"All right, we'll try it,” rumbled Gunner Welk. “It looks like our last bet."
* * *
Presently Gunner Welk and Sual Av were sleeping on the floor calmly oblivious to whatever fate the dawn might bring.
But John Thorn could not sleep. Restlessly, he paced the darkness of the little metal room. In his mind queerly persisted the image of Lana's white, stunned face and accusing eyes. He tried to drive that reproachful face from his thoughts and couldn't.
White mists from the jungles had seeped into Turkoon Town as the night advanced, a cold fog that nipped the bones.
A little wind moaned through the dark, sleeping pirate stronghold, and at intervals came raucous calls of weird life teeming in the fern-forest.
Thorn heard a ship blasting off from the distant field, the thudding thunder of its tubes rapidly dying away. He wondered broodingly if ever he and his two comrades would see space again.
Or was the coming dawn to end forever the career of the Planeteers?
Hours dragged past, and finally a faint dawn light began to illumine the swirling gray mists outside. Suddenly through the fog came a wild, distant cry. It was echoed in a minute by raw shouts in other voices.
Thorn leaped to the little window, but could see nothing through the mists. He heard his comrades scrambling up,