“How come the old man always picks days like this to run up his red flag?” Donovan was talking again. “There’s just as much chance of our picking up that stuff tonight as—as—”
“As finding a golf ball on a Scotchman’s lawn,” the third man finished for him. “I know there’s no use grousing—but it’s a dirty deal—and well, we’ve got to talk about something in this God-forsaken dump!”
“I don’t blame you much,” the aviator admitted, “but look at the profits, man. Well, I must be shoving off, myself. We’ll have another bottle of beer apiece and—”
But Dorothy did not hear the end of that sentence. Her vigil was suddenly and rudely interrupted. Someone behind her thrust a rough arm under her chin, jerking back her head and holding her in an unbreakable grip. The sickly-sweet odor of chloroform half suffocated her. For a moment more she struggled, then darkness closed in about her.
Chapter VII
SHANGHAIED
Dorothy came slowly back to consciousness. She was vaguely aware of the chug-chug of a small engine somewhere near by. Her head swam and there was a sickly sensation at the pit of her stomach.
She tried to move, and found it impossible. She heard the splash of waves but could see nothing except the boarded wall of her prison a foot or so away from her eyes.
After a while she became accustomed to the gloom and her sight was clearer. She decided that the rounded wall was the side of a boat. Turning her head slightly she saw that she lay on the flooring of an open motor sailor, beneath a thwart. It had stopped raining. Now the sound of the engine and the gurgle of water against the hull told her that the craft was moving.
She hadn’t the slightest idea where this cabinless craft was bound, or how she came to be aboard. Gradually there returned to her a confused memory of the cottage on the dunes, voices through the window. Someone’s arm about her neck, forcing her head back—she remembered, now, and groaned. Her body was one stiffness and ache.
Again she tried to heave herself into a sitting position, only to find that her ankles were bound with a turn or two of cord, and her wrists whipped together behind her back. She was trussed like a fowl, and by the feel of her bonds, the trusser was a seaman. She wriggled and writhed, consumed by rage at her own helplessness. The only result was to restore her circulation and clear her faculties, allowing her to realize just what had happened.