He was compressed in some way that he could not at first understand, and was being bumped and jolted in an extraordinary manner.
It was some little time before he could understand the situation.

He first remembered the fight with the junks, then he recalled the landing and burning the village; then, as his brain cleared, came the recollection of his start with Fothergill for the temple among the trees, his arrival there, and a loud report and flash of fire.
"I must have been knocked down and stunned," he said to himself, "and I suppose I am a prisoner now to these brutes, and one of them must be carrying me on his back." Yes, he could understand it all now.

His hands and his feet were tied, ropes were passed round his body in every direction, and he was fastened back to back upon the shoulders of a Chinaman.

Percy remembered the tales he had heard of the imprisonment and torture of those who fell into the hands of the Chinese, and he bitterly regretted that he had not been killed instead of stunned in the surprise of the temple.
"It would have been just the same feeling," he said to himself, "and there would have been an end of it.

Now there is no saying what is going to happen.