vessels of
various sizes. Having made fast alongside a vacant space of quay, we
had our dinner, and then strolled out with cigars to look for the
'Johannes'. We found her wedged among a stack of galliots, and her
skipper sitting primly below before a blazing stove, reading his
Bible through spectacles. He produced a bottle of schnapps and some
very small and hard pears, while Davies twitted him mercilessly about
his false predictions.

'The sky was not good,' was all he said, beaming indulgently at his
incorrigible young friend.

Before parting for the night it was arranged that next morning we
should lash alongside the 'Johannes' when the flotilla was marshalled
for the tow through the canal.

'Karl shall steer for us both,' he said, 'and we will stay warm in
the cabin.'

The scheme was carried out, not without much confusion and loss of
paint, in the small hours of a dark and drizzling morning. Boisterous
little tugs sorted us into parties, and half lost under the massive
bulwarks of the 'Johannes' we were carried off into a black inane. If
any doubt remained as to the significance of our change of
cruising-grounds, dawn dispelled it. View there was none from the
deck of the 'Dulcibella'; it was only by standing on the mainboom that
you could see over the embankments to the vast plain of Holstein,
grey and monotonous under a pall of mist. The soft scenery of the
Schleswig coast was a baseless dream of the past, and a cold
penetrating rain added the last touch of dramatic completeness to the
staging of the new act.

For two days we travelled slowly up the mighty waterway that is the
strategic link between the two seas of Germany. Broad and straight,
massively embanked, lit by electricity at night till it is lighter
than many a great London street; traversed by great war vessels, rich
merchantmen, and humble coasters alike, it is a symbol of the new and
mighty force which, controlled by the genius of statesmen and
engineers, is thrusting the empire irresistibly forward to the goal
of maritime greatness.

'Isn't it splendid?' said Davies. 'He's a fine fellow, that emperor.'

Karl was the shock-headed, stout-limbed boy of about sixteen, who
constituted the whole crew of the 'Johannes', and was as dirty as his
master was clean. I felt a certain envious reverence for this
unprepossessing youth, seeing in him a much more efficient
counterpart of myself; but how he and his little master ever managed
to work their u