After showing Mr. Moto the pit, inside the Buddhist temple, into which the ferocious gigantopithecus ape had fallen, and, much to their surprise, now finding the pit empty, the heroes heard a crowd gathering outside regaling the news of the recent discovery of the fourteenth Dalai Lama in Tibet. Max, awakened from his rest at Lotos Mansion, followed the crowds to the temple, where he rejoined Cara, Danny, Dr. Laramie and Sammy. Mr. Moto and his men disappeared and Lu Wen begged Cara to fly him to Tibet to pay homage to the Dalai Lama, a request to which Max readily agreed.

Having landed the Bellerophon III outside a small Tibetan village, Max, Cara, Danny, Dr. Laramie and Lu Wen left Sammy on-board and hiked through the snowy foothills to a gathering of devotees, worshiping a one-year-old Dalai Lama, the most recent incarnation of Buddha himself. Cara recognized a bronze medallion around the holy child's neck bearing the insignia she had once seen on the dagger of Rukh-al-Diin, appropriated by Benedict Grey when he assumed the role of Night Tiger of the Janissaries of Arabia. She also heard a familiar voice call out to her telepathically, addressing her as "little sister," as a third eye opened on the forehead of the child Dalai Lama. Cara recognized the voice as that of Wo-Feng, her fallen teacher and leader of the Phoenix Horde, who had now risen from his own ashes by the power of the great mythical bird of fire.

At that moment, an army of swarthy horsemen appeared on the horizon; leading the charge was a wild-eyed Benedict Grey. As he and his Janissaries stormed the village, Benedict, now bearing the spear and the dagger of Rukh-al-Diin, demanded that the young Wo-Feng relinquish the medallion of Rukh-al-Diin or pay with his life. Coming to the aid of the child, the heroes of The Empire Club fought off Benedict and his Janissaries as the Buddhist monks ushered the child into a covered carriage. Danny felled Benedict with a gunshot to the head, but Max met with less success as he tried in vain to protect the Dalai Lama's carriage from the descending Janissaries. When they tore the tarpaulin from the carriage, however, they found, inside, not the child, but a red fox wearing the medallion of Rukh-al-Diin. The Janissaries took the medallion from the animal's neck as Max followed the retreating canine behind an old oak shack. When Max finally reached the rear of the shack, he found not the fox, but the red-robed Lu Wen rising to his feet.

Having lost the Dalai Lama, the Janissaries retrieved the dagger, the spear and Benedict, and heralded the recovery of the third of the four artifacts of Rukh-al-Diin, the bronze medallion. Before they could set off to find the fourth and last artifact, so they could return in full force to kill the child Wo-Feng, Mr. Moto appeared, armed with the coveted scimitar of Rukh-al-Diin, and demanding the Janissaries turn over the other three artifacts . . .

Episode Forty-Three: Dragons in the Veldt

Meanwhile, in East Africa, on a train bound for Kenya, four men shared a passenger car on their way to see Sir Heathcliffe Quentin Merryweather III in his Namanga Estate: the mysterious Wilhelm Lipshultz, an old friend of Sir Heathcliffe; the young Alexander Burgess, a magician's apprentice and a frequent guest at Alexandria's Empire Club, Enigma House; the famous Sir Lucien Fredericks, heir to the Fredericks Armory Company, official armorers to the British Crown; and the humble Suleiman, a Malaysian hunter and Sherpa who had accompanied Sir Heathcliffe on one of his many safaris to hunt the White Tiger. Sir Heathcliffe welcomed his unexpected visitors, and, during their stay, received yet another group of surprise guests, a native tribe of Baturu warriors, led by their elderly chief and his son Nakuru, who sought Sir Heathcliffe's help. Nakuru explained that a ferocious white beast had been stalking his village and killing men in the night. None who had seen the beast lived to describe it, but the tribesmen referred to it as "The White Terror." To Sir Heathcliffe, it sounded remarkably like the elusive White Tiger, the beast he had dedicated his life to slaying, and he agreed to help the tribe destroy it.

Journeying into the veldt on a warm Kenyan morning, the group returned to the site of the last attack by the beast, and was set upon by three lizards, each the size of a large horse. The party felled the beasts with their rifles and examined the last of the pack as it lay, mortally wounded, in the red, clay dust. It looked much like a dinosaur with leathery, white skin, and the men searched for more of its pack. They found, instead, a ten-foot crater in the shape of a lizard's footprint.

The men tracked the prints to a forest grove, in which a Nazi encampment had been ravaged. Through the trees, a six-story albino lizard approached. Alexander punctured the fuel tank of a nearby ground vehicle and the men doused themselves with gasoline to cover their scent. The blood of the felled lizards was on their hands, however, and the giant predator raced toward them, its deadly maw agape . . .

Episode Forty-Four: The Mines of Menace

As Sirs Heathcliffe and Lucien leveled their Fredericks rifles at the giant lizard, Wilhelm calmly drew a line in the red African dirt with his cane. The gasoline leaked from the ground vehicle's fuel tank that Alexander punctured and filled the tiny trench in the dirt Wilhelm had drawn. As the bullets of Sirs Heathcliffe's and Lucien's rifles bounced off the advancing beast's hide, Wilhelm tossed his lit cigar to the ground, igniting the gasoline and creating a wall of fire that stopped the monster in its tracks. When the flame reached the leaking fuel tank, it exploded with a force so great that it killed the giant lizard instantly.

Meanwhile, Alexander and Suleiman, who had retreated into the forest, found an intricate Nazi mineshaft in a nearby salt cave. Tiny albino lizards scaled the cave walls. As the others joined them, they ventured deeper into the mine and discovered an American prisoner confined in a makeshift cell. Navy Intelligence Officer Commander Jack Perceval, who had also come to Kenya in search of Sir Heathcliffe, was captured by the Nazis and interrogated about the whereabouts of the space aliens known as the Gaeans, from whom the American government had commandeered a rocket ship that carried an unwitting Sir Heathcliffe on an intergalactic journey months ago. The group freed Perceval and found yet another party of adventurers who had come to investigate the mining operation, the legendary New York Empire Club member Doc Savage and his companions "Monk" and "Ham."

The two groups combined their efforts and found the heart of the mine, where Gestapo Uberführer, Major Wolfram Steinholtz, physically enhanced with mechanical limbs of obvious Gaean make, operated another Gaean device, a large ray cannon used to enlarge the tiny, albino cave geckos into giant, predatory uber-lizards. Doc Savage and his men fought off the Nazis while the other Empire Club heroes wiped out Major Steinholtz and destroyed the Gaean machinery, and Commander Perceval retrieved a valuable Gaean amulet from the felled body of Steinholtz. The battle was not without its casualties, however; a misplaced gunshot from Wilhelm's pistol destroyed Sir Heathcliffe's beloved Fredericks Bull Rifle in his hands, and the myriad explosions from the destruction of the Gaean machinery caused a cataclysmic cave-in that consumed Nakuru and Suleiman. As the rest of the party ran for their lives, they found the cave mouth closed off by fallen rock as the cave-in closed in behind them . . .