Jack Benson didn’t ask questions.  Millard went at it all in such a business-like way that the submarine boy felt the words sticking in his throat; they couldn’t be uttered.

Finally, when all else was ready, Millard took the lighted candle out of the candlestick.

“This candle will burn for thirty minutes yet,” guessed the wretch, noting its unburned length with the air of an expert “That will be time enough.  Poor lad!”

He set the lighted candle down on top of the papers, over the pile of oil-soaked shavings.  It fitted nicely into a place that the wretch had made ready for it.  Then, without a word, the long-legged one tip-toed softly over and bent beside the submarine boy.

“Open your mouth,” he ordered.

Of course Captain Jack didn’t propose to do anything of the sort.  With one hand, however, Millard gripped the boy’s nostrils, pressing tightly.  Just a little later Jack had to open his mouth for air.

“Thank you,” mocked the other, and neatly shoved a handkerchief between the boy’s jaws.  This he tied in place, and rising, looked down upon a gagged foe.  Then, with a last look over at the candle, the long-legged one darted from the room.

Left alone, Jack Benson watched that candle on top of the prepared heap.  His eyes gleamed with the fascination of terror.  When that candle burned down to the right point it would set fire to the paper, and then—!

Try as he would to bolster his grit, Captain Jack Benson found himself in a fearful plight.  At first, he could only stare, with terror-dilated eyes, at that candle—­ever burning just a slight fraction shorter!

While the horror-laden moments were dragging by Jack heard a step on the stairs behind his head.  Then he realized that some one was looking into the room.  Then a voice spoke.  It was Millard’s, though scarcely recognizable on account of its huskiness.

“It’s a fearful thing to do, Benson, but—­but I can’t help it!  If you only knew what it means to me to win!”

Then followed a moment of utter silence.  Jack could hear his own heart beating, as he fancied he could hear that of his persecutor.  Then there was another sound, as though some light-weight metallic object had fallen to the floor.

“Good-bye, old chap!  I—­I respect you for your calm grit—­that’s all I can say.”

There was the sound of a quick turn, then soft footsteps.  Jack knew that Millard had fled.

“He respects me for my ’calm grit’!” laughed Jack, grimly—­almost hysterically.  “Doesn’t the scoundrel know that I’m all but frozen into the torpor of dread?”

Then, just as suddenly, an anguished “oh!” broke from the boy’s lips, to be followed, instantly, by a tremor of hope.

For, except at the time when interrupted by Millard’s return, the young submarine captain had been fighting savagely at the bonds behind his back.  Now, he fancied, he heard or felt a single strand giving way.