"Hopeless. Let 'em cut and run, Dick and Alec and the others. I'm too old to make the attempt. Put the bombs on the table."
Was everyone mad? Had these diners gone completely crazy? Dick looked round in bewilderment, and went scarlet with anger. For the Major was actually sipping his sherry, while Joe was thrusting a morsel of fish into his mouth. As for the Sergeant, he placed a chair for the magnate between Joe and Andrew, plumped that perspiring and shaking individual into it, and having taken the two bombs from Dick put them on the table within a foot of Carl Reitberg. We make no excuse for Hawkins and his friend. They turned at Andrew's nod and bolted.
"Not for me, thanks," said Dick desperately. "Sherry, please, Sergeant."
"Ditto," gasped Alec, seating himself.
"In fact, we swim or sink together. Or shall we say, we stand shoulder to shoulder awaiting the last great flight of this giant vessel?"
There was a quizzing tone in the Major's voice, and he was actually winking. Winking! And so was the Sergeant.
"Sherry, sir. Yes, sir," he observed, in his ordinary, matter-of-fact tones, placing a glass before our two young heroes. "And don't you expect nothing," he whispered. "Them things is O.K. You'll yet eat a dinner."
Meanwhile things were hardly going comfortably for Mr. Reitberg. The rascal sat far back in his chair, tilting it backward, his two hands gripping the table, and his bulging eyes fixed on the hands of the two clocks attached to his infernal machines. He was livid with fear. A cold, clammy perspiration covered his forehead. His fat cheeks shook and wobbled in an ugly manner, and what little hair he had positively bristled. His breath came in choking grunts, wheezing from his lungs, while his lips were dry and parted.
"One minute more; only one minute," he gasped at last, staring at the clock faces. "Only one minute."
"Pardon—rather more. Perhaps two or three seconds," observed the Major icily. "Then, Mr. Reitberg——"