The other rebels swarmed up the ladder. Lady Nirea and Rack kept pace with the bucket, anxiously watching Revel and John.
At last the bucket halted. Its edge was even with the top of the shaft. All that remained was to hoist the machine out and drag it out into the night, below the shining buttons. Revel, leaping out and giving a hand to John, ordered each inch of progress; and finally the antiforcescreenthrower was all but out of the mine. Another ten feet would bring it clear.
Then the world shook around them with a noise like the grandfather of all thunderclaps, the earth rocked beneath their feet, and the Mink felt his eardrums crack and his nose begin to bleed.
CHAPTER XIV
The Mink he turns his blazing eyes
Up to the buttoned sky:
"This night I'll tear ye down from there
To see if gods can die!"
The gentry mass in stallioned ranks,
The priests have gone amuck;
The orbs and zanphs they now descend,
All-armed against the ruck!
—Ruck's Ballad of the Mink
John staggered to his feet. "Brother! Maybe I was wrong. That was an atomic city-buster if I ever heard one—and when the Tartarians were over here, I did. Maybe the coal isn't so important to your damned orbs after all." He went reeling to the open night. Revel and Nirea were beside him now. Off to the west beneath the lurid light of the globes' buttons rose another of the dark twin clouds.