The Riddle of the Sands
sufficient motive. There may be much in what you say about the
navigation of those channels, but it’s not enough. You say he wanted to
drown you—a big charge, requiring a big motive to support it. But I
don’t deny that you’ve got a strong case.” Davies lighted up. “I’m
willing to take a good deal for granted—until we find out more.”
He jumped up, and did a thing I never saw him do before or since—bumped
his head against the cabin roof.
“You mean that you’ll come?” he exclaimed. “Why, I hadn’t even asked
you! Yes, I want to go back and clear up the whole thing. I know now
that I want to; telling it all to you has been such an immense relief.
And a lot depended on you, too, and that’s why I’ve been feeling such
an absolute hypocrite. I say, how can I apologise?”
“Don’t worry about me; I’ve had a splendid time. And I’ll come right
enough; but I should like to know exactly what you——”
“No; but wait till I just make a clean breast of it—about you, I mean.
You see, I came to the conclusion that I could do nothing alone; not
that two are really necessary for managing the boat in the ordinary
way, but for this sort of job you _do_ want two; besides, I can’t speak
German properly, and I’m a dull chap all round. If my theory, as you
call it, is right, it’s a case for sharp wits, if ever there was one;
so I thought of you. You’re clever, and I knew you had lived in Germany
and knew German, and I knew,” he added, with a little awkwardness,
“that you had done a good deal of yachting; but of course I ought to
have told you what you were in for—roughing it in a small boat with no
crew. I felt ashamed of myself when you wired back so promptly, and
when you came—er——” Davies stammered and hesitated in the humane
resolve not to wound my feelings. “Of course I couldn’t help noticing
that it wasn’t what you expected,” was the delicate summary he arrived
at. “But you took it splendidly,” he hastened to add. “Only, somehow, I
couldn’t bring myself to talk about the plan. It was good enough of you
to come out at all, without bothering you with hare-brained schemes.
Beside, I wasn’t even sure of myself. It’s a tangled business. There
were reasons, there are reasons still”—he looked nervously at
me—“which—well, which make it a tangled business.” I had thought a
confidence was coming, and was disappointed. “I was in an idiotic state
of uncertainty,” he hurried on; “but the plan grew on me more and more,
when I saw how you were taking to the life and beginning to enjoy
yourself. All that about the ducks on the Frisian coast was humbug;
part of a stupid idea of decoying you there and gaining time. However,
you quite naturally objected, and last night I meant to chuck the whole
thing up and give you the best time here I could. Then Bartels turned
up——”
“Stop,” I put in. “Did you know he might turn up when you sailed here?”
“Yes,” said Davies, guiltily. “I knew he might; and now it’s all come
out, and you’ll come! What a fool I’ve been!”
Long before he had finished I had grasped the whole meaning of the last
few days, and had read their meaning into scores of little incidents
which had puzzled me.
“For goodness’ sake, don’t apologise,” I protested. “I could make
confessions, too, if I liked. And I doubt if you’ve been such a fool as
you think. I’m a patient that wants careful nursing, and it has been
the merest chance all through that I haven’t rebelled and bolted. We’ve
got a good deal to thank the weather for, and other little stimulants.
And you don’t know yet my reasons for deciding to try your cure at
all.”
“My cure?” said Davies; “what in the world do you mean? It was jolly
decent of you to——”
“Never mind! There’s another view of it, but it doesn’t matter now.
Let’s return to the point. What’s your plan of action?”
“It’s this,” was the prompt reply: “to get back to the North Sea, _via_
Kiel and the ship canal. Then there will be two objects: one, to work
back to Norderney, where I left off before, exploring all those
channels through the estuaries and islands; the other, to find
Dollmann, discover what he’s up to, and settle with him. The two things
may overlap, we can’t tell yet. I don’t even know where he and his
yacht are; but I’ll be bound they’re somewhere in those same waters,
and probably back at Norderney.”
“It’s a delicate matter,” I mused, dubiously, “if your theory’s
correct. Spying on a spy——”
“It’s not like that,” said Davies, indignantly. “Anyone who likes can
sail about there and explore those waters. I say, you don’t really
think it’s like that, do you?”
“I don’t think you’re likely to do anything dishonourable,” I hastened
to explain. “I grant you the sea’s public property in your sense. I
only mean that developments are possible, which you don’t reckon on.
There _must_ be more to find out than the mere navigation of those
channels, and if that’s so, mightn’t we come to be genuine spies
ourselves?”
“And, after all, hang it!” exclaimed Davies, “if it comes to that, why
shouldn’t we? I look at it like this. The man’s an Englishman, and if
he’s in with Germany he’s a traitor to us, and we as Englishmen have a
right to expose him. If we can’t do it without spying we’ve a right to
spy, at our own risk——”
“There’s a stronger argument than that. He tried to take your life.”
“I don’t care a rap about that. I’m not such an ass as to thirst for
revenge and all that, like some chap in a shilling shocker. But it
makes me wild to think of that fellow masquerading as a German, and up
to who knows what mischief—mischief enough to make him want to get rid
of _any_ one. I’m keen about the sea, and I think they’re apt to be a
bit slack at home,” he continued inconsequently. “Those Admiralty chaps
want waking up. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, it’s quite natural
that I should look him up again.”
“Quite,” I agreed; “you parted friends, and they may be delighted to
see you. You’ll have plenty to talk about.”
