Part 21 (1/2)

Further argument was futile Davies by an effort seehts, and I did my best to do the same At any rate the air was cleared--ere friends; and it only reht of the 's interview

Every word that I could recollect of that critical conversation I revieith Davies, who had imperfectly understood what he had not been directly concerned in; and, as I did so, I began to see hat cleverness each succeeding sentence of von Bruning's was designed to suit both of two contingencies If ere innocent travellers, he was the genial host, communicative and helpful If ere spies, his tactics had been equally applicable He had outdone us in apparent candour, hiding nothing which he kneould discover for ourselves, and contriving at the sae and control of our s, which would only be understood if ere guilty, that ere playing an idle and perilous game, and had better desist But in one respect we had had the advantage, and that was in the version Davies had given of his stranding on the Hohenhorn Inscrutable as our questioner was, he let it appear not only that the incident was new to hinificance A little cross-examination on detail would have been fatal to Davies's version; but that here our strength lay; he dared not cross-exaht never have felt Indeed, I thought I detected that fear underlying his whole attitude towards us, and it strengthened a conviction which had been growing in ht visit, that the secret of this coast was of so important and delicate a nature that rather than attract attention to it at all, overt action against intruders would be taken only in the last resort, and on irrefragable proofs of guilty intention

Now for our clues I had coer aave full rein to ained precision and vigour every moment True, such information as we had about the French wreck and his own connection with it was placed ; but I took it to be information calculated only to forestall suspicion, since he are that we already associated him with Dollmann, possibly also with Grimm, and it was only likely that in the ordinary course we should learn that the trio were jointly concerned in Memmert So much for the facts; as for the construction he wished us to put on theive us the impression that the buried treasure itself was at the root of any ht have scented

I do not know if the reader fully appreciated that astute suggestion--the hint that secrecy as to results was necessary owing both to the great sum at stake and the flaw in the title, which he had been careful to inforh British hands What he ht visitors; English Lloyd's agents' An ingenious insinuation, which, at the time it was made, had caused me to conte doubt, and I disether now

The fact was, it either explained everything or nothing As long as we held to our fundamental assumption--that Davies had been decoyed into a death-trap in Septe It was too fantastic to suppose that the exigencies of a commercial speculation would lead to such extremities as that We were not in the South Sea Islands; nor e the puppets of a ro not only with a Dollmann, but with an officer of the German Imperial Navy, ould scarcely be connected with a commercial enterprise which could conceivably be reduced to forwarding its objects in such a fashi+on It was shocking enough to find him in relations with such a scoundrel at all, but it was explicable if the motive were iestion weto end; the attempt on Davies a delusion of his own fancy, the whole structure we had built on it, baseless

'Well,' I can hear the reader saying, 'why not? You, at any rate, were always a little sceptical'

Granted; yet I can truthfully say I scarcely faltered for a moment

Much had happened since Schlei Fiord I had seen the mechanism of the death-trap; I had lived with Davies for a storht, every hour of which had increased my reliance on his seamanshi+p, and also, therefore, on his account of an event which depended largely for its correct interpretation on a balanced nautical judge, and knew from his ement in the teeth of personal considerations, which his loyal naturein their force

What, then, was theof Memmert? At the outset it riveted my attention on the Elected the Ems in our calculations; with soht its ireater estuaries The latter bear vessels of the largest tonnage and deepest draught to the very quays of Ha, Bremerhaven, and the naval dockyard of Wilhelmshaven; while two of them, the Elbe and the Weser, are commerce carriers on the vastest scale for the whole empire The Ems, on the other hand, only serves towns of the second class A glance at the chart explains this You see a rander scale than any of the other three taken singly, with a length of thirty e on the North Sea of ten hly, of the whole seaboard; encu shoals, and blocked in the centre by the island of Borku vessel These roll superbly through enormous sheets of sand, unite and approach the mainland in one stately strea off The navigable fairway shoals and shrinks,foreshores persistently deny it that easy access to the land that alone can create great seaboard cities All the ports of the Ems are tidal; the harbour of Delfzyl, on the Dutch side, dries at loater, and Emden, the principal German port, can only be reached by a lock and a mile of canal

But this depreciation is only relative Judged on its merits, and not by the standard of the Elbe, it is a very i port For shallow craft the streaable far into the interior, where, aided by tributaries and allied canals (notably the connection with the Rhine at Dort coreat area

