h quixotic
little craft as his, in all its inquisitive ramblings? But he fired
up.

'That's all very well,' he said, 'but think what folly it is.
However, that's a long story, and will bore you. To cut matters
short, for we ought to be turning in, I got to Borkum--that's the
first of the _German_ islands.' He pointed at a round bare lozenge
lying in the midst of a welter of sandbanks. 'Rottum--this queer
little one--it has only one house on it--is the most easterly Dutch
island, and the mainland of Holland ends _here_, opposite it, at the
Ems River'--indicating a dismal cavity in the coast, sown with names
suggestive of mud, and wrecks, and dreariness.

'What date was this?' I asked.

'About the ninth of this month.'

'Why, that's only a fortnight before you wired to me! You were pretty
quick getting to Flensburg. Wait a bit, we want another chart. Is
this the next?'

'Yes; but we scarcely need it. I only went a little way farther
on--to Norderney, in fact, the third German island--then I decided to
go straight for the Baltic. I had always had an idea of getting
there, as Knight did in the Falcon. So I made a passage of it to the
Eider River, _there_ on the West Schleswig coast, took the river and
canal through to Kiel on the Baltic, and from there made another
passage up north to Flensburg. I was a week there, and then you came,
and here we are. And now let's turn in. We'll have a fine sail
to-morrow!' He ended with rather forced vivacity, and briskly rolled
up the chart. The reluctance he had shown from the first to talk
about his cruise had been for a brief space forgotten in his
enthusiasm about a portion of it, but had returned markedly in this
bald conclusion. I felt sure that there was more in it than mere
disinclination to spin nautical yarns in the 'hardy Corinthian'
style, which can be so offensive in amateur yachtsmen; and I thought
I guessed the explanation. His voyage single-handed to the Baltic
from the Frisian Islands had been a foolhardy enterprise, with
perilous incidents, which, rather than make light of, he would not
refer to at all. Probably he was ashamed of his recklessness and
wished to ignore it with me, an inexperienced acquaintance not yet
enamoured of the 'Dulcibella's' way of life, whom both courtesy and
interest demanded that he should inspire with confidence. I liked him
all the better as I came to this conclusion, but I was tempted to
persist a little.

'I slept the whole afterno