aid Davies; 'if the fog lasts the
steamer's sure to be late.'

'We can count for nothing,' I answered. 'There was some little
steamboat off the depot, and the fog may lift. Which is our quickest
way?'

'At this tide, a bee-line to Norderney by compass; we shall have
water over all the banks.'

He had all his preparations made, the lamp lit in advance, the
compass in position, and we started at once; he at the bow-oar, where
he had better control over the boat's nose; lamp and compass on the
floor between us. Twilight thickened into darkness--a choking, pasty
darkness--and still we sped unfalteringly over that trackless waste,
sitting and swinging in our little pool of stifled orange light. To
drown fatigue and suspense I conned over my clues, and tried to carve
into my memory every fugitive word I had overheard.

'What are there seven of round here?' I called back to Davies once
(thinking of A to G). 'Sorry,' I added, for no answer came.

'I see a star,' was my next word, after a long interval. 'Now it's
gone. There it is again! Right aft!'

'That's Borkum light,' said Davies, presently; 'the fog's lifting.' A
keen wind from the west struck our faces, and as swiftly as it had
come the fog rolled away from us, in one mighty mass, stripping clean
and pure the starry dome of heaven, still bright with the western
after-glow, and beginning to redden in the east to the rising moon.
Norderney light was flashing ahead, and Davies could take his tired
eyes from the pool of light.

'Damn!' was all he uttered in the way of gratitude for this mercy,
and I felt very much the same; for in a fog Davies in a dinghy was a
match for a steamer; in a clear he lost his handicap.

It was a quarter to seven. 'An hour'll do it, if we buck up,' he
pronounced, after taking a rough bearing with the two lights. He
pointed out a star to me, which we were to keep exactly astern, and
again I applied to their labour my aching back and smarting palms.

'What did you say about seven of something?' said Davies.

'What are there seven of hereabouts?'

'Islands, of course,' said Davies. 'Is that the clue?'

'Maybe.'

Then followed the most singular of all our confabulations. Two
memories are better than one, and the sooner I carved the cipher into
his memory as well as mine the better record we should have. So, with
rigid economy of breath, I snapped out all my story, and answered his
breathless questions. It saved me from being mesmerized