The only thought that occurs to me now is that they will hoist me on board and lower me to the bottom of the hold and keep me there till the vessel is far out at sea.  Obviously they will not allow either Thomas Roch or his keeper to appear on deck as long as she remains in Pamlico Sound.

My conjecture is correct.  Still gagged and bound I am at last lifted by the legs and shoulders.  My impression, however, is that I am not being raised over a ship’s bulwark, but on the contrary am being lowered.  Are they going to drop me overboard to drown like a rat, so as to get rid of a dangerous witness?  This thought flashes into my brain, and a quiver of anguish passes through my body from head to foot.  Instinctively I draw a long breath, and my lungs are filled with the precious air they will speedily lack.

No, there is no immediate cause for alarm.  I am laid with comparative gentleness upon a hard floor, which gives me the sensation of metallic coldness.  I am lying at full length.  To my extreme surprise, I find that the ropes with which I was bound have been untied and loosened.  The tramping about around me has ceased.  The next instant I hear a door closed with a bang.

Where am I?  And, in the first place, am I alone?  I tear the gag from my mouth, and the bandages from my head.

It is dark—­pitch dark.  Not a ray of light, not even the vague perception of light that the eyes preserve when the lids are tightly closed.

I shout—­I shout repeatedly.  No response.  My voice is smothered.  The air I breathe is hot, heavy, thick, and the working of my lungs will become difficult, impossible, unless the store of air is renewed.

I extend my arms and feel about me, and this is what I conclude: 

I am in a compartment with sheet-iron walls, which cannot measure more than four cubic yards.  I can feel that the walls are of bolted plates, like the sides of a ship’s water-tight compartment.

I can feel that the entrance to it is by a door on one side, for the hinges protrude somewhat.  This door must open inwards, and it is through here, no doubt, that I was carried in.

I place my ear to the door, but not a sound can be heard.  The silence is as profound as the obscurity—­a strange silence that is only broken by the sonorousness of the metallic floor when I move about.  None of the dull noises usually to be heard on board a ship is perceptible, not even the rippling of the water along the hull.  Nor is there the slightest movement to be felt; yet, in the estuary of the Neuse, the current is always strong enough, to cause a marked oscillation to any vessel.

But does the compartment in which I am confined, really belong to a ship?  How do I know that I am afloat on the Neuse, though I was conveyed a short distance in a boat?  Might not the latter, instead of heading for a ship in waiting for it, opposite Healthful House, have been rowed to a point further down the river?  In this case is it not possible that I was carried into the collar of a house?  This would explain the complete immobility of the compartment.  It is true that the walls are of bolted plates, and that there is a vague smell of salt water, that odor sui generis which generally pervades the interior of a ship, and which there is no mistaking.