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 assistance.
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 assistance.
There was only one way to accomplish this: I must swim ashore. 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 muffled sounds reached me across the water until I reached the shore.
They ceased as I finished dressing myself and started out to ascertain where I was and which was the nearest station to make for.