Part 37 (2/2)

One night's rest--I , luxurious night, and then back refreshed to Friesland, to finish our work in our oay, and with none but our oeapons

Having reached this resolve, I was nearly putting it into instant execution, by alighting at Aht better of it I had a transformation to effect before I returned North, and the more populous centre I made it in the less it was likely to attract notice Besides, I had in my mind's eye a perfect bed in a perfect hostelry hard by the Amstel River It was an econo my coffee in the aforesaid hostelry, with a London newspaper before , and so not theirs', were one and all seething with rancorous Anglophobia At nine I was in the Jewish quarter, striking bargains in an infa this unscrupulous telegram to my chief--'Very sorry, could not call Norderney; hope extension all right; please write to Hotel du Louvre, Paris' At ten I was in the perfect bed, rapturously flinging lorious redundancies And at 828 on the following , with a novel chilliness about the upper lip, and a vast excess of strength and spirits, I was sitting in a third-class carriage, bound for Ger seaman, in a pea-jacket, peaked cap, and comforter

The transition had not been difficult I had shaved off my moustache and breakfasted hastily in my bedroom, ready equipped for a journey in my ulster and cloth cap I had dis at the cloak-roo the ulster The umber bundle, which consisted of arth of tarry rope, was now in the rack above e Every article in it--I shudder at their origin--was in strict keeping with my humble _metier,_ for I knew they were liable to search at the frontier custom-house; but there was a Baedeker of Northern Germany in my jacket pocket

For the nonce, if questions were asked, I was an English sea to Emden to join a shi+p, with a ticket as far as the frontier

Beyond that a definite sche, however, was sure I was deterht, the 25th A word about Norden, which is a small town seventhe ht of Norden, because it did not appear to be on the coast, but Davies had noticed it while I slept, and I no that his pencilled hint was a shrewd one The creek he spoke of, though barely visible on the map, _[see Map B]_ flowed into the Eht train' tallied to perfection, for high tide in the creek would be, as Davies estiht of the 25th; and the ti at Norden was one fro Emden, which I had inclined to on the spur of the moment, was out of court in co that it was served by three trains between 9 puous and not decisive as with Norden

So far good; but hoas I to spend the intervening tio to Bremen after Bohme? I soon dismissed that idea It was one to act upon if others failed; for the present it meant another scramble Bremen is six hours from Norden by rail I should spend a disproportionate amount of uise Besides, I had already learnt so fresh about Bohme; for the seed dropped at Eineer I knew him to be before; I no that canals were another branch of his labours--not a very illule day?

There reht--a tedious journey, lasting till past eight in the evening; but there I should only be an hour fro I strove for light on the central ination, fros, every elusive atom of material Soely at me over his china pipe

I was more careful over the German border Davies's paper I soon knew by heart I pictured hi it with his craainst sleep, absently striking salvos ofinto drearey tah not a word of her ca faith in the 'channel theory' reconciled at the eleventh hour, with new data touching the neglected 'land'

The result was certainly interesting, but it left me cold That there existed in the German archives some such scheme of defence for the North Sea coast was very likely indeed The seven islands, with their seven shallow channels (though, by the way, two of them, the twin branches of the Ems, are by no means so shalloere a very fair conjecture, and fitted in admirably with the channel theory, whose intrinsicbeen that it did not go nearly far enough to account for our treat of railway round the peninsula, with Esens at the apex, was suggestive, too; but the same objection applied Every country with a maritime frontier has, I suppose, secret plans of mobilization for its defence, but they are not such as could be discovered by passing travellers, not such as would warrant stealthy searches, or require for their elaboration so recondite a -place as Meland, spying All countries, Gerh necessary tools; but Dollmann in such intimate association with the principal plotters on this side; Dollmann rich, influential, a power in local affairs--it was clear he was no ordinary spy

And here I detected a hesitation in Davies's rough sketch, a reluctance, as it were, to pursue a clue to its logical end He spoke of a German sche for English plans in the event of ith Germany, and there he left the matter; but what sort of plans? Obviously (if he was on the right track) plans of attack on the Gerh seas But what sort of an attack? Obviously again, if his railway-ring , an attack by invasion on that remote and desolate littoral which he had so often hinably secure behind its web of sands and shallows My mind went back to my question at Bensersiel, 'Can this coast be invaded?' to his denial and our fruitless survey of the dykes and polders Was he now reverting to a fancy we had both rejected, while shrinking fro

A brief digression here about the phases of ed trains, turned due north and became a German seaman There was little risk in a defective accent--sailors are so polyglot; while an English sailor straying about Esens ht excite curiosity

Yesterday I had paid no heed to the landscape; to-day I neglected nothing that could conceivably supply a hint

