. Returning blackness blotted out the scene.

Irma's pistol stabbed a ray through the driving rain at the hideous
monster. Instantly its grating roar for help rang out, and a group of
red lights from the doomed _Osprey_ across the plateau, detached
themselves from the others and came streaking for the cataract.

Penrun seized the heavy treasure chest and staggered to the sphere.

"Hurry, here they come!" screamed the girl.

He fell through the door with his burden just as the foremost monster
leaped the river. The next instant Irma sent the sphere rocketing
upward. Just before they plunged into the clouds they caught a last
glimpse of the _Osprey_ with her ray guns melted off by the red
cylinder torches, and great holes gaping in her sides through which
the monsters were carrying out the members of the crew to their cavern
of the Living Dead.

As the sphere burst through the storm cloud into the frigid air above
it, Irma gave a cry and pointed at the peak where they had hidden in
the sphere. The peak was now alive with moving red lights of monsters
searching vainly for them. The scene dropped swiftly below as the
sphere gathered speed for its homeward journey.

"We got only a small portion of the treasure, but it will be enough,"
said Penrun. "After we pay your family's debt, I want to spend a
hundred thousand or so for a specially chartered battle-sphere which
will come back here to Titan. If the Interplanetary Council will do
nothing about the Trap-Door City, I shall, independently. Not rays,
but good old primitive bombs such as they used back in the Twentieth
Century. I'll blow the hellish place off the face of the map and with
it the cavern of the Living Dead. I think those lying in the hammocks
would thank me for releasing them in that way."

* * * * *

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Loot of the Void, by Edwin K. Sloat

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