“I knew this, and knowing how close to discovery we already were, I decided to confide in him and enlist his aid; so I told him. I hope you do not feel that I did wrong, Carson.”
“By no means,” I assured him. “We have been forced to tell others of our plans whom we knew and trusted less well than you know and trust your friend. What did he say when you had told him?”
“He said that he would help us, and that when we struck he would join us. He promised, too, that many others of the soldiers would do likewise; but the most important thing he did was to give me a key to the armory.”
“Good!” I exclaimed. “There is no reason now why we should not strike at once.”
“Tonight?” asked Zog eagerly.
“Tonight!” I replied. “Pass the word to Gamfor and Honan, and you four to the other Soldiers of Liberty.”
We all laughed heartily, as though some one had told a most amusing story, and then Kiron and Zog left me, to acquaint Gamfor and Honan with our plan.
But upon Venus as upon earth, the best laid plans of mice and men “gang aft a-gley,” which is slang for haywire. Every night since we had sailed from the harbor of Vepaja the hatch had been left off our ill-smelling prison to afford us ventilation, a single member of the watch patrolling near to see that none of us came out; but tonight the hatch was closed.
“This,” growled Kiron, “is the result of Anoos’s work.”
“We shall have to strike by daylight,” I whispered, “but we cannot pass the word tonight. It is so dark down here that we should certainly be overheard by some one outside our own number if we attempted it.”