ON DECK 107

bedding, a table, an armchair, a dressing-table, a cupboard
—everything very clean.

The table is laid for a meal. I have only to sit down,
and as the cook’s assistant is about to retire after placing
the dishes, I speak to him.

The boy, a negro, is also mute; perhaps he does not
understand my language.

The door closes upon him, I eat with appetite, post-
poning until later those questions which cannot be left un-
answered for ever. I am still a prisoner—this time under
infinitely more comfortable conditions, which will, I think,
continue until we reach our destination.

After this, I applied myself to thinking, and my chief
point was that Count d’Artigas had planned the abduction.
He is, I said to myself, the kidnapper of Thomas Roch,
and no doubt the French inventor is installed in an equally
comfortable cabin on board the Edda.

Now, who is this personage? Where does he come
from? He has carried off Thomas Roch, because. he is
resolved, at any price, to find out the secret of the Fulgu-
rator. Hecan have no other motive. I must take care
not to betray my identity, for all chance of regaining my
liberty would be lost, were they to learn the truth about
me.

But there are mysteries to solve, and there is the inex-
plicable to explain—who D’Artigas is, what are his future
intentions, the course that the schooner is following, the
port she belongs to, and also her navigation, without sail
or screw, at a rate of ten miles an hour!