FOR a time, Crang lay passive. Fear was dominant. He could move his head a little, and he kept screwing it around to cast furtive glances at the cabin door. He was sure that Bruce was still outside there, or somewhere near—Bruce wouldn't leave the ship until the last moment, and....
The craven soul of the man shrivelled within him. Bruce's eyes! Damn Bruce's eyes, and that hideous touch of Bruce's pocketed revolver! The fool would even have killed him back there in the cellar if it hadn't been for Larmon! He could still feel those strangling fingers at his throat.
Mechanically he made to lift his hand to touch the bruised and swollen flesh—but he could not move his hands because they were bound behind his back and beneath him. The fool! The fool had wanted to shoot. Perhaps with Larmon out of the road, and just at the last minute, that was what he still meant to do—to open the door there, and—and kill. Terror swept upon him. He tried to scream—but a gag was in his mouth.
What was that? He felt a slight jar, another, and another. He listened intently. He heard a steady throbbing sound. The ship was moving—moving! That meant that Bruce was ashore—that he need not fear that door there. He snarled to himself, suddenly arrogant with courage. To the devil's pit with John Bruce!
He began to work at his bonds now—at first with a measure of contained persistence; and then, as he made no progress, angry impatience came, and he began to struggle. He tossed now, and twisted himself about on the bunk, and strained with all his might. The gag choked him. The bonds but grew the tighter and cut into his wrists. He became a madman in his frenzy. Passion and fury lashed him on and on. He flogged himself into effort beyond physical endurance—and finally collapsed through utter exhaustion, a limp thing bathed in sweat.
Then he began the struggle again, and after that again. The periods came in cycles... the insensate fury... exhaustion... recuperation...
After a time he no longer heard the throbbing of the engines or the movement of the ship during those moments when he lay passive in weakness, nor did the desire for freedom, for merely freedom's sake, any longer actuate him; instead, beneath him, in his pocket, he had felt the little case that held his hypodermic syringe, and it had brought the craving for the drug. And the craving grew. It grew until it became torture, and to satisfy it became the one incentive that possessed him. It tormented, it mocked him. He could feel it there in his pocket, always there in his pocket. Hell could not keep him from it. He blasphemed at the ropes that kept it from his fingers' reach, and he wrenched and tore at them, and sobbed and snarled—and after long minutes of maniacal struggle would again lie trembling, drained of the power either to move or think.
It grew dark in the cabin.
And now, in one of his series of struggles, something snapped beneath him—a cord! One of the cords around his wrists had given away. He tore one hand free. Yes, yes—he could reach his pocket! Ha, ha—his pocket! And now his other hand was free. He snatched at the hypodermic syringe with feverish greed—and the plunger went home as the needle pricked its way beneath the skin of his forearm.
He reached up then, unloosened the knots at the back of his head, and spat the gag from his mouth. His penknife freed his legs. He stood up—tottered—and sat down on the edge of his bunk. He remained motionless for a few minutes. The drug steadied him.