es, von Bruening in mufti; but there was no
mistaking his tall athletic figure, pleasant features, and neat brown
beard. He was just leaving the window, gathering up a ticket and some
coins. I joined a _queue_ of three or four persons who were waiting
their turn, flattened myself between them and the partition till I
heard him walk out. Not having heard what station he had booked for,
I took a fourth-class ticket to Wittmund, which covered all chances.
Then, with my chin buried in my muffler, I sought the darkest corner
of the ill-lit combination of bar and waiting-room where, by the
tiresome custom in Germany, would-be travellers are penned till their
train is ready. Von Bruening I perceived sitting in another corner,
with his hat over his eyes and a cigar between his lips. A boy
brought me a tankard of tawny Munich beer, and, sipping it, I
watched. People passed in and out, but nobody spoke to the sailor in
mufti. When a quarter of an hour elapsed, a platform door opened, and
a raucous voice shouted: 'Hage, Dornum, Esens, Wittmund!' A knot of
passengers jostled out to the platform, showing their tickets. I was
slow over my beer, and was last of the knot, with von Bruening
immediately ahead of me, so close that his cigar smoke curled into my
face. I looked over his shoulder at the ticket he showed, missed the
name, but caught a muttered double sibilant from the official who
checked it; ran over the stations in my head, and pounced on _Esens._
That was as much I wanted to know for the present; so I made my way
to a fourth-class compartment, and lost sight of my quarry, not
venturing, till the last door had banged, to look out of the window.
When I did so two late arrivals were hurrying up to a carriage--one
tall, one of middle height; both in cloaks and comforters. Their
features I could not distinguish, but certainly neither of them was
Boehme. They had not come through the waiting-room door, but, plainly,
from the dark end of the platform, where they had been waiting. A
guard, with some surly remonstrances, shut them in, and the train
started.

Esens--the name had not surprised me; it fulfilled a presentiment
that had been growing in strength all the afternoon. For the last
time I referred to the map, pulpy and blurred with the day's
exposure, and tried to etch it into my brain. I marked the road to
Bensersiel, and how it converged by degrees on the Benser Tief until
they met at the sea. 'The tide serves!' Longing fo