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_?"
"Why, go after her and pretend that we’re passengers who have missed her at the landing-stage. He is going on the trip for his health, and we are his valet and medical man looking after him on the voyage. She calls at Southampton for cargo; and you’ll dope him a bit, and we shall slip off and leave him."
"It would be a deal easier to drop him in the river."
"Dragen has orders to do nothing of the sort. He’s only wanted to be out of the way for a week or two."
"And then turn up and blow the gaff on the lot of us. I know which I’d rather risk," said the doctor.
"And lose half the plunder. The thing’s as simple as it can be. Everything has been arranged."
The other man grunted his disapproval, and then they were silent.
I had heard the recital of the programme with infinite relief. Von Felsen had obviously been afraid to proceed to extreme measures, and for that at any rate I thanked him. If he could get me out of the way for a week or two, he would have ample time to complete the plans with which my presence had interfered, and this time he would gain by securing my presence on a liner which after it left Southampton would not touch land again until it reached the other side of the Atlantic.