Page:The Rover Boys in Southern Waters.djvu/218

202 "And maybe they won't get over it for twenty-four."

"Any bad effects?"

"Well, sometimes that dope paralyzes a man's tongue for six months or a year."

"Phew! That's pretty rough."

"Once in a great while the paralysis doesn't go away at all."

"In that case, these boys will have it in for you,—if they ever get their hands on you," said Sid Jeffers, with a wicked leer.

The men talked among themselves for several minutes and then agreed to take the boys up on deck and place them in two of the staterooms off the cabin.

"They'll have to have more air than here," said Gasper Pold. "Otherwise they'll surely die on our hands."

Dan Baxter was called on to assist, and did so with his knees fairly shaking together. He thought that our friends had surely drank of the dosed water and were in a stupor next to death.

"And if they die, they'll say I was as guilty as the rest!" he groaned to himself. "Oh, I wish I was out of this!"

It was no easy matter to get the three Rovers and Hans on deck and to the staterooms. Here our friends were placed two on a berth, and, for the time being, left to themselves.