!"

I tried to draw myself beneath the window. An automatic bullet projector
was on the floor where Carter had dropped it. I pulled myself down.
Miko did not fire. I reached the revolver. The dead bodies of the
captain and purser had drifted together on the floor in the center of
the room.

I hitched myself back to the window. With upraised weapon I gazed
cautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line of vision
was empty.

But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement, ready
upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in a shadow
along the deck. Then a figure rose up.

"Don't fire, Haljan!"

The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger on the
trigger of the automatic. It was the tall lanky Englishman, Sir Arthur
Coniston, as he called himself. So he too was one of Miko's band! The
light through a dome-window fell full on him.

"If you fire, Haljan, and kill me--Miko will kill you then, surely."

From where he had been crouching he could not command my window. But
now, upon the heels of his placating words, he abruptly shot. The
low-powered ray, had it struck, would have felled me without killing.
But it went over my head as I dropped. Its aura made my senses reel.

Coniston shouted, "Haljan!"

* * * * *

I did not answer. I wondered if he would dare approach to see if I had
been hit. A minute passed. Then another. I thought I heard Miko's voice
on the deck outside. But it was an aerial, microscopic whisper close
beside me.

"We see you, Haljan! You must yield!"

Their eavesdropping vibrations, with audible projection, were upon me. I
retorted aloud.

"Come and get me! You cannot take me alive."

I do protest if this action of mine in the chart-room may seem bravado.
I had no wish to die. There was within me a very healthy desire for
life. But I felt, by holding out, that some chance might come wherewith
I might turn events against these brigands. Yet reason told me it was
hopeless. Our loyal members of the crew were killed, no doubt. Captain
Carter and Balch were killed. The lookouts and Course-masters also. And
Blackstone.

There remained only Dr. Frank and Snap. Their fate I did not yet know.
And there was George Prince. He, perhaps, would help me if he could.
But, at best, he was a dubious ally.

"You are very foolish, Haljan," murmured the projection of Miko's voice.
And then I heard Coniston: