CHAPTER XXII

TWO THIRTEEN

To Neeland, the entire affair had seemed as though it were some rather obvious screen-picture at which he was looking--some photo-play too crudely staged, and in which he himself was no more concerned than any casual spectator.

Until now, Neeland had not been scared; Ali Baba and his automatic pistol were only part of this unreality; his appearance on the scene had been fantastically cla.s.sical; he entered when his cue was given by Scheherazade--this oily, hawk-nosed Eurasian with his pale eyes set too closely and his moustache hiding under his nose a la Enver Pasha--a faultless make-up, an entry properly timed and prepared. And then, always well-timed for dramatic effect, Golden Beard had appeared. Everything was _en regle_, every unity nicely preserved.

Scheherazade had protested; and her protest sounded genuine. Also entirely convincing was the binding and gagging of himself at the point of an automatic pistol; and, as for the rest of the business, it was practically all action and little dialogue--an achievement really in these days of dissertation.

All, as he looked on at it over the bandage which closed his mouth, had seemed unreal, impersonal, even when his forced att.i.tude had caused him inconvenience and finally pain.

But now, with the light extinguished and the closing of the door behind Golden Beard and Ali Baba, he experienced a shock which began to awaken him to the almost incredible and instant reality of things.

It actually began to look as though these story-book conspirators--these hirelings of a foreign government who had not been convincing because they were too obvious, too well done--actually intended to expose him to serious injury.

In spite of their sinister intentions in regard to him, in spite of their attempts to harm him, he had not, so far, been able to take them seriously or even to reconcile them and their behaviour with the commonplaces of the twentieth century in which he lived.

But now, in the darkness, with the clock on the washstand shelf ticking steadily, he began to take the matter very seriously. The gag in his mouth hurt him cruelly; the bands of linen that held it in began to stifle him so that his breath came in quick gasps through his nostrils; sweat started at the roots of his hair; his heart leaped, beat madly, stood still, and leaped again; and he threw himself against the strips that held him and twisted and writhed with all his strength.

Suddenly fear pierced him like a poignard; for a moment panic seized him and chaos reigned in his bursting brain. He swayed and strained convulsively; he strove to hurl all the inward and inert reserve of strength against the bonds that held him.

After what seemed an age of terrible effort he found himself breathing fast and heavily as though his lungs would burst through his straining, dilating nostrils, seated exactly as he had been without a band loosened, and the icy sweat pouring over his twitching face.

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 b.u.t.ton, 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, G.o.d!" 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.

She waited a little longer, then with an indescribable look at the helpless man below, she withdrew her head, pushed herself free, hung to the invisible rope ladder for a moment, swaying against the open port. His eyes were fastened on her where she dangled there against the darkness betwixt sky and sea, oscillating with the movement of the ship, her pendant figure now gilded by the light from the room, now phantom dim as she swung outward.

As the roll of the ship brought her head to the level of the port once more, she held up her pistol, shook it, and laughed at him:

"Now do you believe that I can shoot?" she called out. "Answer me some time when that mocking tongue of yours is free!"

Then, climbing slowly upward into darkness, the light, falling now across her body, now athwart her skirt, gilded at last the heels of her shoes; suddenly she was gone; then stars glittered through the meshes of the shadowy, twitching ladder which still barred the open port. And finally the ladder was pulled upward out of sight.

He waited. After a little while--an interminable interval to him--he heard somebody stealthily trying the handle of the door; then came a pause, silence, followed by a metallic noise as though the lock were being explored or picked.

For a while the sc.r.a.ping, metallic sounds continued steadily, then abruptly ceased as though the unseen meddler had been interrupted.

A voice--evidently the voice of the lock-picker--pitched to a cautious key, was heard in protest as though objecting to some intentions evident in the new arrival. Whispered expostulations continued for a while, then the voices became quarrelsome and louder; and somebody suddenly rapped on the door.

Then a thick, soft voice that he recognised with a chill, grew angrily audible:

"I say to you, steward, that I forbid you to entaire that room. I forbid you to disturb thees yoong lady. Do you know who I am?"

"I don't care who you are----"

"I have authority. I shall employ it. You shall lose your berth! Thees yoong lady within thees room ees my fiancee! I forbid you to enter forcibly----"

"Haven't I knocked? Wot's spilin' you? I am doing my duty. Back away from this 'ere door, I tell you!"

"You spik thees-a-way, so impolite----"

"Get out o' my way! Blime d'you think I'll stand 'ere jawin' any longer?"

"I am membaire of Parliament----"

And the defiant voice of Jim's own little c.o.c.kney steward retorted, interrupting:

"Ahr, stow it! Don't I tell you as how a lydy telephones me just now that my young gentleman is in there? Get away from that door, you blighter, or I'll bash your beak in!"

The door trembled under a sudden and terrific kick; the wordy quarrel ceased; hurried steps retreated along the corridor; a pa.s.s key rattled in the lock, and the door was flung wide open:

"Mr. Neeland, sir--oh, my Gawd, wot ever 'ave they gone and done, sir, to find you 'ere in such a 'orrid state!"

But the little c.o.c.kney lost no time; fingers and pen-knife flew; Neeland, his arms free, tore the bandage from his mouth and spat out the wad of cloth.

"I'll do the rest," he gasped, forcing the words from his bruised and distorted lips; "follow that man who was outside talking to you! Find him if you can. He had been planning to blow up this ship!"

"_That_ man, sir!"

"Yes! Did you know him?"