"Johann," she began tremulously, "listen to me----"
"Nein! Nein! What for a Frauenzimmer haff we here!" retorted
Golden Beard, losing his patience and catching her by the arm. "Go out
und fix for us our ladder und keep it coiled on the rail und lean ofer
it like you was looking at those stars once!"
He forced her toward the door; she turned, struggling, to confront
him: "Then for God's sake, give this man a chance! Don't leave him tied
here to be blown to atoms! Give him a chance--anything except this!
Throw him out of the port, there!" She pointed at the closed port,
evaded Golden Beard, sprang upon the sofa, unscrewed the glass cover,
and swung it open.
The port was too small even to admit the passage of her own body; she
realised it; Golden Beard laughed and turned to examine the result of
Ali Baba's wiring.
For a second the girl gazed wildly around her, as though seeking some
help in her terrible dilemma, then she snatched up a bit of the torn
sheeting, tied it to the screw of the porthole cover, and flung the
end out where it fluttered in the darkness.
As she sprang to the floor Golden Beard swung round in renewed anger
at her for still loitering.
"Sacreminton!" he exclaimed. "It is time you do your part! Go to your
post then! We remain here until five minutes is left us. Then we join
you."
The girl nodded, turned to the door.
"Wait! You understand the plan?"
"Yes."
"You understand that you do not go overboard until we arrive, no
matter what happens?"
"Yes."
He stood looking at her for a moment, then with a shrug he went over
and patted her shoulder.
"That's my brave girl! I also do not desire to kill anybody. But when
the Fatherland is in danger, then killing signifies nothing--is of no
consequence--pouf!--no lives are of importance then--not even our
own!" He laughed in a fashion almost kindly and clapped her lightly
once more on her shoulder: "Go, my child. The Fatherland is in
danger!"
She went, not looking back. He closed and locked the door behind her
and calmly turned to aid Ali Baba who was still fussing with the
wires. Presently, however, he mounted the bed where Neeland sat tied
and gagged; pulled from his pockets an auger with its bit, a
screw-eye, and block and tackle; and, standing on the bed, began to
bore a hole in the ceiling.
In a few moments he had fastened the screw-eye, rigged his block, made
a sling for his bombs out of a blanket, and had hoisted the three
cylinders up flat against the ceiling from whence the connecting wires
sagged over the foot of the bedstead to the alarm clock on the
washstand.