A warning call took us back to the front window. The brigands'
searchlight was again being used. It swept slowly along the length of
the cliff. Its circle went down the cliff steps to the valley floor,
and came sweeping up again. Then it went up to the observatory
platform at the summit above us, then over to the ore sheds.
We had no men outside, if that was what the brigands wanted to
determine. The searchbeam presently vanished. It was replaced
immediately by a zed-ray, which darted at once to our treasure sheds
and clung.
That stung Grantline into his first action. We flung our own zed-ray
down across the valley. It reached the brigand ship and the blurred
interior of the cabins.
"Try the searchbeam, Franck."
The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our searchlight which clung to the
dome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there.
"The telescope," Grantline ordered.
The dynamos hummed. The telescope finder glowed and clarified. On the
deck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the assembling of
tiny ore carts. A deck landing port was open. The ore carts were being
carried out through a port lock and down a landing incline. And on the
rock outside, we saw several of the carts, tiny rail sections and the
section of an ore chute.
Miko was unloading his mining apparatus! He was making ready to come
up for the treasure!
The discovery, startling as it was, nevertheless, was far overshadowed
by an imperative danger alarm from our main building. Brigands were
outside on our ledge! Miko's searchbeam, sweeping the ledge a moment
before, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done just
for that purpose, no doubt--to make us feel sure the ledge was
unoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making the search.
But there was a brigand group close outside our walls! By the merest
chance the radiating glow from our searchray had shown the helmeted
figures scurrying for shelter.
Grantline leaped to his feet.
We rushed from the rear port exit which was nearest us. The giant
bloated figures had been seen running along the outside of the
connecting corridor, in this direction. But before we ever got there,
a new alarm came. A brigand was crouching at a front corner of the
main building!
His hydrogen heat torch had already opened a rift in the wall!