n]

As we neared the Moon we received Grantline's secret message: "Stop for
ore on your return voyage. Success beyond wildest hopes!" But I soon
discovered that an eavesdropper in an invisible cloak had overheard it!

Soon afterwards Miko accidentally murdered a person identified as Anita
Prince.

Then, in the confusion that resulted, Miko struck his great blow. The
crew of the _Planetara_, secretly in his pay, rose up and killed the
captain and all the officers but Snap Dean, the radio-helio operator,
and myself.

I was besieged in the chart-room. George Prince leaped in upon me--and
put his arms around me. I looked at him closer--only to discover it was
Anita, disguised as her brother! It was her brother, George, who had
been killed! George had been in the brigands' confidence--thus Anita was
able to spy for us.

Quickly we plotted. I would surrender to her, Anita Prince, whom the
brigands thought was George Prince. Together we might possibly be able,
with Snap's help, to turn the tide, and reclaim the _Planetara_.

I was taken to my stateroom and locked there until Miko the brigand
leader should come to dispose of me. But I cared not what had
happened--Anita was alive!

CHAPTER XIV

_The Brigand Leader_

The giant Miko stood confronting me. He slid my cubby door closed behind
him. He stood with his head towering close against my ceiling. His cloak
was discarded. In his leather clothes, and with his clanking
sword-ornament, his aspect carried the swagger of a brigand of old. He
was bareheaded; the light from one of my tubes fell upon his grinning,
leering gray face.

"So, Gregg Haljan? You have come to your senses at last. You do not wish
me to write my name upon your chest? I would not have done that to Dean;
he forced me. Sit back."

I had been on my bunk. I sank back at the gesture of his huge hairy arm.
His forearm was bare now; the sear of a burn on it was plain to be seen.
He remarked my gaze.

"True. You did that, Haljan, in Great-New York. But I bear you no
malice. I want to talk to you now."

He cast about for a seat, and took the little stool which stood by my
desk. His hand held a small cylinder of the Martian paralyzing ray; he
rested it beside him on the desk.

"Now we can talk."

I remained silent. Alert. Yet my thoughts were whirling. Anita was
alive. Masquerading now as her brother. And, with the joy of it, came a
shudder. Above everything, Miko must not know.

"A great a