CHAPTER IX

A PERILOUS CRISIS

My first sensation of returning consciousness was that of cold air being blown violently in my face as I was penned in between heavy bodies which crushed so closely against me that movement was impossible, while the throbbing noise of rapidly moving machinery sounded in my ears.

All was indistinct. My head was aching as if it had been split, my brain was dizzy, my senses dazed and chaotic. The ground under me appeared to have come to life and to be racing away from me at lightning speed.

Strange uncouth lights were flashing hither and thither, producing a medley of glare which was utterly bewildering and almost terrifying.

I was in total darkness, save for the eccentric flashes of light; and my first rational thought was the discovery that when I closed my eyes the flashes were still with me. I recognized then that they were caused by some sort of brain pressure.

Next I discovered that I was not bound in any way. I could not move, because I was hopelessly wedged between the heavy bodies. Moreover, I appeared to have no power of my own to stir either hand or foot.

Then my wits cleared very slowly, and I began to remember what had occurred. I had been drugged, and could do nothing until the effects of the drug had worn off.

And at last I realized that I was in the narrow tonneau of a small motor-car travelling at a rapid pace through the night. The heavy bodies which had so perplexed me were two men between whom I was half sitting, half lying in the narrow space.

The fearsome sense of terror abated with my understanding of the position. I lay back, indescribably weary and helpless, with a hazy feeling that rest would restore my faculties, and a half-awakened instinct that my safety might depend upon my appearing to be still under the influence of the drug.

I think I fell asleep, for my next conscious sensation was the pleasant discovery that the racking pain in the head had abated and the lights of my delirium ceased to flash in my brain.

The two men between whom I was jammed were bending over me, and I heard one say to the other: "It's all right. He's still dead off." It was probably their movement which had awakened me.

I lay as still as a drugged man would, and tried to collect my scattered wits. We were travelling at a good rate, some thirty miles an hour, I thought, and the car, a rather crazy vehicle, swayed and bumped and jolted to an extent that threatened a mishap. It was obviously not built for high speed.

Gradually I recalled all that had occurred in its proper sequence. My visit to Herr Ziegler's house; my stay there; my leaving; the encounter with the pretended police official; the scene at the house to which he had taken me; my futile struggle; and lastly the drugging.

When it had all occurred I could not of course tell. For aught I knew it might have been no more than an hour or two before I came to myself in the car, or it might have been as many days or weeks.

From my position between the men I could not see anything, but presently one of them put a question to his companion: "What place was that?"

"Glowen, I think," was the reply.

"How far from Wittenberge?"

"About twenty miles. Ask Dragen."

The man addressed leant forward and put a question to the chauffeur, who turned his head and flung back a reply over his shoulder. I could not catch what he said, however.

What I had heard told me a great deal. Wittenberge was a small place on the Elbe between Berlin and Hamburg, about a hundred miles from the capital. The man had spoken of it as if it were the end of the car's journey, and I wondered what could be the possible reason for my being taken there.

But the most important information was the mention of the man's name--Dragen. It sent my thoughts back at once to the time of my visit to von Felsen. Dragen was the man whom I had recognized there, and it was now clear that he had been brought into the room to be able to identify me.

Von Felsen was clearly behind my abduction, and it was with bitter self-reproach I saw how easily I had let myself be fooled. He had evidently had this plan to get rid of me in mind for some time, and my action in threatening to tell Ziegler the truth about Althea had brought matters to a crisis.

Dragen I believed to be a man capable of any villainy: murder at need, if it could be done safely; and I did not doubt that he had chosen as accomplices in the scheme scoundrels who were as reckless as himself. I should be lucky if I got out of the scrape with my life. I was being well punished for the blunder I had committed in trying to force on von Felsen's marriage with the Jew's daughter; and it was the irony of the affair I had been caught in the toils at the very moment when I was about to try and undo that mistake.

But why were we running to Wittenberge? I asked myself the question over and over again, only to give it up in bewilderment. At the rate we were travelling I should soon know, of course; but my impatience and anxiety were only heated by that fact.

Presently the men bent down over me again.

"You must have given him a pretty strong dose," said one.

His companion laughed. "Do you suppose I measured it?"

"He's as fast off as ever. Look here." At this he shook me till the teeth all but rattled in my jaws, and then pinched me until I should think his fingers all but met in my flesh. He had a hand of iron.

"All the better. Saves trouble," growled the brute.

"Had we better give him another dose to get him on the boat? We don't want any noise there. It won't matter when he's once on board."

"If you want me to finish him, I will. Not else."

"Well, it's your look out that part of it, not mine."

"All right then, leave it to me. But I may as well make sure."

There was a pause, and I could tell that the man was feeling in his pockets. I wondered what was coming, and nerved myself for the ordeal.

