s midnight visit may have caused. Then it
struck me that this might be over-subtlety on my part, and the idea
recurred when the question of our future plans cropped up, and
hampered me in deciding on a course. It returned again when von
Bruening 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 to me
that perhaps his landing here 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 we two might discover in the few hours left to us, it was
an ingenious plan to remove the most observant of the two till the
hour of departure.

Davies scorned them, and I had felt only a faint curiosity in these
insignificant hamlets, influenced, I am afraid, chiefly by a
hankering after _terra firma_ which the pitiless rigour of his
training had been unable to cure.

But it was imprudent to neglect the slightest chance. It was three
o'clock, and I think both our brains were beginning to be addled with
thinking in close confinement. I suggested 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 the murmur
of the rising flood 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 slime. Native interest seemed to be at last
assuaged, 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 smoke
curling round it showed above the forehatch of the 'Kormoran'.

'I wish I could get a look at your cargo, my friend,' I thought to
myself.

We gazed 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.

From the bank we could see all along the coast-line, which is dyked
continuously, as I have already said. The dyke was here a substantial
brick-faced embankment, very similar, though on a smaller scale, to
that which had bordere