Strategically there was still less reason for underrating it It is one of the great ate, the nearest to Great Britain and France, contiguous to Holland

Its great forked delta presents tning breaches in that singular rampart of islets and shoals which masks the German seaboard--a seaboard itself so short in proportion to the empire's bulk, that, as Davies used to say, 'every inch of it must be important' Warshi+ps could force these breaches, and so threaten the mainland at one of its few vulnerable points Quay accoation no deterrent Even the heaviest battleshi+ps could approach within striking distance of the land, while cruisers and military transports could penetrate to the level of Emden itself Emden, as Davies had often pointed out, is connected by canal with Wilhelunboats as well as merchandise

Now Me sickle of sand directly commanded the eastern breach; it _must_ be connected with the defence of this breach No ined; self-contained and isolated, yet sheltered, accessible--better than Juist and Borku it were desired to shroud the nature of the work in absolute secrecy, what a pretext lay to hand in the wreck and its buried bullion, which lay in the offing opposite the fairway!

On Mee work, with its dredging and diving, offered precisely the disguise that was needed It was submarine, and so are soible torpedoes All the details of the story were suggestive: the 'sineer from Bremen' (who, I wondered, was he?); the few shares held by von Bruning, enough to explain his visits; the stores and gear co from Wilhelmshaven, a naval dockyard

Try as I would I could not stir Davies's i the objections, which, of course, were nuh Could secrecy be ensured under pretext of salving a wreck? It s, employees of all sorts I answered that trade secrets are often preserved under no less difficult conditions, and why not imperial secrets?

'Why the Ems and not the Elbe?' he asked

'Perhaps,' I replied, 'the Elbe, too, holds siht, for all we knew, be another Meion we had had no eyes for such things, absorbed in a preconceived theory of our own Besides, we must not take ourselves too seriously We were arounds to fastidiously reject a clue which went so far as this one was to quarrel with our luck There was a disheartening corollary to this latter argument that in my new-born zeal I shutour clue and gaining exact knowledge of the defences in question? Davies, I knew, felt this strongly, and I think it accounted for his lukewar more obstinately than ever to his 'channel theory', conscious that it offered the one sort of opportunity of which with his peculiar gifts he was able to take advantage He admitted, however, that it was under a cloud at present, for if knowledge of the coastwise navigation were a cri here now 'It's so to do with it, anyhow!' he persisted

XVIII Iripped iventhe conversation with von Bruning His reiterated advice that we should lose no ti et us away from Bensersiel and the mainland At first I had taken the advice partly as a test of our veracity (as I gave the reader to understand), and partly as an indirect ht visit ht be over-subtlety on my part, and the idea recurred when the question of our future plans cropped up, and haain when von Bruning offered to tow us out in the evening It was in my mind when I questioned him as to his business ashore, for it occurred tohere was not solely due to a wish to inspect the crew of the 'Dulcibella' Then came his perfectly frank explanation (with its sinister _double entente_ for us), coupled with an invitation to me to accompany him to Esens But, on the principle of _'tinieo Danaos'_ etc, I instantly smelt a ruse, not that I dreamt that I was to be decoyed into captivity; but if there was anything here which o enious plan to remove the most observant of the two till the hour of departure

Davies scorned thenificant ha after _terra fir had been unable to cure

But it was ihtest chance It was three o'clock, and I think both our brains were beginning to be addled with thinking in close confineested that we should finish our council of war in the open, and we both donned oilskins and turned out The sky had hardened and banked into an even canopy of lead, and the wind drove before it a fine cold rain You could hear theflood on the sands outside, but the harbour was high above it still, and the 'Dulcibella' and the other boats squatted low in a bed of black slied, for not a soul was visible on the bank (I cannot call it a quay); but the top of a black sou'wester with a feather of s round it showed above the forehatch of the 'Koro, azed at Bensersiel in silence

'There can't be anything _here_?' I said

'What _can_ there be?' said Davies

'What about that dyke?' I said, with a sudden inspiration

Fro the coast-line, which is dyked continuously, as I have already said The dyke was here a substantial brick-faced eh on a smaller scale, to that which had bordered the Elbe near Cuxhaven, and over whose suuns