The
stillness was absolute.

'We can't get to Sonderburg to-night,' said Davies.

'What's to be done then?' I asked, collecting my senses.

'Oh! we'll anchor anywhere here, we're just at the mouth of the
fiord; I'll tow her inshore if you'll steer in that direction.' He
pointed vaguely at a blur of trees and cliff. Then he jumped into the
dinghy, cast off the painter, and, after snatching at the slack of a
rope, began towing the reluctant yacht by short jerks of the sculls.
The menacing aspect of that grey void, combined with a natural
preference for getting to some definite place at night, combined to
depress my spirits afresh. In my sleep I had dreamt of Morven Lodge,
of heather tea-parties after glorious slaughters of grouse, of salmon
leaping in amber pools--and now--

'Just take a cast of the lead, will you?' came Davies's voice above
the splash of the sculls.

'Where is it?' I shouted back.

'Never mind--we're close enough now; let--Can you manage to let go
the anchor?'

I hurried forward and picked impotently at the bonds of the sleeping
monster. But Davies was aboard again, and stirred him with a deft
touch or two, till he crashed into the water with a grinding of
chain.

'We shall do well here,' said he.

'Isn't this rather an open anchorage?' I suggested.

'It's only open from that quarter,' he replied. 'If it comes on to
blow from there we shall have to clear out; but I think it's only
rain. Let's stow the sails.'

Another whirlwind of activity, in which I joined as effectively as I
could, oppressed by the prospect of having to 'clear out'--who knows
whither?--at midnight. But Davies's _sang froid_ was infectious, I
suppose, and the little den below, bright-lit and soon fragrant with
cookery, pleaded insistently for affection. Yachting in this singular
style was hungry work, I found. Steak tastes none the worse for
having been wrapped in newspaper, and the slight traces of the day's
news disappear with frying in onions and potato-chips. Davies was
indeed on his mettle for this, his first dinner to his guest; for he
produced with stealthy pride, not from the dishonoured grave of the
beer, but from some more hallowed recess, a bottle of German
champagne, from which we drank success to the 'Dulcibella'.

'I wish you would tell me all about your cruise from England,' I
asked. 'You must have had some exciting adventures. Here are the
charts; let's go over them.'

'We must wash up first,' he repl