I bought a pocket ordnance map [There is,
of course, no space to reproduce this, but here and henceforward the
reader is referred to Map B.] of Friesland, on a much larger scale
than anything I had used before, and when I was unobserved studied
the course of the canal, with an impatience which, alas! quickly
cooled. From Emden northwards I used the same map to aid my eyesight,
and with its help saw in the gathering gloom more heaths and bogs
once a great glimmering lake, and at intervals cultivated tracts; a
watery land as ever; pools, streams and countless drains and ditches.
Extensive woods were marked also, but farther inland. We passed
Norden at seven, just dark. I looked out for the creek, and sure
enough, we crossed it just before entering the station. Its bed was
nearly dry, and I distinguished barges lying aground in it. This
being the junction for Esens, I had to wait three-quarters of an
hour, and then turned east through the uttermost northern wilds,
stopping at occasional village stations and keeping five or six miles
from the sea. It was during this stage, in a wretchedly lit
compartment, and alone for the most part, that I finally assembled
all my threads and tried to weave them into a cable whose core should
be Esens; 'a town', so Baedeker said, 'of 3,500 inhabitants, the
centre of a rich agricultural district. Fine spire.'

Esens is four miles inland from Bensersiel. I reviewed every
circumstance of that day at Bensersiel, and boiled to think how von
Bruening had tricked me. He had driven to Esens himself, and read me
so well that he actually offered to take me with him, and I had
refused from excess of cleverness. Stay, though; if I had happened to
accept he would have taken very good care that I saw nothing
important. The secret, therefore, was not writ large on the walls of
Esens. Was it connected with Bensersiel too, or the country between?
I searched the ordnance map again, standing up to get a better light
and less jolting. There was the road northwards from Esens to
Bensersiel, passing through dots and chess-board squares, the former
meaning fen, the latter fields, so the reference said. Something
else, too, immediately caught my eye, and that was a stream running
to Bensersiel. I knew it at once for the muddy stream or drain we had
seen at the harbour, issuing through the sluice or _siel_ from which
Bensersiel took its name. But it arrested my attention now because it
looked more prominent than