Climbing to his feet sent a swift wave of giddiness through Chip--but he managed it. He fought down the vertigo which threatened to overwhelm him, and confronted the big man boldly. "What," he stormed, "is the meaning of this?" The giant stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. Then his raven-bright eyes glittered; he slapped a trunklike thigh and guffawed in boisterous mirth. "Hear that?" he roared to his companions. "Quite a guy, ain't he? 'What's the meanin' o' this?' he asks! Game little fightin' cock, hey?" Then he sobered abruptly, and a grim light replaced the amusement in his eyes. Here was not a man to be trifled with, Chip realized. His tone assumed a biting edge. "The meanin' is, my bucko," he answered mirthlessly, "that you've run afoul o' your last reef. Unless you have a sane head on your shoulders, and you're willing to talk fast and straight!" "Talk?" "Don't stall. We've already unloaded your bins. We found it. And a nice haul, too. Thanks for lettin' us know it was on the way." The burly one chuckled coarsely. "We'd have took it, anyway, but you helped matters out by comin' to us." Johnny Haldane had been right, then. Chip remembered his friend's ominous warning. "--if your message was intercepted, you may have played into the hands of--" He said slowly, "Then you _are_ the Lorelei's men?" "The who? Never mind that, bucko, just talk. That ekalastron--where did it come from?" And it occurred to Warren suddenly that although the big man _did_ hold the whip hand, he was still not in possession of the most important secret of all! While the location of the ekalastron mine remained a secret, a deadlock existed. "And if I won't tell--?" he countered shrewdly. "Why, then, sailor--" The pirate leader's hamlike fists tightened, and a cold light glinted in his eyes--"why, then I guess maybe I'll have to beat it out o' you!" * * * * * He took a step forward. Chip, still unsteady on his feet, but feeling his strength renew itself with each passing moment, braced for rough encounter. But the moment of contest was not yet. For even as the big man's companions drew back, grinning evilly, to form a ring about the pair, rose a familiar voice from behind Chip. "_Hold!_ 'Stay now the hand of wrath, yea, shalt thou restrain even thine arm raised in striking lest His vengeance smite thee into dust!'" A look of swift, incredulous dismay, sweeping across the giant's face, vanished in an expression of unholy glee. "Salvation!" he exclaimed exultantly. "It's Salvation Smith! So we meet again!" The circle parted, admitting newcomers. Syd and the old missionary and the pirates who had dragged them from the broken _Chickadee_. Chip thought that never before had he been so glad to lay eyes on his two comrades. Events had followed so swiftly that he had had no time to feel concern for them, but it was a relief to find them alive and unharmed.