"This'll touch him up if there's any return of sensibility," he said with another laugh. I remember wondering at the use of such a term and jumping to the conclusion that the fellow must have had some sort of training as a medical man, and had fallen to his present low position as the result of dissipation.

I had not more than a few seconds for this speculation, for he seized my hand roughly and plunged a needle into the back. I bore it without flinching.

"I told you so," he said. "But we'll have another experiment."

He took my thumb in his strong fingers then, and holding it up tried to thrust the needle down into the quick. Fortunately for me the lurching of the car interfered with his intention, and the needle entered the flesh some slight distance from the nail.

Again I succeeded in repressing even the slightest quiver at the pain it caused, although it made me almost sick. He loosened his grip of the thumb with the needle still in it, and I had the presence of mind enough to let the hand fall limp and flaccid.

He was satisfied with the test. He gripped my hand again and drew out the needle roughly. "He's good for hours yet, Marlen," he announced with an oath.

"You'd better tell Dragen," said the other; and he leant forward and spoke to Dragen, who was apparently the leader in the affair.

I was free once more to think. The mention of the boat had sufficed to give me a slight indication of their plans. I was being taken by car to Wittenberge in order to be transferred to a boat of some sort in which the journey was to be continued. Probably to Hamburg, I guessed.

That seaport had a very unenviable reputation for deeds of violence. If the intention was to take my life, no better place could have been chosen for the work than Hamburg. It would be a comparatively easy matter to knock me on the head, dress me in some disguise without a mark of any sort which would lead to my identification, and then either drop me into the river or carry me ashore to one of the low quarters of the town, where violent deaths were matters of no uncommon occurrence.

I am free to admit that I was intensely alarmed at the prospect. I was helplessly in their power. I was unarmed, and I knew enough of Dragen's reputation for cunning to be quite sure that he would so arrange matters that even if I succeeded in raising an alarm when they were taking me from the car to the boat, he would select a spot where no assistance would be available.

I had only one thing in my favour--their belief in my continued unconsciousness. How could I turn that to the best account?

For the rest of the time I remained in the car I thought over that point as strenuously as only a man can think who feels that his life will be the result of the thinking.

If I raised an alarm at Wittenberge and no help came, I was a doomed man. That was as certain as that the sun would rise on the following morning whether I saw it or not.

I could not fool them twice about being insensible. The perspiration stood thick on my forehead as I tried to come to some decision, and I was still undecided when the car began to slow down and turned away from the main road.

I guessed we were going down to the river, and perceived to my consternation that the place was absolutely deserted. Then the car came to a standstill, and I heard the sluggish wash of the water.

Dragen got out and walked away in the darkness.

"Is he going with us on the river trip?" asked the man who had drugged me.

"How the devil do I know?" was the response. "I know I'm going because I'll have to manage the launch, and you'll have to go, of course. We can't get on without the doctor. And somebody 'll have to take this rickety old puffer back."

"How are you going to get him on to the _Stettin_?"

"Why, go after her and pretend that we're passengers who have missed her at the landing-stage. He is going on the trip for his health, and we are his valet and medical man looking after him on the voyage. She calls at Southampton for cargo; and you'll dope him a bit, and we shall slip off and leave him."

"It would be a deal easier to drop him in the river."

"Dragen has orders to do nothing of the sort. He's only wanted to be out of the way for a week or two."

"And then turn up and blow the gaff on the lot of us. I know which I'd rather risk," said the doctor.

"And lose half the plunder. The thing's as simple as it can be. Everything has been arranged."

The other man grunted his disapproval, and then they were silent.

I had heard the recital of the programme with infinite relief. Von Felsen had obviously been afraid to proceed to extreme measures, and for that at any rate I thanked him. If he could get me out of the way for a week or two, he would have ample time to complete the plans with which my presence had interfered, and this time he would gain by securing my presence on a liner which after it left Southampton would not touch land again until it reached the other side of the Atlantic.

I decided then not to make any attempt to escape or attract help for the present. And it was fortunate that I did so.

When Dragen returned to the car he told the two men that all was in readiness, and that they were to carry me down to the boat.

On the way I lolled in their arms as limp as a corpse. They handled me pretty roughly, and in getting on to the boat the doctor tripped and flung me on to the little deck in order to save himself from falling.

"Don't be a clumsy fool, doctor," called Dragen sharply, with an oath.

"He can't feel anything," was the growling response. "And you don't need to curse me, Dragen."

"I'll do worse than curse you if you drive me to it," came the sharp, angry retort, the threatening tone of which indicated Dragen's power over the other.

"This won't help us to get the boat under weigh, will it?" put in Marlen. "Come on, doc, let's put the passenger to bed."

