The Dark Star

He heard himself trying to shout--heard the imprisoned groan shattered

in his own throat, dying there within him.

Suddenly a key rattled; the door was torn open; the light switched on.

Golden Beard stood there, his blue eyes glaring furious inquiry. He

gave one glance around the room, caught sight of the clock, recoiled,

shut off the light again, and slammed and locked the door.

But in that instant Neeland's starting eyes had seen the clock. The

fixed hands on one of the dials still pointed to 2:13; the moving

hands on the other lacked three minutes of that hour.

And, seated there in the pitch darkness, he suddenly realised that he

had only three minutes more of life on earth.

All panic was gone; his mind was quite clear. He heard every tick of

the clock and knew what each one meant.

Also he heard a sudden sound across the room, as though outside the

port something was rustling against the ship's side.

Suddenly there came a click and the room sprang into full light; an

arm, entering the open port from the darkness outside, let go the

electric button, was withdrawn, only to reappear immediately clutching

an automatic pistol. And the next instant the arm and the head of Ilse

Dumont were thrust through the port into the room.

Her face was pale as death as her eyes fell on the dial of the clock.

With a gasp she stretched out her arm and fired straight at the clock,

shattering both dials and knocking the timepiece into the washbasin

below.

For a moment she struggled to force her other shoulder and her body

through the port, but it was too narrow. Then she called across to the

bound figure seated on the bed and staring at her with eyes that

fairly started from their sockets: "Mr. Neeland, can't you move? Try! Try to break loose----"

Her voice died away in a whisper as a flash of bluish flame broke out

close to the ceiling overhead, where the three bombs were slung.

"Oh, God!" she faltered. "The fuses are afire!"

For an instant her brain reeled; she instinctively recoiled as though

to fling herself out into the darkness. Then, in a second, her

extended arm grew rigid, slanted upward; the pistol exploded once,

twice, the third time; the lighted bombs in their sling, released by

the severed rope, fell to the bed, the fuses sputtering and fizzling.

Instantly the girl fired again at the big jug of water on the bracket

over the head of the bed; a deluge drenched the bed underneath; two

fuses were out; one still snapped and glimmered and sent up little

jets and rings of vapour; but as the water soaked into the match the

cinder slowly died until the last spark fell from the charred wet end

and went out on the drenched blanket.