an abutment of rock which jutted out from one wall, separating
the room I was in from another. Again I shouted, and the whole place
rang with echoes, and my fears grew.

But all at once fear vanished. I knew that the worst had not happened
and that I was not to be left alone.

"Doctor Weeks!" It was Koto's voice, and it came from behind the
abutment of rock toward which I was hurrying.

"Koto!" I yelled and entered the next cavern and saw it all.

* * * * *

He was lying stretched out on the rocky floor of an underground room as
vast as the one I had left behind me. He was unhurt, and he was waving
to me! Captain Crane, just waking up, was stretched out beside him. Our
ship, a colossal bulk of battered, gleaming metal, had come to a
lighting point some fifty yards beyond them. LeConte was sitting on the
deck, staring groggily at me.

Guards were posted all around the walls of this new cavern, and those I
had just walked away from now came crowding in to join their fellows,
but none spoke to us or held us back. In another thirty seconds LeConte
had slid down from the ship, Captain Crane had stumbled to her feet,
Koto had flung an arm about me, and we were all babbling together.

I will not attempt to tell of our feelings during that interval. But the
reunion did much for us. When I had returned to consciousness, it had
been with the thought that our puny scouting expedition had been wrecked
before it had begun, and that all else had been lost to us. Now the mere
fact that we were together once more changed my attitude suddenly and
completely.

"Defeated?" I asked myself, and as I gripped the warm hands of friends I
knew that we were not defeated at all. Rather it seemed that everything
we could have hoped to gain was won.

The penopalatrin I had injected in Koto and LeConte had mended the
former's broken arm and the latter's cracked ribs, so that none of us
was in any way disabled. And we seemed to be free within limits. And our
ship was here in Leider's caverns--our ship laden with two tons of the
most terrific explosive science had ever created. And the Orconites,
though they might be suspicious, knew nothing of our weapon.

Now that hope had sprung to life again, I knew that the opportunities
open to us were huge. We were in great trouble, and whatever we did
would probably not be easily done, but there was a strong chance that we
might yet strike a blow that would