It lifted clear, then settled back. This time it dropped noisily to the floor. And suddenly Dean was tearing at the ring on one of the swollen fingers of his left hand.
It came free at last; it was in his hand as the cable tightened again. Swiftly, surely, he worked in the darkness to jam the ring through the shackle at the bailer's top. Then the bailer lifted, clanged loudly as it entered the shattered bore in the rocks above, and scraped noisily at the sides. The sound rose to a rasping shriek that went fainter and still fainter till it dwindled into silence.
But Dean Rawson, standing motionless in the darkness of that buried vault, dared once more to let himself think and feel as he stared blindly upward.
Up there Smithy was waiting. Smithy would know. And with Smithy fighting from the outside and he, Rawson, putting up a scrap below.... He smiled almost happily as his hand rested upon his gun.
Hopeless? Of course it was hopeless. No use of really kidding himself—he didn't have the chance of a pink-eyed rabbit.
But he was still smiling toward that dark roof overhead as the outlines of a metal door grew cherry red. They were coming for him! He was ready to meet whatever lay ahead....
CHAPTER IX
A Subterranean World