From Rheine to Eh a land of thriving towns and fat pastures, degenerating farther north to spaces of heathery bog andat its best, such as that was, for I shouldhad been as cold and hter as the day advanced; whileand the anticyclone giving way to pressure from the Atlantic

At Emden, where we entered Friesland proper, the train crossed a big canal, and for the twentieth time that day (for we had passed numbers of them in Holland, and not a few in Germany), I said to myself, 'Canals, canals Where does Bohh to see an unfamiliar craft, a torpedo-boat in fact, moored to stakes at one side In a e in the North Sea Pilot where the Eun-boats, and as used for that strategic purpose between Wilhel the base, that is, of the Frisian peninsula I asked a peasant opposite; yes, that was the Ereatly strengthened his halting sketch

At the bookstall at Eht a pocket ordnance map [There is, of course, no space to reproduce this, but here and henceforward the reader is referred to Map B] of Friesland, on aI had used before, and when I was unobserved studied the course of the canal, with an impatience which, alas! quickly cooled Froht, and with its help saw in the gathering gloo lake, and at intervals cultivated tracts; a watery land as ever; pools, streams and countless drains and ditches

Extensive woods were marked also, but farther inland We passed Norden at seven, just dark I looked out for the creek, and sure enough, we crossed it just before entering the station Its bed was nearly dry, and I distinguished barges lying aground in it This being the junction for Esens, I had to wait three-quarters of an hour, and then turned east through the uttere stations and keeping five or six e, in a wretchedly lit compartment, and alone for the most part, that I finally assembled all my threads and tried to weave them into a cable whose core should be Esens; 'a town', so Baedeker said, 'of 3,500 inhabitants, the centre of a rich agricultural district Fine spire'

Esens is four miles inland from Bensersiel I reviewed every circumstance of that day at Bensersiel, and boiled to think how von Bruning had tricked me He had driven to Esens himself, and read me so well that he actually offered to take me with hih; if I had happened to accept he would have taken very good care that I saw nothing ie on the walls of Esens Was it connected with Bensersiel too, or the country between?

I searched the ordnanceThere was the road northwards froh dots and chess-board squares, the for fen, the latter fields, so the reference said Sohtto Bensersiel I knew it at once for thethrough the sluice or _siel_ from which Bensersiel took its name But it arrested my attention now because it looked more pronore the geography of the mainland, except in so far as it offers sea-marks to h little corkscrew, like a sucking-pig's tail On the ordnance map it was marked with a dark blue line, was labelled 'Benser Tief', and was given a les, and there hat appeared to be artificial straightnesses at certain points

One of the threads in led sy astraddle on both seats, with the reedily followed the course of the 'tief' southward It inclined away from the road to Esens and passed the town about aunderneath the railway Soon after it took angular tacks to the eastward, and joined another blue line trending south-east, and lettered 'Esens--Wittmunde _Canal_' This canal, however, ca town

For the first tienuine inspiration Those shallow depths and short distances, fractions of metres and kilometres, which I had overheard from Bohme's lips at Memmert, and which Davies had attributed to the outside channels--did they refer to a canal? I rees in Bensersiel harbour I remembered conversations with the natives in the inn, scraps of the post- trade, of bricks and grain passing from the interior to the islands: fro?--of expansion of business in the islands theain--von Bruning himself, surely--of Dollmann's personal activity in the develops, I saw the torpedo-boat in the Ems-Jade Canal

It was between Dornum and Esens that these ideas came, and I was still absorbed in them when the train drew up, just upon nine o'clock, atwith a handful of other passengers, I found reat church steeple, that we had so often seen froht

XXVI The Seven Siels

SELECTING the very humblest _Gasthaus_ I could discover, I laid down my bundle and called for beer, bread, and _Wurst_ The landlord, as I had expected, spoke the Frisian dialect, so that though he was rather difficult to understand, he had no doubts about the purity of h accent He was a worthy fellow, and hospitably interested: 'Did I want a bed?' 'No; I was going on to Bensersiel,' I said, 'to sleep there, and take the otten our friends the twin giants and their functions) 'I was not an islander myself?' he asked 'No, but I had a , and was going to visit her' 'By the way,' I asked, 'how are they getting on with the Benser Tief?' My friend shrugged his shoulders; it was finished, he believed 'And the connexion to Witt ahead then?' 'Oh! he supposed so, but he did not believe in these new-fangled scheood for trade, I supposed? Esens would benefit in sending goods by the ”tief”--as the traffic, by the way?' 'Oh, a few e-loads than before of bricks, ti _he_ knew: _Aktiengesellschaften_ (coot them up and made money themselves out of land and contracts, while the shareholders they had hoodwinked starved' 'There's sooted old conservative; '-house from a man named Dollmann; they say he owns a heap of land about I saw his yacht once--pink velvet and electric light inside, they say----'