Ilse Dumont.

"Let me stay----"

"No! You have acted like a fool. Go to the lower deck where is our
accustomed rendezvous."

"I wish to remain, Johann. I shall not interfere----"

"Go to the lower deck, I tell you, and be ready to tie that rope
ladder!"

Ali Baba, down on his knees, had pulled out a steamer trunk from under
the bed, opened it, and was lifting out three big steel cylinders.

These he laid on the bed in a row beside the tied man; and Golden
Beard, still facing Ilse Dumont, turned his head to look.

The instant his head was turned the girl snatched a pistol from the
brace of weapons on the washstand and thrust it under her cloak.
Neither Golden Beard nor Ali Baba noticed the incident; the latter was
busy connecting the three cylinders with coils of wire; the former,
deeply interested, followed the operation for a moment or two, then
walking over to the trunk, he lifted from it a curious little clock
with two dials and set it on the railed shelf of glass above the
washstand.

"Karl, haf you ship's time?"

Ali Baba paused to fish out his watch, and the two compared
timepieces. Then Golden Beard wound the clock, set the hands of one
dial at the time indicated by their watches; set the hands of the
other dial at 2:13; and Ali Baba, carrying a reel of copper wire from
the bed to the washstand, fastened one end of it to the mechanism of
the clock.

Golden Beard turned sharply on Ilse Dumont:

"I said go on deck! Did you not understand?"

The girl replied steadily:

"I understood that we had abandoned this idea for a better one."

"There iss no better one!"

"There _is_! Of what advantage would it be to blow up the captain's
cabin and the bridge when it is not certain that the papers will be
destroyed?"

"Listen once!" returned Golden Beard, wagging his finger in her face:

"Cabin and bridge are directly above us and there remains not a
splinter large like a pin! I know. I know my bombs! I know----"

The soft voice of Ali Baba interrupted, and his shallow, lightish eyes
peered around at them:

"Eet ees veree excellent plan, Johann. We do not require these papers;
eet ees to destroy them we are mooch anxious"--he bent a deathly stare
on Neeland--"and this yoong gentleman who may again annoy us." He
nodded confidently to himself and continued to connect the wires.
"Yes, yes," he murmured absently, "eet ees veree good plan--veree good
plan to blow him into leetle pieces so beeg as a pin."