Gail said, absurdly: 'Jack! The Mole you built! It's gone!'
'Yes,' said Jack. 'And I expected to be in it. I was sure Durran would make me come in, but he was afraid that "contrivance" was a bomb. It was, and I've another in my pocket. With you outside of the Mole and me inside with two bombs - I told your father Durran would go. He - had to be finished.'
But he looked rather sick. The Mole would still be falling - toward those smouldering internal fires to which Durran had doomed him once.
Then, quite suddenly, the ground trembled. A distant, muted, racking sound came from far, far underground. It ceased.
'That - that ends it,' said Jack. 'Durran knew what he was falling to. He was clever. He probably even figured out what I did. So be blew up the ship rather than wait. I'm rather glad of that.'
Silence! Little rustling noises of leaves and grass in the wind.
Then Kennedy said fiercely: 'That's done with, then! Durran's finished! And we'll get back to work! You, Jack, you'll be needed to explain that earth-plane idea. We'll have under-ocean passenger service to Europe within a year. We'll have fleets of earth-planes moving through solidity, safer than aeroplanes or ships could be. And we'll be mining ten and twenty miles deep with those mine cages you talked about -'
But Gail let go of her father's hands. She walked over to Jack and into his arms.
'My father thinks you've made good, Jack,' she told him. 'Now, you tell him there's something very important to be attended to before you do any more work on those nasty earth-ships!'
Jack pressed her close.
'Yes; there is. Do you mind attending a wedding this afternoon, sir?' he asked Kennedy.
'Not at all,' replied Kennedy with a grimace. 'You two stay here a moment while I get those State police. Watch these bags, if you can. The ransom for New York is in them. It's got to be taken back.'