"Just this. Don't you see where we are? Right under the Thunderbolt! Well?"
"Well what?"
"Simple enough, Jack." The professor's tone was grave. "When dawn comes, and the rising sun strikes that—"
"Good God!" Stoddard suddenly understood. "Why, we'll be cooked alive—frizzled!"
It was only too true. Even now, the pale rays of the moon, concentrated by the myriad facets of that monumental diamond, were beginning to focus on them a warmth that was uncomfortable. And by morning—!
The two men crouched there silent, realizing their desperate plight. They must escape, before the sun rose. But how?
tudying their bonds, they discovered that they were of rawhide of some sort, obviously from the hides of animals these strange people caught on the lower slopes somewhere. But though they strained and twisted, they could not stretch them, the leather evidently having been cured to a marvelous toughness in these high altitudes.
Precious minutes ticked by as they struggled there, but they were unable to extricate themselves.