“H’m,” said Davies, withered into silence by the “they”. “Hullo! I say,
do you know it’s three o’clock? How the time has gone! And, by Jove! I
believe the fog’s lifting.”
I returned, with a shock, to the present, to the weeping walls, the
discoloured deal table, the ghastly breakfast litter—all the visible
symbols of the life I had pledged myself to. Disillusionment was making
rapid headway when Davies returned, and said, with energy:
“What do you say to starting for Kiel at once? The fog’s going, and
there’s a breeze from the sou’-west.”
“Now?” I protested. “Why, it’ll mean sailing all night, won’t it?”
“Oh, no,” said Davies. “Not with luck.”
“Why, it’s dark at seven!”
“Yes, but it’s only twenty-five miles. I know it’s not exactly a fair
wind, but we shall lie closehauled most of the way. The glass is
falling, and we ought to take this chance.”
To argue about winds with Davies was hopeless, and the upshot was that
we started lunchless. A pale sun was flickering out of masses of racing
vapour, and through delicate vistas between them the fair land of
Schleswig now revealed and now withdrew her pretty face, as though
smiling _adieux_ to her faithless courtiers.
The clank of our chain brought up Bartels to the deck of the
_Johannes_, rubbing his eyes and pulling round his throat a grey shawl,
which gave him a comical likeness to a lodging-house landlady receiving
the milk in morning _déshabillé._
“We’re off, Bartels,” said Davies, without looking up from his work.
“See you at Kiel, I hope.”
“You are always in a hurry, captain,” bleated the old man, shaking his
head. “You should wait till to-morrow. The sky is not good, and it will
be dark before you are off Eckenförde.”
Davies laughed, and very soon his mentor’s sad little figure was lost
in haze.
That was a curious evening. Dusk soon fell, and the devil made a
determined effort to unman me; first, with the scrambled tea which was
the tardy substitute for an orderly lunch, then with the new and
nauseous duty of filling the side-lights, which meant squatting in the
fo’c’sle to inhale paraffin and dabble in lamp-black; lastly, with an
all-round attack on my nerves as the night fell on our frail little
vessel, pitching on her precarious way through driving mist. In a sense
I think I went through the same sort of mental crisis as when I sat
upon my portmanteau at Flensburg. The main issue was not seriously in
question, for I had signed on in the _Dulcibella_ for good or ill; but
in doing so I had outrun myself, and still wanted an outlook, a mood
suited to the enterprise, proof against petty discouragements. Not for
the first time a sense of the ludicrous came to my assistance, as I saw
myself fretting in London under my burden of self-imposed woes, nicely
weighing that insidious invitation, and stepping finally into the snare
with the dignity due to my importance; kidnapped as neatly as ever a
peaceful clerk was kidnapped by a lawless press-gang, and, in the end,
finding as the arch-conspirator a guileless and warm-hearted friend,
who called me clever, lodged me in a cell, and blandly invited me to
talk German to the purpose, as he was aiming at a little secret service
on the high seas. Close in the train of Humour came Romance, veiling
her face, but I knew it was the rustle of her robes that I heard in the
foam beneath me; I knew that it was she who handed me the cup of
sparkling wine and bade me drink and be merry. Strange to me though it
was, I knew the taste when it touched my lips. It was not that bastard
concoction I had tasted in the pseudo-Bohemias of Soho; it was not the
showy but insipid beverage I should have drunk my fill of at Morven
Lodge; it was the purest of her pure vintages, instilling the ancient
inspiration which, under many guises, quickens thousands of better
brains than mine, but whose essence is always the same; the gay pursuit
of a perilous quest. Then and there I tried to clinch the matter and
keep that mood. In the main I think I succeeded, though I had many
lapses.
For the present my veins tingled with the draught. The wind humming
into the mainsail, the ghostly wave-crests riding up out of the void,
whispered a low thrilling chorus in praise of adventure. Potent indeed
must the spell have been, for, in reality, that first night sail teemed
with terrors for me. It is true that it began well, for the haze
dispersed, as Davies had prophesied, and Bulk Point Lighthouse guided
us safely to the mouth of Kiel Fiord. It was during this stage that,
crouching together aft, our pipe-bowls glowing sympathetically, we
returned to the problem before us; for we had shot out on our quest
with volcanic precipitation, leaving much to be discussed. I gleaned a
few more facts, though I dispelled no doubts. Davies had only seen the
Dollmanns on their yacht, where father and daughter were living for the
time. Their villa at Norderney, and their home life there, were unknown
to him, though he had landed once at the harbour himself. Further, he
had heard vaguely of a stepmother, absent at Hamburg. They were to have
joined her on their arrival at that city, which, be it noted, stands a
long way up the Elbe, forty miles and more above Cuxhaven, the town at
the mouth.
The exact arrangement made on the day before the fatal voyage was that
the two yachts should meet in the evening at Cuxhaven and proceed up
the river together. Then, in the ordinary course, Davies would have
parted company at Brunsbüttel (fifteen miles up), which is the western
terminus of the ship canal to the Baltic. Such at least had been his
original intention; but, putting two and two together, I gathered that
latterly, and perhaps unconfessed to himself, his resolve had weakened,
and that he would have followed the _Medusa_ to Hamburg, or indeed the
end of the world, impelled by the same motive that, contrary to all his