teady in his
work. But they would not suspect foul play at first. He had no immediate
family. His landlady lodged other newspapermen, and was used to their
vagaries. And all this time the _Karluk_ would be thrashing north, well
out to sea, unsighted, perhaps, for all her trip, along that coast of
fogs.

Rainey had disappeared, dropped out of sight. He would be a front-page
wonder for a day, then drop to paragraphs for a day or so more, and
that would be the end of it.

But they had made him comfortable. He was not in a smelly forecastle,
but in a bunk in a cabin that must open off the main room of the
schooner. Why had they treated him with such consideration? He dozed
off, for all his wretchedness, exhausted by his efforts to untangle the
snarl. When he awoke again his mouth was glued together with thirst.

The schooner was still fighting the sea--the wind, too, Rainey
fancied--sailing close-hauled, going north against the trade. He fumbled
for his watch. It had run down. His head ached intolerably. Each hair
seemed set in a nerve center of pain. But he was better.

Back of his thirst lay hunger now, and the apathy that had held him to
idle thinking had given way to an energy that urged him to action and
discovery.

As he sat up in his bunk, fully clothed as he had come aboard, the door
of his cabin opened and the doctor appeared, nodded coolly as he saw
Rainey moving, disappeared for an instant, and brought in a draft of
some sort in a long glass.

"Take this," said Carlsen. "Pull you together. Then we'll get some food
into you."

The calm insolence of the doctor's manner, ignoring all that had
happened, seemed to send all the blood in Rainey's body fuming to his
brain. He took the glass and hurled its contents at Carlsen's face. The
doctor dodged, and the stuff splashed against the cabin wall, only a few
drops reaching Carlsen's coat, which he wiped off with his handkerchief,
unruffled.

"Don't be a damned fool," he said to Rainey, his voice irritatingly
even. "Are you afraid it's drugged? I would not be so clumsy. I could
have given you a hypodermic while you slept, enough to keep you
unconscious for as many hours as I choose--or forever.

"I'll mix you another dose--one more--take it or leave it. Take it, and
you'll soon feel yourself again after Tamada has fed you. Then we'll
thrash out the situation. Leave it, and I wash my hands of you. You can
go for'ard and bunk with the men and do the dirty work."