Look! I'm afraid only a miracle can save us now,
darling."
She glanced to the left-hand side where he was pointing. The Sun, no
longer now a sun, but a vast ocean of flame filling nearly a third of
the vault of Space, was sinking beneath them. On the right Mercury was
rising. Zaidie knew only too well what this meant. It meant that the
keel of the _Astronef_ was being dragged out of the straight line which
would cut the Earth's orbit some forty million miles away. It meant
that, in spite of the exertion of the full power that the engines could
develop, they had begun to fall into the Sun.
Redgrave laid his hand on hers, and their eyes met. There was no need
for words. Perhaps speech just then would have been impossible. In that
mute glance each looked into the other's soul and was content. Then he
left the conning-tower, and Zaidie dropped on to her knees before the
instrument-table and laid her forehead upon her clasped hands.
Her husband went to the saloon, unlocked a little cupboard in the wall
and took out a blue bottle of corrugated glass labelled "Morphine,
Poison." He took another empty bottle of white glass and measured fifty
drops into it. Then he went to the engine-room and said abruptly:
"Murgatroyd, I'm afraid it's all up with us. We're falling into the
Sun, and you know what that means.
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