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. 248
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room sprang into full light; an arm, entering the open port from the darkness outside, let go the electric button, was withdrawn, only to reappear immediately clutching an automatic pistol.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 249 seated on the bed and staring at her with eyes that fairly started from their sockets: