"Because I happen to have a knack with can-openers, and my colleague is rather adept with machinery," Stoddard told him, "while Major Hendricks here is quite a hand with geography, not to mention aviation." * * * * * A question or two, which they answered briefly, and Krassnov had the story. "Ah, my poor rocket!" he sighed. "But it is fate, I suppose; Kismet, as the Turkish say. Still, I deserved a better fate than to be captured by a pair of American professors, when the secret service of the world was on my trail." "Then cheer up!" said Stoddard, gritting his teeth to keep back the pain of his throbbing shoulder. "For I have the honor to represent Washington in this case." At that, the prince scowled darkly for a moment. Then he brightened. "Kismet again! I might have acted differently, had I known that, but--well, I drink to your success, Doctor Stoddard!" Whereupon, before they could restrain him, he lifted a vial from a shelf over one of the cabinets and downed its contents. "A diamond-dust cocktail!" he smiled, replacing the vial. "The most expensive, even in your country of costly drinks--and the most deadly!" But Stoddard knew, as the doomed nobleman stood there facing them in stoic triumph, that diamond dust in the human system was as slow as it was deadly, and that the desperate gesture had been futile, so far as justice was concerned. There would be ample time, in the weeks Prince Krassnov of Imperial Russia still lived, to round up his international allies and stamp out the remnants of their amazing ring of diamond smugglers. While as for Professor Prescott, he was thinking with what amazement the members of his expedition back on Kinchinjunga would receive the cablegram he would dispatch that night, informing them that Stoddard and himself were safe in El Paso, Texas. The Slave Ship From Space _By A. R. Holmes_ [Illustration: "_The slaves!" gasped Jim, and involuntarily backed into the room._] [Sidenote: Three kidnapped Earthlings show Xantra of the Tillas how "docile" Earth slaves can be.] Twice that night the two young men had seen the thing, and their hour for turning in had long since passed as they lay half reclining on the ground by their campfire waiting, hoping that it would return once more. Their interest in the strange visitant had completely banished all sensations of fatigue from a full day of vacation fishing in the cold Adirondack streams among which they were camping for that month. They had discussed the appearance until there was nothing more they could say; and now as for the last hour, they watched in silence, only moving to knock the dottle from their pipes and to get fresh lights off the splinters they stuck into their slumbering fire. The velvet night was now at full reign, and the myriad stars in their familiar patterns leaned close--brilliant jewels for man to share but never pluck.