"No use, Graham, no use; I have studied these matters too long and too carefully needlessly to alarm you," answered the Doctor.
"Well, Doctor," said Graham, "at least allow me to stop our motors. Then what you say cannot possibly be refuted."
"I think Graham is right, Doctor," remarked Temple. "It seems to me a very practical suggestion."
"You may do so if you like, but it is trouble thrown away," the Doctor answered.
Graham was already hastening from the laboratory down the steps to the engine-room, followed by his two friends, and a moment afterwards the machinery ceased to work; the bright cranks and wheels and rods were still; the motors ceased to revolve. At last this beautiful monument of engineering skill, which had kept incessantly at work for upwards of eighteen months, was stopped, and breathlessly the three men awaited the result.
Doctor Hermann, cool and collected even in such awful moments, walked slowly back to the laboratory to consult his instruments. Graham and Temple followed, too excited to speak.
"Well, Doctor," said Temple at last, after he had patiently waited his investigation, "what are your conclusions?"
With marvellous coolness, as though answering the merest commonplace remark, Doctor Hermann replied: "It is as I said before; the _Sirius_ is falling with ever-increasing speed into the sun! We are lost!
"Our doom, even if our speed goes on increasing, cannot overtake us for several years," continued the Doctor, "but I doubt if our supplies could hold out for such a period."
"Doctor," broke in Temple excitedly, "that is poor comfort; you ask us too much endurance. I, for one, will not, cannot, go on in such misery, only to be overwhelmed at last. Two alternatives are left to us. We can either go on in a lingering agony of suspense, and meet our doom by starvation, or by fire; or, we can end our woes swiftly and effectually with these"--and as he spoke he pointed to the four nickel-plated revolvers hanging loaded against the wall. "We can but die like men!"
"I must confess, if all hope is really gone, that I incline to Mr. Temple's view of the situation, and would prefer a sharp and practically painless death to, it may be, years of horrible suspense, crowned with the ten thousand times more awful fate of being hurled into yonder furnace at last," said Graham.