He made no attempt, pending the completion of the machine, to oppose the swift current, but diving into it from the bridge, allowed himself luxuriously to be carried down into the shallows a hundred yards below, and without even the trouble of swimming.

This refreshing performance ended, he returned to the hut and dressed.

He was in the act of locking the door, preparatory to his journey up to Kennedy's lodge, when a sack was suddenly thrown over his head from behind, and next moment he found himself pinned to the ground in the clutches of two men.

Before he was well aware of what had happened, his feet were tied together, and his arms firmly lashed to his sides.

The sack was lifted from his mouth, but not long enough to enable him to shout, for a gag was roughly forced between his teeth; and then, while one of his captors held his head, the other bandaged his eyes so completely that, had he not known it, he could not have told whether it was mid-day or midnight.
Thus, in almost less time than it takes to narrate it, in broad daylight, and on the borders of his own father's estate, the unfortunate Percy was made captive, without so much as being able to give an alarm or to see the faces of his assailants.
He was deposited comfortably on the floor of his own hut, by the side, oh, cruel fate! of his own machine, and there left to work out any number of problems which might occur to him during the next six hours; while his custodians, having carefully padlocked the door, retired to a respectful distance among the trees, where they could smoke their pipes in peace, and at the same time keep an eye on the approaches to their young ward's dungeon.
It did not take Percy many minutes to convince himself that any attempt to struggle or extricate himself from his bonds would be labour thrown away.