I think that poor Snap must have fainted. He was silent. I called, "Stop! I will do what you command." Miko jeered, "That is good. A bargain, if you and Dean obey me. Disarm him, Prince, and bring him out." Miko moved back into the radio room. On the deck, Coniston was advancing, but cautiously mistrustful of me. "Gregg." George Prince flung a leg over the casement and leaped lightly into the dim chart room. His small slender figure stood beside me, clung to me. A moment, while we stood there together. No ray was upon us. Coniston could not see us, nor could he hear our whispers. "Gregg." A different voice; its throaty, husky quality gone. A soft pleading. "Gregg--Gregg, don't you know me? Gregg, dear...." Why, what was this? Not George Prince? A masquerader, yet so like George Prince. "Gregg don't you know me?" Clinging to me. A soft touch upon my arm. Fingers, clinging. A surge of warm, tingling current was flowing between us. My sweep of instant thoughts. A speck of human Earth dust falling free. That was George Prince who had been killed. George Prince's body, disguised by the scheming Carter and Dr. Frank, buried in the guise of his sister. And this black-robed figure who was trying to help me.... "Anita! Anita darling--" "Gregg, dear one!" "Anita!" My arms went around her, my lips pressed hers, and felt her tremulous eager answer. The form of Coniston showed at our window. She cast me off. She said, with her throaty swagger of amused, masculinity: "I have him, Sir Arthur. He will obey us." I sensed her warning glance. She shoved me toward the window. She said ironically, "Have no fear, Haljan. You will not be tortured, you and Dean, if you obey our commands." Coniston gripped me. "You fool! You caused us a lot of trouble. Move along there!" He jerked me roughly through the window. Marched me the length of the deck, out to the stern space, opened the door of my cubby, flung me in and sealed the door upon me. "Miko will come presently." I stood in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to his retreating footsteps. But my mind was not upon him. All the universe, in that instant, had changed for me. Anita was alive! XIV The giant Miko stood confronting me. He slid my cubby door closed behind him. He stood with his head towering close against my ceiling. His cloak was discarded. In his leather clothes, and with his clanking sword ornament, his aspect carried the swagger of a brigand of old. He was bare-headed; the light from one of my tubes fell upon his grinning, leering gray face. "So, Gregg Haljan? You have come to your senses at last. You do not wish me to write my name on your chest? I would not have done that to Dean; he forced me. Sit back." I had been on my bunk. I sank back at the gesture of his huge hairy arm. His forearm was bare now; the sear of a burn on it was plain to be seen. He remarked my gaze.