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could be seen pointing demurely heavenwards. 'She's a splendid sea-boat,' said Davies, indignantly. 'A thousand pardons!' said von Bruening, laughing. 'Don't shake my faith in her,' I put in. 'I've got to get to England in her.' 'Heaven forbid; I was only thinking that there must have been some sea round the Scharhorn that day; a tame affair, no doubt, Herr Davies?' 'Scharhorn?' said Davies, who did not catch the idiom in the latter sentence. 'Oh, we didn't go that way. We cut through the sands--by the Telte.' 'The Telte! In a north-west gale!' The commander started, ceased to smile, and only stared. (It was genuine surprise; I could swear it. He had heard nothing of this before.) 'Herr Dollmann knew the way,' said Davies, doggedly. 'He kindly offered to pilot me through, and I wouldn't have gone otherwise.' There was an awkward little pause. 'He led you well, it seems?' said von Bruening. 'Yes; there's a nasty surf there, though, isn't there? But it saves six miles--and the Scharhorn. Not that I saved distance. I was fool enough to run aground.' 'Ah!' said the other, with interest. 'It didn't matter, because I was well inside then. Those sands are difficult at high water. We've come back that way, you know.' ('And we run aground every day,' I remarked, with resignation.) 'Is that where the 'Medusa' gave you the slip?' asked von Bruening, still studying Davies with a strange look, which I strove anxiously to analyze. 'She wouldn't have noticed,' said Davies. 'It was very thick and squally--and she had got some way ahead. There was no need for her to stop, anyway. I got off all right; the tide was rising still. But, of course, I anchored there for the night.' 'Where?' 'Inside there, under the Hohenhoern,' said Davies, simply. 'Under the _what_?' 'The Hohenhoern.' 'Go on--didn't they wait for you at Cuxhaven?' 'I don't know; I didn't go that way.' The commander looked more and more puzzled. 'Not by the ship canal, I mean. I changed my mind about it, because the next day the wind was easterly. It would have been a dead beat across the sands to Cuxhaven, while it was a fair wind straight out to the Eider River. So I sailed there, and reached the Baltic that way. It was all the same.' There was another pause. 'Well done, Davies,' I thought. He had told his story well, using no subtlety. I knew it was exactly how he would have told it to anyone else, if he had not had i
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