"Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us."
Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "—if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of—" He said slowly, "Then you are the Lorelei's men?"
"The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron—where did it come from?"
And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man did hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed.
"And if I won't tell—?" he countered shrewdly.
"Why, then, sailor—" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes—"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!"
He took a step forward. Chip, still unsteady on his feet, but feeling his strength renew itself with each passing moment, braced for rough encounter. But the moment of contest was not yet. For even as the big man's companions drew back, grinning evilly, to form a ring about the pair, rose a familiar voice from behind Chip.
"Hold! 'Stay now the hand of wrath, yea, shalt thou restrain even thine arm raised in striking lest His vengeance smite thee into dust!'"
A look of swift, incredulous dismay, sweeping across the giant's face, vanished in an expression of unholy glee.