l peaceful traders and
merchant-ships, Judd was perhaps the most cruel and relentless.

The Kite he was called--though only behind his back--yet it might
better have been Vulture. Big and gross, with thick unstable lips and
stubby, hairy fingers, more than once he and his motley gang of
hi-jackers had painted a crimson splash across the far corners of the
frontiers, and daubed it to the tortured groans of the crews of honest
trading ships. Often they had plunged on isolated trading posts and
left their factors wallowing in their life blood. And more....

There are things that cannot be set down in print, that the carefully
edited history books only hint at, and into this class fell many of
the Kite's deeds. He was a master of the Venusian tortures. He and his
band during the unspeakable debauches which always followed a
successful raid would amuse themselves by practising certain of these
tortures on the day's captives; and his victims, both men and women,
would see and feel indescribable things, and Death would be kept most
carefully away until the last ounce of life and pain had been squeezed
quite dry.

"Judd the Kite," Carse repeated in a hardly audible whisper. "Judd the
Kite ... one of the five...." Slowly his left hand rose and smoothed
his long bangs of flaxen hair. "I have been looking for him."

"Will you reply to him, sir?" asked Harkness.

"What use? His trap--Ku Sui's trap, of course--has already been set."
His brain raced. "What could it be?" he whispered slowly.

* * * * *

Friday was scratching his woolly hair, his smooth face puzzled, when
Carse, with the crisp decisiveness that always came to him when in
action, looked up at the visi-screen. The brigand was still clinging
to a straight course, and being overhauled rapidly. Another thirty
minutes and they would be within striking distance. He said tersely:

"Set up the defensive web. Spiral and zig-zag the ship all you dare,
altering the period of the swing each time. Harkness, you and I are
going to make an inspection tour. General alarm if Judd's course
changes, Friday."

"Yes, suh." The negro, frowning, gave his undivided attention to his
instruments as the Hawk and Harkness went aft into the next
compartment, the engine room.

It looked quite normal. The great dynamos were humming smoothly; the
air-renewing machine was functioning steadily; the gauge hands all
slept or quivered in their usual places. Nothin