But the other laughed sulkily. "You can finish the job by yourselves," and he turned back toward the car.

"Come back," called Dragen furiously, "or it'll be the worse for you."

The "doctor" turned on him with a fierce oath. "I've owed you something long enough, and this would be a mighty good place to pay the debt in. I'm a better man than you, and if you use that tone to me again I'll prove it."

"What's the good of spitting at one another like two infernal tomcats?" put in Marlen.

"To hell with your tomcats," was the fierce retort. "Let him do the thing without me if he can. A dirty, low, sponging bully speak to me like that!" and, giving, a full rein to his temper, he let loose such flood of invective upon Dragen that I expected every instant to see the two come to blows.

I began to hope that I should find in the quarrel a chance of getting away, and I glanced round me stealthily in search of something with which I could arm myself for a struggle with the third man, Marlen.

But Dragen, perceiving that a quarrel at that juncture meant the failure of the whole adventure, kept his head and his temper. He let the "doctor" storm and rage without attempting a reply until the man's fury had spent itself in words.

Then he turned to Marlen and asked quietly: "And what are you going to do? Going through with me or back with the doc? You can have the car to run away in if you like."

"I'm going to see it through," was the reply.

"Then we must chance it and leave the car here. Good-night, doc. That's about the toughest speech you ever gave me, but I shan't take any notice of it. Maybe in the morning you'll see things differently."

He crossed the little landing-stage and came on to the launch.

"Can we do without him?" asked Marlen, rather nervously I thought.

"Of course we can. Oh, by the way, doc, you'd better let me have the drops," he said casually and went back to him. "I'm sorry I put your back up so, old man."

"Well, you should keep a better guard on that tongue of yours." The tone showed that his temper had passed.

"All right, we won't say any more about it. Give me the stuff."

The man laughed. "I'll go on with it if you like," he said half shamefacedly.

"Of course I'd like"; and thus to my infinite disappointment the quarrel ended there and the "doctor" came on to the launch.

"Let's get our passenger to bed," said Marlen. "We've lost time enough already, and more than we can spare."

With that they picked me up, carried me forward, and thrust me into a sort of forecastle, and closed and bolted the hatch upon me.

I heard the murmur of talk between the three men for a while, but could not distinguish what was said; and after a few minutes the launch started on her run down the river.

It was a roomy boat, and the place in which I had been thrust was almost large enough for me to stand upright in. There was a good deal of lumber stored in it, and my first effort was to hunt all round in the hope of finding some sort of weapon.

I had formed a rough idea of a plan. The hatch by which the place was entered was not large enough to allow of two persons entering at the same time, and my crude plan was to wait until one of them entered and then disable him.

I crawled all over the forecastle, feeling my way and fingering everything carefully as I crawled. For a long time I was unsuccessful, but when I had all but given up hope my fingers closed on a heavy broken cog-wheel. I could have shouted for joy at the lucky find. It was just the thing for the purpose.

I carried it back and lay down close to the hatch, choosing such a position as would enable me to attack any one who entered.

I knew enough of the plan in regard to me to feel confident that I should not be molested for some time. The "doctor" was under the impression that I should remain insensible for some hours yet, and I knew that every hour, almost every minute, of additional rest would be invaluable. I was still heavy and stupid from the effects of the drug, and would gladly have slept. But I was afraid to sleep lest he should come in to see me, and I should be thus unable to put up a fight for my freedom.

It was a fortunate fear, as it turned out.

I had not been long waiting before the bolt of the hatch was drawn back and the "doctor" thrust in his hand and raised one of mine to make sure that I was still unconscious.

"He's all right," he announced. "We'd better do it now. I'll bring him out."

"Wait a bit. Here's a boat of some sort ahead."

The "doctor" drew back quickly, but left the hatch open.

"I'm afraid of it, doc, and that's the truth," said Marlen.

"Don't be a fool, man. It's fifty times as safe as trusting our skins on the liner. The ship's doctor will want to know a heap of things. Dragen doesn't know that, but I do. There isn't a single mark of violence on him, and it'll look exactly a case of his having dropped into the river."

"Well, wait till we get past this boat."

A long silence followed.

So they were going to adopt the "doctor's" former suggestion and murder me rather than run the risk of taking me to the liner.

Instead of frightening me this roused all the fight there was in me. I had to fight for my life, and I waited as tensely as they until the launch should have passed the boat, and settled myself in the best position I could choose for the attack when the moment came.

Minutes passed; they seemed like hours to me.

"It's all right now." It was the "doctor's" voice, and the next moment I heard him approach the forecastle. "I'll bring him out," he said; and his shadow came between me and the dim light glooming through the hatch opening.