CHAPTER ELEVENFelix hefted his pick, drove it into rock with a surge of shoulder and back muscles, jerked it free with a shower of stone and paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead.
“If this is recreation,” he said feelingly, “then give me the salt mines.”
“You’re joking.” His companion, a stocky West Indian, grinned as he picked up a boulder that would have weighed half a ton back on his native island. “Who wants salt?”
“I do.” Felix looked at his streaming palm. “The way I’m sweating I’ll be suffering from cramp before I know it.” He wasn’t serious and the others of the working party knew it. But he was, to his surprise, in poor physical condition as aching muscles and quick fatigue had shown.
Stone flew, then he staggered as his foot trod on a loose shard, the pick glancing from
