CHAPTER X

IN THE HANDS OF THE POLICE

I had been afraid to shift my position lest the change should rouse any suspicions on the part of the "doctor," and his first attempt was to drag me out while he remained outside.

He seized my left arm and tried to pull me forward, but I had hitched my feet under a board of the flooring, and the attempt failed.

"Come here, Marlen. I'll hand him out to you," he said, turning his head for a moment. "He's got caught up in something or other."

"I can't leave the wheel."

"Stop the launch a minute then."

"It's your own job; do it yourself," was the surly reply.

Muttering an oath at his companion's cowardice, the "doctor" stooped down and, first pushing me roughly to one side out of his way, began to crawl head first into the forecastle.

"Curse the darkness," he murmured.

But my eyes had grown accustomed to it; and it helped me although it hindered him. I could watch him easily. The litter in the place hampered him also, and he stumbled and fell on his knees, and swore again volubly.

Taking advantage of the noise he made, I slipped back a yard or two and gripped my weapon in readiness.

"Where the devil is he?" he muttered, and began to feel about for me.

I was crouching in a corner waiting for a favourable chance to strike, and he could not see me.

The chance came an instant later, as he was stooping down in his hunt for me. Raising my hand I struck him two blows on the head with all my strength and at the same instant slammed the hatch to.

"What's the matter?" shouted Marlen, hearing the noise of the blows and coming forward quickly.

The "doctor" lay as still as a log. I had stunned him or killed him, and at the moment I did not much care which. I kept my hands on him, and if there had been the slightest movement I should have struck him again. I was fighting for my life.

When I was satisfied that he would give me no more trouble, I ran my hands quickly over him in the hope that he would have a revolver; but I could feel nothing of the sort; and as Marlen was fingering the hatch to get it open, I drew back into my corner again.

If he came in to see what had happened, I would serve him as I had served the "doctor." I hoped he would with all my heart.

He got the hatch open after some fumbling and peered in.

"Doctor!" he called, and paused. "Doctor!" A little louder this time.

"What have you done? You haven't killed him, have you? Doctor!"

He put his head in a little way, but not far enough for me to make sure of disabling him, and then withdrew it again.

"What the devil does it mean?" He was evidently very frightened.

After a few seconds' pause he ran to the after-part of the launch and stopped her. He waited until the way was off her, and then came forward once more and called to his companion.

"The place is as dark as h.e.l.l," he muttered and went off, as I guessed to get a light.

I used the time to make another search for a revolver in the stunned man's pockets, and failing to find one, I threw some of the litter over the head and shoulders, and went back to my corner and lay down as if still unconscious, but in such a position that I could spring on Marlen the instant he entered.

This time he brought not only a lantern but a revolver. He had little of the courage of the other fellow I soon saw, and he brought the weapon more because he feared the "doctor" than from any suspicion that I was the cause of the mysterious trouble.

"What fool's game are you playing, doc?" he said. "Don't try any pranks with me. What have you done to the man?"

He thrust in the lantern and peered all about him. I saw him take a long look at me, and the scrutiny apparently satisfied him that I was still of no account; and then he turned from me to the prostrate form of his companion.

He looked long and anxiously at him, and shook his head. "He must have had some sort of fit, if he hasn't got some devil's game on. Doctor!"

He appeared to be afraid to trust himself inside the place, and for some minutes remained in stolid thought.

Next he levelled the revolver at the other. "I'm covering you, doc.

Get up or I shall fire." He shook his head again in dire perplexity when he received no reply, and at length made up his mind to risk entering.

He set the lantern down, fortunately on the side farther from me, and stooped to enter, holding the weapon all the time in readiness, and glueing his eyes on the still form of the unconscious man.

At that moment I changed my plan. I would have that revolver if it were in any way possible.

I let him enter, therefore, and crawl to the side of the "doctor." He moved very slowly and with intense caution, feeling the body as he approached the head. Then he pulled off the covering of the face and started violently.

For the instant he was entirely off his guard in his consternation, and I took advantage of that moment. I sprang forward, wrested the revolver from his grasp, thrust him violently down, seized the lantern and started out on to the deck, sliding to the hatch and shooting home the bolt.

I was now master of the situation, and with a profound sigh of relief and thankfulness I sank down on the deck.

I was still very shaky, and the reaction from the strain and suspense of my time in the forecastle tried me severely. My nerves were all to pieces, and when Marlen began hammering with his fists at the hatch, I started as if it were some fresh peril to be faced.

I let him hammer. So far as I was concerned he might have hammered all the skin off his knuckles before I would take any notice; and after my first start of alarmed surprise, I just lay still and rested until I had recovered strength and composure.

He grew tired of knocking presently, and began to whine to me to let him out. But I made no response. He was in a very ugly mess indeed, and a taste of the suspense I had had to undergo would do him good. He could spend the interval in thinking out some plausible explanation of his exceedingly compromising situation.

Meanwhile I had to think what I was to do. I did not understand the working of the launch, which was drifting at the will of the stream; and there appeared to be nothing for it but to let her drift until we met a boat, and I could get a.s.sistance.

But it then occurred to me that I myself might be hard put to it to give an account of myself. My clothes were in a filthy state as the result of my crawling hunt in the dirty forecastle, and when I examined them by the light of the lantern I found some ugly blood-stains on my sleeves.

These would go far to set up the presumption that I was responsible for the wound to the "doctor"; and as I was now outside and armed with a revolver and the two men were my prisoners, the German police would require a lot of persuasion that I was the innocent and they the guilty parties.

Any investigation would most certainly occupy a long time, moreover; and as my chief desire was to get back to Berlin with the least possible delay, I resolved not to run the risk of waiting for the police or any one else to come to my a.s.sistance.

There was only one way to accomplish this: I must swim ash.o.r.e. I found much to my relief that my pockets had not been rifled, and that I had sufficient money for a ticket to Berlin. But I could not travel in a blood-stained coat; so I hunted through the boat and came across a rough reefer's jacket in the after-cabin, which I annexed. I then undressed, tore out the blood-stained portions of my own coat, made a bundle of my clothes, and managed to fasten it on my head.

Then I waited until the launch had drifted pretty close to the bank on the side where the railway ran, when I let myself carefully over the side and struck out.

Just as I was pushing off I heard Marlen start shouting and hammering again at the hatch, and the m.u.f.fled sounds reached me across the water until I reached the sh.o.r.e.

They ceased as I finished dressing myself and started out to ascertain where I was and which was the nearest station to make for.

The swim in the cold water chilled me; but I set off at a brisk pace and soon had my blood circulating again.