“Why had the boat stopped? Where were the passengers? Passengers! Oh, now the whole series of events occurred to my remembrance. Perhaps the engineer and the negro had suspected foul play and resisted the rascals, and had been disabled if not murdered.
“With fearful misgivings I groped along the passage, reached the engine-room, and, stepping across the sill, fell over a human body. I knew where the lamps usually were kept, and after great difficulty succeeded in getting one alight.
“On the floor, lying on his face, was the engineer, but on examination I could discover no traces of violent treatment. However, the odour of chloroform pervaded the room, and I was persuaded that that forcible agent had been brought to operate upon other systems besides my own.
“The engineer was stupefied by the combined influences of chloroform and whiskey, for the odour of the latter was nauseously prevalent; but whether the liquor had been imbibed from voluntary self-indulgence, or from forcible application, the individual upon whom the potent influence was now in operation was in no condition to inform me, and I had no means of ascertaining the fact.
“Then I went upon deck, examining every nook for signs of my quondam passengers.
“I entered the pilot-house, and there on the bench, with his huge hands on the spokes of the wheel, sat the negro deck-hand, and a cloth swathed about his head of a faint chloroformic odour told how he had been rendered non-combatant.
“The storm was fearfully violent now; the boat seemed to be drifting rapidly, and rocked so that I experienced great difficulty in going below.
“The engineer seemed to be reviving, and a bucket of cold water dashed over him brought him quickly to his senses.
“With his assistance I pumped the boiler full, and started the fire, while he told me how one of the three passengers came in the engine room and threw a cloth over his face, and he remembered no more.
No. 71.