his ears at this. 'I'll be hanged if that was
_your_ maxim,' he laughed; 'you're too fond of the shore!'

I sent him a glance of protest, as though to say: 'What's the use of
your warning if you won't let me act on it?'

For, of course, my excuses were meant chiefly for his consumption,
and Fraulein Dollmann's. That the lady I addressed them to found them
unpalatable was not my fault.

'Then you sat in your wretched little cabin all day?' she persisted.

'All day,' I said, brazenly; 'it was the safest thing to do.' And I
looked again at Fraulein Dollmann, frankly and squarely. Our eyes
met, and she dropped hers instantly, but not before I had learnt
something; for if ever I saw misery under a mask it was on her face.
No; she had not told.

I think I puzzled the stepmother, who shrugged her white shoulders,
and said in that case she wondered we had dared to leave our precious
boat and come to supper. If we knew Frisian fogs as well as she
did--Oh, I explained, we were not so nervous as that; and as for
supper on shore, if she only knew what a Spartan life we led--

'Oh, for mercy's sake, don't tell me about it!' she cried, with a
grimace; 'I hate the mention of yachts. When I think of that dreadful
'Medusa' coming from Hamburg--' I sympathized with half my attention,
keeping one strained ear open for developments on my right. Davies, I
knew, was in the thick of it, and none too happy under Boehme's eye,
but working manfully. 'My fault'--'sudden squall'--'quite safe', were
some of the phrases I caught; while I was aware, to my alarm, that he
was actually drawing a diagram of something with bread-crumbs and
table-knives. The subject seemed to gutter out to an awkward end, and
suddenly Boehme, who was my right-hand neighbour, turned to me. 'You
are starting for England to-morrow morning?' he said.

'Yes,' I answered; 'there is a steamer at 8.15, I believe.'

'That is good. We shall be companions.'

'Are you going to England, too, sir?' I asked, with hot misgivings.

'No, no! I am going to Bremen; but we shall travel together as far
as--you go by Amsterdam, I suppose?--as far as Leer, then. That will
be very pleasant.' I fancied there was a ghoulish gusto in his tone.

'Very,' I assented. 'You are making a short stay here, then?'

'As long as usual. I visit the work at Memmert once a month or so,
spend a night with my friend Dollmann and his charming family' (he
leered round him), 'and return.'

Whether I was