festoons of writhing "snake-vines," weird rootless
creepers which crawled like plant-serpents from one tree to another.
Each stir of wind brought white spore-dust down in a shower from the
trees.

The few living creatures of this forbidding landscape were equally
alien. Big white meteor-rats scurried on their eight legs through the
brush. Phosphorescent flame-birds shot through the upper fronds like
streaks of fire. In the pale sky overhead, there were ceaseless gleams
and flashes of light as the spinning meteor-swarm reflected the
sunlight.

"What a horrible place!" shrilled Mrs. Milsom. "We'll all die
here--we'll never get back to Earth. I knew this would happen!"

"This is certainly a mean spot to be cast away," muttered Captain
Walls. "God knows what queer creatures inhabit it, not to speak of the
mysterious Vestans everybody talks about. And John Dark and his crew
are somewhere here. And the telaudio wrecked, so we can't call for
help."

Kenniston realized that none of the others had glimpsed Dark's camp as
they fell. They didn't know the pirate encampment was only a few miles
away in the jungle.

"What are we going to do, captain?" Gloria was asking, her face still
pale but her voice quite steady. "Can we get away?"

Captain Walls looked hopeless. "We can't take off with the whole bow
of the _Sunsprite_ crushed in."

"We can repair it, can't we?" Hugh Murdock suggested. "Remember, in
the hold is the cargo of machinery and repair-materials that Kenniston
was bringing to repair Dark's ship. Can't we use that equipment?"

The captain looked more hopeful. "Maybe we can. Bray and the crew and
I ought to be able to do an emergency job of patching the bow and
installing new rocket-tubes there. But we'll have to work fast to get
away before Dark's outfit learns we're here."

He pointed vindicatively at Kenniston. "Better lock up that fellow and
his partner to make sure he doesn't signal somehow to his
fellow-pirates."

Kenniston tried again to explain. "Will you all listen to me? I tell
you, I'm no pirate!"

Murdock eyed him sternly. "Do you deny that John Dark sent you to Mars
for repair-equipment, and that you told us that lying treasure-story
to get the equipment here in our ship?"

"No, I don't deny that," Kenniston admitted. "But I'm not one of John
Dark's crew--I never was! I was a prisoner on his ship, captured by
the pirates before they themselves were attacked by the Patrol."

"Do you expect us