Breathing a sigh of relief, he explained the situation. Busy days followed. _Hexoxen_ and Europium from the _San Francisco_ were transferred to the other ships, with as much of the treasure collected by the pirates as could be loaded into the cramped quarters. With Huges and Rogers assisting, Holden revised the schedule for planting the charges. "We simply haven't time," he explained, "to set the charges as close together as I had planned. There's nothing to do but get all of them in that we can, and then hope that conditions in the interior of the moon will be of a nature to promote the action of the _hexoxen_." The ships' crews understood only too well the importance and danger of their work, and during the days that followed they toiled like a gang of madmen. Parties raced each other over the rough surface of the dead satellite, grimly determined that their efforts to save the world should not be in vain. Even the men of the party which had been rescued, weakened as they were by their long stay in the pirate cave, insisted on giving what help they could. Finally came the day when the first charges were set to go off. Holden sat in the pilot room of the _Ganymede_, his eyes on the chronometer, while Captain Linet swept the desolate plain with powerful binoculars for the cloud of dust which would signal the return of the last party. "Five minutes yet, Captain," Holden said in a low voice. "Tell the _Los Angeles_ to pull out. The first charges are scarcely two hundred miles from here, and I'm not certain how fast the reaction will travel." Five minutes. Two minutes. The silver shape of the _Los Angeles_ was already fading in the distance. Suddenly a sharp shock rocked the stony bed on which the _Ganymede_ was resting. Simultaneously five figures appeared, racing at full speed for the ship. Shock after shock tore at the ground beneath their feet. Holden stood at the controls, waiting for the signal that his five comrades were safely aboard. To his tensed nerves it seemed hours before the welcome sound came to his ears, and with a sigh of relief he opened the power into the stern tubes, and laughed happily as the huge ship shot away from the heaving surface of the dying moon. Anxious seconds passed. From the height to which they had risen, a great part of the moon was visible, and for the first time Holden realized the full power of the chemical which his ingenuity had devised. Immense tongues of flame ripped through the dust and rock of the satellite, sending dense clouds of vapor bellowing out into space. Mighty mountains disappeared in an instant. The _Ganymede_ was traveling at full speed, and yet it seemed as though at any moment the conflagration might reach out, consuming the space ship in that all-engulfing reaction. Holden manipulated the controls with flying fingers, seeking to get every available bit of speed from the metal monster which was carrying its precious cargo of human beings away from a terrible death.