Free 1,000-Year Voyage by John Russell Fearn

herself.
    â€œI shouldn’t waste your time if I were you,” said the woman who had first spoken. “We know how to tie knots and we know how to get at the truth when we want it, and what is more, we’re going to. Aboard this ship there is no form of accepted law or justice—therefore it becomes essential that we take the law into our own hands.
    â€œYou’re going to be asked quite a few questions, Merva, and if you don’t answer them the way we think you should you will be made to.”
    â€œQuestions,” Merva exclaimed, furiously, tossing her hair from her eyes. “What kind of questions? I have nothing to say!”
    â€œThat is a matter of opinion.”
    Again before she could do anything about it Merva was seized between the four women and, struggling frantically, was carried from the room and along to the lounge. None of the men were present: evidently this was a move decided upon by the women alone so it was quite possible that the men knew exactly what was happening. Possibly, too, they felt that a better effect could be gained if they kept out of it.
    â€œWe are not satisfied,” the spokeswoman said, “that the death of our children was brought about in the way you suggested, therefore we mean to find out the truth. It is possible that, cold and hard natured though you are, you still have enough motherly instinct to protect your own. At any rate that remains to be seen. Fetch Exodus,” the woman added briefly, and immediately two of her colleagues left the lounge.
    Merva, lying upon the floor and still struggling uselessly to break the cords around her wrists and ankles, glared up in fury. She knew she could expect no mercy whatever from her own sex, that the wiles that she might use upon a man and perhaps melt the most ruthless of his intentions were utterly useless here. For this reason she felt fear though she struggled desperately not to show it.
    â€œWhat do you want with Exodus?” she demanded.
    â€œYou’ll see,” said the spokeswoman, dispassionately. Presently Exodus was led into the room, still in his sleeping clothes, and he looked at his mother in vague wonder as she lay upon the floor and then he glanced at the faces around him.
    â€œThe issue, Merva,” said the spokeswoman, “is perfectly simple. We believe our children died through some machination of yours. Whether they were killed deliberately from sheer hatred or whether you had some particular reason for using them before they died we have no means of knowing. But we do intend to find out if you were the instigator of the tragedy. At the moment Exodus is the only child left aboard the ship. Unless you tell us the truth, there will be no children left aboard the ship five minutes from now.”
    â€œWhat!”
    Merva jerked herself up on to one elbow and looked around her fearfully. “You can’t mean that you’re going to kill Exodus for absolutely no reason at all!”
    â€œWe shall kill Exodus unless you tell us the truth,” the spokeswoman replied. “We realise that it is not exactly fair to Exodus—but it is a case of the sins of the fathers, or mothers, in this case—being visited upon the children, but we mean to get at the truth even if we have to commit murder to do so. You can prevent that by telling us what we wish to know.”
    â€œI have already told you the truth,” Merva declared desperately.
    â€œFirst,” the spokeswoman said, “before the ultimate necessity of destroying Exodus, we can perhaps make you talk by a little gentle persuasion. It all depends on whether you are strong enough to resist our methods.”
    â€œThere is nothing you fools can do that will intimidate me,” Merva retorted.
    None of the women answered that, instead, the one who I had been doing all the talking took a sharply pointed instrument from her pocket. At first glance it looked rather like a carpenter’s awl or