Part 5 (2/2)

Course W by S: four miles; NE by N fifteen miles Norderpiep 930 Eider River 1130' This recital of naked facts was quite characteristic when 'passages' were concerned, and any curiosity I had felt about his reticence on the previous night would have been rather allayed than stie had been torn out of the book just at this point The frayed edge left had been pruned and picked into very s point, and a child could have seen that a leaf wasof 9th Septeether at one sitting I was on the point of calling to Davies, and chaffing hiainst ; but I checked uessed the joke would touch a sensitive place and fail

Delicacy shrank fro him compelled either to amplify a deception or blunder out a confession--he was too easy a prey; and, after all, the matter was of small moment I returned the book to the shelf, the only definite result of its perusal being to recall my promise to keep a diary myself, and I then and there dedicated a notebook to the purpose

We were just lighting our cigars e heard voices and the splash of oars, followed by a buainst the hull which made Davies wince, as violations of his paint always did 'Guten Abend; wo fahren Sie hin?' greeted us as we climbed on deck It turned out to be so to their sue proved to thelishmen in bitter need of charity

'Come to Satrup,' they said; 'all the sood punch in the inn'

Nothing loth, we followed in the dinghy, skirted a bend of the Sound, and opened up the lights of a village, with some smacks at anchor in front of it We were escorted to the inn, and introduced to a fore, called coffee-punch, and a smoke-wreathed circle of smacksmen, who talked German out of courtesy, but were Danish in all else Davies was at once at horee, indeed, that I envied His German was of the crudest kind, _bizarre_ in vocabulary and comical in accent; but the freeave intuition to both hiathering, though Davies, who persistently referred to me as 'meiner Freund', tried hard to represent eneral talk I was detected at once as an uninteresting hybrid Davies, who someties and ducks, especially, as I well remember now, about the chance of sport in a certain _Schlei Fiord_ I fell into utter neglect, till rescued by a taciturn person in spectacles and a very high cap, who appeared to be the only lands smoke in my direction for some time, he asked me if I was married, and if not, when I proposed to be After this inquisition he abandoned me

It was eleven before we left this hospitable inn, escorted by the whole party to the dinghy Our friends of the sood-fellowshi+p--for there was not nearly rooht fish had been e of scaly hands, we sculled back to the 'Dulcibella', where she slept in a bed of tremulous stars

Davies sniffed the wind and scanned the tree-tops, where light gusts were toying with the leaves

'Sou'-west still,' he said, 'andBut it's bound to shi+ft into the north'

'Will that be a good wind for us?'

'It depends where we go,' he said, slowly 'I was asking those fellows about duck-shooting They seemed to think the best place would be Schlei Fiord That's about fifteen , on the way to Kiel They said there was a pilot chap living at the mouth ould tell us all about it They weren't very encouraging though We should want a north wind for that'

'I don't care where we go,' I said, to my own surprise

'Don't you really?' he rejoined, with sudden ware of voice 'You mean it's all very jolly about here?'

Of course I meant that Before ent beloe both looked for a rey hts and darks above the hollow on the Alsen shore The night was that of 27th September, the third I had spent on the 'Dulcibella'

VI Schlei Fiord

I MAKE no apology for having described these early days in some detail It is no wonder that their trivialities are as vividly beforecorner of the world For every trifle, sordid or picturesque, was relevant; every scrap of talk a link; every passing ht indeed were the deteredthe most momentous I have ever approached

Two days e On the first, the southwesterly wind still holding, we sallied forth into Augustenburg Fiord, 'to practise smartness in a heavy thresh,' as Davies put it It was the day of dedication for those disgusting oilskins, iles, I felt distressfully cumbersome; a day of proof indeed for me, for heavy squalls swept incessantly over the loch, and Davies, at aveinto coves and out again, reefing and unreefing, now stung with rain, noarmed with sun, but never with time to breathe or think

I wrestled with intractable ropes, slaves if they could be subdued, tyrants if they got the upper hand; creeping, craning, straining, I made the painful round of the deck, while Davies, hatless and tranquil, directedin a hard breeze to ard

It's the finest sport on earth'

So I grappled with the niceties of that delicate craft; s eyes, chafed hands, and dazed brain all pressed into the service, whilst Davies, ta the ropes the while, shouted intoripple in the luff of the ns that they are starved of wind and iven more; the heavy list andof the hull, the feel of the wind on your cheek instead of your nose, the broader angle of the burgee at the ing recreantly to leeward instead of fighting to ard He taughtsqualls, and the way to press your advantage when they are defeated--the iron hand in the velvet glove that the wilful tiller needs if you are to gain your ends with it; the exact set of the sheets necessary to get the easiest and swiftest play of the hull--all these things and led to apprehend, careless for the edly set on knowing them Needless to say, I had no eyes for beauty The wooded inlets we dived into gave a brief respite from wind and spindrift, but called into use the lead and the centre-board tackle--t and cumbrous coation had to be sated even in these secure and tideless waters

'Let's get in as near as we can--you stand by the lead,' was his formula; so I made false casts, tripped up in the slack, sent rivers of water up inners in the art commit, while the sand shohiter beneath the keel, till Davies regretfully drew off and shouted: 'Ready about, centre-plate down,' and I dashed down to the trappings of that diabolical contrivance, the only part of the 'Dulcibella's' equipment that I hated fiercely to the last It had an odious habit when lowered of spouting jets of water through its chain-lead on to the cabin floor One ofit with cotton-waste, but even then its choking gurgle was a -room In aour ste through spray and rain for some point on the opposite shore

Of our destination and objects, if we had any, I knew nothing At the northern end of the fiord, just before we turned, Davies had turned drea at the tiuidance, if I was to avoid a sudden jibe As though continuing aloud sou farther north Ducks, weather, and charts figured in it, but I did not follow the pros and cons I only know that we suddenly turned and began to 'battle' south again At sunset ere back oncethe trees and fields of Als Sound, a wondrous peace succeeding the tur h not nearly yet in its perfection) the unique exultation that follows such a day, when, glowing all over, deliciously tired and pleasantly sore, you eat what seems ambrosia, be it only tinned beef; and drink nectar, be it only distilled from terrestrial hops or coffee berries, and inhale as cul luxury balht of

On the following , the 30th, a joyous shout of 'Nor'-ind' senton deck, in the s chain It was a cloudy, unsettled day, but still enough after yesterday's boisterous ordeal We retraced our way past Sonderburg, and thence sailed for a faint line of pale green on the far south-western horizon It was during this passage that an incident occurred, which, slight as it was, opened my eyes to much