They must both, then, have been kidnapped.
It can easily be imagined what a sensation the news caused in the town.

What! the French inventor who had been so closely guarded had disappeared, and with him the secret of the wonderful fulgurator that nobody had been able to worm out of him?
Might not the most serious consequences follow?
Might not the discovery of the new engine be lost to America forever?
If the daring act had been perpetrated on behalf of another nation, might not that nation, having Thomas Roch in its power, be eventually able to extract from him what the Federal Government had vainly endeavored to obtain?
And was it reasonable, was it permissible, to suppose for an instant that he had been carried off for the benefit of a private individual?
Certainly not, was the emphatic reply to the latter question, which was too ridiculous to be entertained.

Therefore the whole power of the State was employed in an effort to recover the inventor.

In every county of North Carolina a special surveillance was organized on every road and at every railroad station, and every house in town and country was searched.

Every port from Wilmington to Norfolk was closed, and no craft of any description could leave without being thoroughly overhauled.