afest
for us, eh, Hans?"

CHAPTER XVII

_Within the Black Sack_

We left the bandit stronghold just after nightfall that same day.
There were five of us on the X-flyer. Jetta and De Boer, Hans and
Gutierrez and myself. The negotiations with Hanley had come through
satisfactorily; to De Boer, certainly, for he was in a triumphant mood
as they cast off the aero and we rose over the mist-hung depths.

It was part of my plan, this meager manning of the bandit ship. But it
was mechanically practical: there was only Hans needed at the controls
for this short-time flight: with De Boer plotting his course, working
out his last details--and with Gutierrez to guard me.

De Boer had been quite willing to take no other men--and most of them
were too far gone in their cups to be of much use. I never have
fathomed De Boer's final purpose. He promised Jetta now that when I
was successfully ransomed he would proceed to Cape Town by comfortable
night flights and marry her. It pleased Gutierrez and Hans, for they
wanted none of their comrades. The treasure was still on the flyer.
The ransom gold would be added to it. I think that De Boer, Gutierrez
and Hans planned never to return to their band. Why, when the treasure
divided so nicely among three, break it up to enrich a hundred?

I shall never forget Hanley's grim face as we saw it that afternoon on
De Boer's image-grid. My chief sat at his desk with all his location
detectors impotent, listening to my disembodied voice explaining what
I wanted him to do. My humble, earnest, frightened desire to be
ransomed safely at all costs! My plea that he do nothing to try and
trap De Boer!

It hurt me to appear so craven. But with it all, I knew that Hanley
understood. He could imagine my leering captor standing at my elbow,
prompting my words, dictating my very tone--prodding me with a knife
in the ribs. I tried, by every shade of meaning, to convey to Hanley
that I hoped to escape and save the ransom money. And I think that he
guessed it, though he was wary in the tone he used for De Boer to
hear. He accepted, unhesitatingly, De Boer's proposition: assured us
he would do nothing to assail De Boer; and never once did his grim
face convey a hint of anything but complete acquiescence.

* * * * *

We had President Markes on the circuit. De Boer, with nothing to lose,
promised to return Jetta with me. In gold coin, sixty thousand U. S.
dollar-standards fo