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