With a laconic calmness for which Mary gave Wash full marks, his reply came back. 'Taking a look-see at the rocket. You're an expert on these things, Exalted One, and I'm a babe. All the same, I couldn't get it out of my mind this evening that we've got it oriented wrong.'

The Great Ram had walked on towards him. Now that they were talking together Mary knew that she ought not to lose a moment in obeying Wash's orders to leave them to it and get back to her cabin. If the Great Ram chanced to look round he would see her, but that risk had to be taken as the lesser than his yet discovering her among the fuel drums and realizing that she had been lurking there as a look-out for Wash. Quickly she slipped off her shoes. Then, summoning her resolution, she took the plunge.

As she tiptoed forward her spine seemed to creep. Every second she expected an occult force to be directed at her back - a lightning flash that would scorch, char and utterly destroy her. Into her terrified mind there came again a picture of the Black Imp that had materialized from the Great Ram the first time she had seen him. For one awful moment the sound of the drips from the melting ice at the entrance to the cave seemed to take on a new rhythm and she thought they were the swift, light footfalls of the Imp coming after her. Suppressing a scream of terror, she broke into a run. It was only then she suddenly became aware that she was well round the bend of the tunnel and so must have escaped discovery.

When she reached her cabin she was trembling from head to foot. In the doorway she paused to look back, fearful now that Wash's bluff would fail and that the Great Ram would kill him. If that happened she knew that she would receive short shrift. Any attempt to defend herself would be hopeless but, if she could take him by surprise, there was just a chance that she might inflict some serious injury on him before his terrible power as a destroyer could take effect. But for that she must have a weapon. How, where, could she get hold of one? The kitchen was only thirty feet away. There might be something there.