An Imperial Marriage Part 18

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 b.u.mped 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 sc.r.a.pe 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 ash.o.r.e 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 a.s.sistance 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 pa.s.sengers 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.