and Tom and give them orders.
The rune succeeds in reaching the
party and gives Wu's instructions to
the natives in the dead of night while
Tom and Lightning are asleep. Thus
it happens that as the pair are COM
PEELED by a fierce tropical storm to
take shelter in the entrance of a cav
ern the guides roll a huge rock over
the entrance thus blocking any retreat.
But Tom and Lightning see daylight
ahead and wonder at the foolishness of
the natives in only blocking one exit.
They soon find out why this was done,
however, for a great pool filled with
crocodiles blocks the way to the en-
trance ahead of them while they look
about and find the cave is absolutely
alive with gigantic pythons. The
branch of a tree overhead gives them
their chance and by leaping for it they
swing over the pool and to safety on
the other side only to be confronted by
WI Fang himself. Tom anu he engage
in a desperate struggle which ends in
WI being hurled to the hungry croco-
diles in the pool. Mortified, but new
ertheless feeling much safer that their
~arch-enemy has been destroyed, they
go on their way and soon reach Caluc-
chi Cave. They find it's floor strewn
with dead bodies and, n body right
at their feet, that of a man who must
have died recently, is contorted in the
most horrible attitude. Searching the
place they come at last upon the real
mystery of the ebony block. A small
phial is clasped in the hands OF the
contorted dead mar and its label
reads, "These germs will make their
possessor master of the earth. They
are the most deadly ever discovered
and can be obtained only from live
bodies in the process of DEATH" Near
by is another phial labeled "Antidote
for the germ" With the antidOte they
destroy the germs and finally decide
that their mission is accomplished and
with WI Fang dead nothing remains
for them to do but return home. Tom
asks Lightning to marry him on their
return and she then reveals her knowl-
edge that enabled her to outwit WI
Fang at every turn. She was educated
as a thief by WI Fang and was a mem
Der of his gang until she met Tom and
decided to enlist her services on the
cause of right. do you wish to mar
ry a girl thief-a girl who does not
even know who her parents are?"
Lightning asks Tom, and he answers,
you bet l do if she's you, sweetheart"
Happily they start the return journey
and all goes we'll with the two until
they open the door of Toms apartment
in New York and find the butler dead,
his body c~ontorted in the same pecul-
lar fashion as hat of the man in Ca
lucchi Cave. They realize at once that
WI Fang must be alive and must still
have some of the germs. However,
Ton insists that they marry at once
and then undertake the finding of WI
and destruction of his germs. When
they go to a minister to be married he
refuses to perform the ceremony on
account of Lightning's past and she
greatly Inundated leaves Tom and
goes to the den of The Wasp to tell
him her troubles. Tom is determined
to carry out the marriage and forces
the minister to go with him to the den
of The Wasp. The Wasp helps Tom to
persuade Lightning to marry him and
the ceremony begins. When the min
lister came to the words of the ceremo-