ut I was knocked up at dawn by a sailor with a message from
Dollmann asking if he could come to breakfast with me. I was rather
flabbergasted, but didn't like to be rude, so I said, "Yes." Well, he
came, and I returned the call--and--well, the end of it was that I
stayed at anchor there for three days.' This was rather abrupt.

'How did you spend the time?' I asked. Stopping three days anywhere
was an unusual event for him, as I knew from his log.

'Oh, I lunched or dined with him once or twice--with _them_, I ought
to say,' he added, hurriedly. 'His daughter was with him. She didn't
appear the evening I first called.'

'And what was she like?' I asked, promptly, before he could hurry on.

'Oh, she seemed a very nice girl,' was the guarded reply, delivered
with particular unconcern, 'and--the end of it was that I and the
'Medusa' sailed away in company. I must tell you how it came about,
just in a few words for the present.

'It was his suggestion. He said he had to sail to Hamburg, and
proposed that I should go with him in the 'Dulcibella' as far as the
Elbe, and then, if I liked, I could take the ship canal at
Brunsbuettel through to Kiel and the Baltic. I had no very fixed plans
of my own, though I had meant to go on exploring eastwards between
the islands and the coast, and so reach the Elbe in a much slower
way. He dissuaded me from this, sticking to it that I should have no
chance of ducks, and urging other reasons. Anyway, we settled to sail
in company direct to Cuxhaven, in the Elbe. With a fair wind and an
early start it should be only one day's sail of about sixty miles.

'The plan only came to a head on the evening of the third day, 12th
September.

'I told you, I think, that the weather had broken after a long spell
of heat. That very day it had been blowing pretty hard from the west,
and the glass was falling still. I said, of course, that I couldn't
go with him if the weather was too bad, but he prophesied a good day,
said it was an easy sail, and altogether put me on my mettle. You can
guess how it was. Perhaps I had talked about single-handed cruising
as though it were easier than it was, though I never meant it in a
boasting way, for I hate that sort of thing, and besides there _is_
no danger if you're careful--'

'Oh, go on,' I said.

'Anyway, we went next morning at six. It was a dirty-looking day,
wind W.N.W., but his sails were going up and mine followed. I took
two reefs in, and we saile