CHAPTER X
A Choice of Two Evils
Siegfried Strauss did his level best to carry out his employer's instructions to hoodwink the abducted Villiers. For the first two days following Jack's return to consciousness the Englishman was treated with every possible consideration. At least that was how it struck Villiers.
Hourly his strength returned and with it his reasoning powers. He was well supplied with food—of the average quality to be found on tramps—and was allowed to sit on deck.
Then one or two things began to strike him as being somewhat peculiar. Strauss evinced a decided tendency to prevent Villiers from strolling for'ard. On the face of it there could be no satisfactory reason why he should not do so; but Jack, always obliging, fell in with the supposed Swedish skipper's wish.
Then he made another discovery. One of the men left a newspaper wedged in the falls of one of the davits. A gust of wind displaced it and carried it across the deck almost to Villier's feet.
Jack's first impulse was to return it to its owner. A Swedish newspaper would be useless to anyone not possessing a knowledge of that language. But somewhat to his surprise he saw that it was English. His astonishment increased when he found that it was a Southampton paper and dated the Saturday on which he had been foully struck down.
Obviously, Villiers reflected, there was a flaw in Captain Strauss' carefully-pitched yarn. If the Zug had proceeded down-Channel without putting in anywhere and without holding communication with any other craft, how could that paper have found its way on board?
"I'm up against something here," thought Villiers, and proceeded with his investigations. He acted warily, for he was not sure of his ground.
In quite a casual way he refolded the paper and replaced it in the falls; then he made his way for'ard, carrying his chair, until he reached the engine-room's fidley.