At any rate, I decided, and all my life long I shall never cease to regret it.
"Very good," said Danjuro. "Up into the pilot's cabin, quick, Sir John. You are indispensable there. Prepare for an instant start. I will run and fetch Thumbwood. We shall have to fire thirty or forty rounds quickly into the passage to keep them back. Of course, they are firing automatic pistols round the bend now, and not exposing themselves any more. After we have fired we shall run for the ship. You will hear me shout and then start like lightning!"
He slipped past me, and, crouching almost to the ground, ran back towards Thumbwood like some great cat.
I flung myself aboard. Constance was attending to Wilson in the main cabin. Gascoigne was lying bound where he had been thrown, but his eyes were blazing with excitement.
I put a stop to that at once. "The remainder of your friends are being shot down," I said curtly. "Lucky for you to be here."
All the animation died out of his face. And, as I didn't want to leave him alone with Connie—it seemed a desecration that he should be in the same place with her even for a moment—I whipped out my knife, cut the bonds at his feet, and pushed him into the pilot's cabin, making him lie upon the floor at my side as I got into the swivel chair. I could shoot him dead in an instant if he moved.
Then I sat rigid, with my hand upon the switch which started the engines.
In reality, I know now that the time of waiting was very short, but it seemed an eternity to me. For the first time my nerves felt upon the point of giving way. My hand trembled. I began to think of the narrow S-shaped passage between high walls of rock to the sea, and realized the appalling nature of the task before me. A mere touch of the planes upon those iron barriers, and all the long struggle would prove unavailing, the triumph turn to a defeat in which my girl and I, the superman Danjuro, and faithful Thumbwood would lose our hard-won lives.
One touch and the ship would crumple up like paper and fall like a stone into the cruel cauldron of jagged rock and furious waves far below.