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?"