The dynamos hummed. The telescope finder glowed and clarified. On the deck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the assembling of tiny ore carts. A deck landing port was open. The ore carts were being carried out through a port lock and down a landing incline. And on the rock outside, we saw several of the carts, tiny rail sections and the section of an ore chute.
Miko was unloading his mining apparatus! He was making ready to come up for the treasure!
The discovery, startling as it was, nevertheless, was far overshadowed by an imperative danger alarm from our main building. Brigands were outside on our ledge! Miko's searchbeam, sweeping the ledge a moment before, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done just for that purpose, no doubt—to make us feel sure the ledge was unoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making the search.
But there was a brigand group close outside our walls! By the merest chance the radiating glow from our searchray had shown the helmeted figures scurrying for shelter.
Grantline leaped to his feet.
We rushed from the rear port exit which was nearest us. The giant bloated figures had been seen running along the outside of the connecting corridor, in this direction. But before we ever got there, a new alarm came. A brigand was crouching at a front corner of the main building!
His hydrogen heat torch had already opened a rift in the wall!
XXXV
"In with you!" ordered Grantline. "Get your helmets on! How many? Six. Enough—get back there, Williams—you were last. The lock won't hold any more."