our heat was radiating away; the deadly chill of
space crept in.

"Again!" ordered Grantline.

The duty-man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence the
tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating prisms,
intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible beam,
it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead dome
into space.

"Commander!" The duty-man's voice carried an appeal. These bulging
walls! If they cracked, or even sprung a serious leak, the camp would
be uninhabitable....

"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for
now."

It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath in
the darkness. The lights came on again: the Erentz motors accelerated
to normal. The strain on the walls eased up, and the room began
warming.

Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power to
find out. Our receivers were disconnected. If an answering signal
came, we could not know it. One of the men said:

"Let's assume they saw us." He laughed, but it was a high-pitched,
tense laugh. "We don't dare even use the telescope. Our rescue ship
will be right overhead, visible to the naked eye before we see it.
Three days more--that's what I'll give it."

* * * * *

But the three days passed, and no rescue ship came. The Earth was
almost at the full. We tried signaling again. Perhaps it got
through--we did not know. But our power was weaker now. The wall of
one of the rooms sprang a leak, and the men were hours repairing it. I
did not say so, but never once did I feel that our signals were seen
on Earth. Those cursed clouds! The Earth almost everywhere seemed to
have poor visibility.

Four of our eight days of grace were all too soon passed. The brigand
ship must be half-way here by now.

They were busy days for us. If we could have captured Miko and his
band, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasure
insulated so that its Gamma rays could not betray us, and our camp in
darkness, the arriving brigand ship might never find us. But Miko knew
our location: he would signal his encoding ship when it was close and
lead it to us.

Three times during those days--and the days which followed
them--Grantline sent out searching parties. But it was unavailing.
Miko, Moa and Coniston, with their five underlings, could not be
found. We searched all the territory from the camp