"Got you, Morgan. No use putting up a fight. Toss out your gun an' we won't kill you."
Morgan, watchful for the chance to drill one of them if he showed himself, lay quiet with the huddled girl trembling beside him.
"Got your wife with you?" the voice drawled. "That who it is? Come on out and let's have a look at her. We won't hurt her." There was a burst of raucous laughter from the other pirates.
Morgan did not reply. His brain was busy trying to find an out.
Morgan could see that there was no chance for him and the girl to move from where they were lying. He had chanced a leap from here against Nada's old-fashioned explosive-gun with its single small bullet, but he couldn't take such a chance against modern bolt-weapons. The least move would expose them in the full sheen of Saturn-light.
They lay still.
"So you just want to stay where you are?" the voice called. "Okay, we'll get you."
They were invisible; but back down the distant little gully Morgan suddenly saw the blob of a creeping figure; one of the pirates trying to get to where he could chance a leap. Morgan tensed; raised his gun. The shadowed blob moved again; straightened a little. Morgan's flash spat its bolt. A scream mingled with the tiny thunder-crack, and the blob leaped into the air, turned over and crashed down again, inert upon the rocks.
It brought a fusillade of shots; but they splattered harmlessly with a great shower of sparks on the blackened rocks. And suddenly the trembling girl gripped Morgan.