Her thoughts went back to her old stronghold in the snowy solitudes of Antarctica, to the deep dark caverns of Mount Terror. Surely those mighty walls of living rock, shrouded in eternal ice and snow, would give her an asylum in which she could defy the fate that was about to overwhelm humanity--and what then? For a moment an awful vision of the unspeakable loneliness of such a survival amidst the ruins of the world struck such terror to her heart that she almost resolved to head the _Revenge_ into the thick of the fight that was still raging round Aeria, and die rather than face it. Then the vision passed, and the terrors of the present blotted out the fear of the future. The last sun that the human race would ever see was just rising when she sent for Boris Lossenski, who was still commanding the _Revenge_ under her, and said abruptly, and without even consulting Khalid, who was standing by her side-- “There is nothing but death to be found here. We will escape if we can. Head the ship for Mount Terror and make her fly as she has never flown before. Don’t spare either the engines or the power. We must be there before nightfall if possible.” Boris saluted and obeyed in silence, and Olga turned to Khalid and said in a tone of weariness and almost of despair-- “It is no use fighting any longer. The Fates themselves are against us, and I--yes, I have been frightened into belief at last. A shameful confession is it not?” “Not shameful but only reasonable,” he replied. “All I regret is that you did not believe sooner, and save this last slaughter of these gallant people.” “What is done, is done!” she said with a half-regretful glance at the mountains of Aeria, which were now rapidly fading away into the blue distance; “it is only a question of sooner instead of later. Indeed, it seems hardly worth while even for us to attempt to live when, even if we survive, only the ruins of the world can be ours. And yet”-- “Yet sweeter would be life with you even in a wilderness of death than destruction that might be eternal parting,” replied Khalid in low tones that thrilled with passion. “Nay, what dearer destiny could man desire than to be the Adam of a new world of which you were the Eve?” The words of her husband--for Khalid was her husband now as well as her slave--brought a sudden flush to Olga’s face, and this was succeeded by an almost deathly pallor. She put up her hand to the broadened circlet of gold which concealed the terrible scar of the wound made by Alan’s bullet, and said almost in a whisper-- “You and I--yes, you and I may live. We _will_! But if we do we must save ourselves alone.” And with that she left him abruptly and went to her own room with the plan of her last crime already shaped in her mind.