truck.

* * * * *

The attack was real! But it was over in a moment. Spawn's men, those
who were not struck down, plunged away and vanished. Perona had
disconnected the mine's electrical safeguards. The smelter door was
sealed, but it gave before the blows of a metal bar two of De Boer's
men were carrying.

In the unguarded, open strong-room, Perona, alone, was absorbed in his
task of carrying the ingots of quicksilver down into the hidden
compartment beneath its metal floor.

Our mirror was vague and dim now with a moving interior of the main
smelter room as De Boer plunged through. At the strong-room entrance
he paused, with his men crowding behind him. The figure of Perona
showed in the vague light: he was stooping under the weight of one of
the little ingots. Beside him yawned the small trap-opening leading
downward.

He saw De Boer. He straightened, startled, and then shouted with a
terrified Spanish oath. De Boer's projector was levelled: the huge,
foreshortened muzzle of it blotted out half our image. It hissed its
puff of light--a blinding flash on our mirror--in the midst of which
the dark shape of Perona's body showed as it crumpled and fell. Like
Spawn, he met instant death.

Jetta was gripping me. "Why--" Gutierrez was with us. Hans was
bending forward, watching the mirror. He muttered, "Got him!"

I saw a chance to escape, and pulled at Jetta. But at once Gutierrez
stepped backward.

"Like him I will strike you dead!" he said.

* * * * *

No chance of escape. I had thought Gutierrez absorbed by the mirror,
but he was not. I protested vehemently:

"I haven't moved, you fool. I have no intention of moving."

And now De Boer and his men were carrying up the ingots. A man for
each bar. A confusion of blurred swaying shapes, and low-voiced,
triumphant murmurs from our disc.

Then De Boer was outside the smelter house, and we saw a little queue
of the bandits carrying the treasure up the defile. Coming back here
to the flyer. There was no pursuit; the mine guards were gone.

The triumphant bandits would be here in a few moments.

"_Ave Maria, que magnifico!_" Gutierrez had retreated to our doorway,
more alert than ever upon me and Jetta. Hans called through the
window-slit:

"All is well, Franks!"

"Got it?"

"Yes! Make ready."

There was a stir outside as several of the bandits hastened down the
defile to meet De Boer. And t