Villiers managed to finish the soup, although every spoonful required an effort to swallow. Then he lay back, wondering and pondering over the brief story that the _Zug's_ master had just told him. "Boats cost money, especially nowadays," he soliloquised. "Wonder why I was cast adrift in a lifeboat when they might have dumped me into the ditch? That would have saved them a lot of expense and would have covered their tracks. Well, here I am, able to sit up and take nourishment, but beyond that---- And Beverley, how's he taking it? I suppose they didn't sandbag him, too?" Still puzzling his tired brain over his strange predicament, Villiers dropped into a fitful slumber. 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. Here he sat down and listened through the open gratings. Before long he overheard the engineer shout something to one of his assistants. The voice was plainly audible above the pulsations of the engines, and the words were unmistakably German; so was the reply. "We're getting on," decided Villiers. "I wonder if this is the _Zug_. I have my doubts."