United States or Christmas Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I should like to see your father again. Up to this moment I had been doubtful of his final decision; for ever since our explanation at Bensersiel I had had the feeling that I was holding his nose to a very cruel grindstone.
Esens the name had not surprised me; it fulfilled a presentiment that had been growing in strength all the afternoon. For the last time I referred to the map, pulpy and blurred with the day's exposure, and tried to etch it into my brain. I marked the road to Bensersiel, and how it converged by degrees on the Benser Tief until they met at the sea. We should reach Esens at 8.50.
The latter walked well in advance of the first pair, but at the gate on to the high road the three showed a common purpose, in that, unlike the rest, who turned towards Esens town, they turned southwards; much to my perplexity, for this was the contrary direction to Bensersiel and the sea.
I appeal to you, Herr Dollmann, for it was apropos of you. When we fell in with him at Bensersiel, Davies asked him if you were at home, and he said "No." When would you be back? Probably soon; but he did not know when. 'Oh, he said that? said Dollmann. 'Well, only three days later we arrive at Norderney, and find you have returned that very day, but have gone to Memmert.
The tide was swirling into the harbour in whorls of chocolate froth, and as it rose all Bensersiel, dominated as before by Herr Schenkel, straggled down to the quay to watch the movements of shipping during the transient but momentous hour when the mud-hole was a seaport. The captain's steam-cutter was already afloat, and her sailors busy with sidelights and engines.
I still wanted one to make seven, and as a working hypothesis added the solitary Greetsiel. At all seven villages streams debouched, as at Bensersiel. From all seven points of issue dotted lines were marked seaward, intersecting the great tidal sands and leading towards the islands. And on the mainland behind the whole sevenfold system ran the loop of railway.
'Ignorant, that is, of her father's treasonable machinations; but aware, clearly, that they were English refugees with a past to hide. I said other things, but they do not matter. 'Only, I concluded, 'it makes the dilemma infinitely worse. 'There's no dilemma at all, said Davies. 'You said at Bensersiel that we couldn't hurt him without hurting her. Well, all I can say is, we've got to.
In a fog I might have followed them there; as it was, the night was none too dark, and I had my strength to husband; and stamped on my memory were the words 'the tide serves'. I judged it a wiser use of time and sinew to anticipate them at Bensersiel by the shortest road, leaving them to reach it by way of the devious Tief, to examine which was, I felt convinced, one of their objects.
We soon made out the Bensersiel booms, but even under mizzen and foresail only we travelled too fast, and had to heave to outside them, for the channel looked too shallow still. We lowered half the centre-board and kept her just holding her own to windward, through a most trying period.
Obviously again, if his railway-ring meant anything, an attack by invasion on that remote and desolate littoral which he had so often himself declared to be impregnably secure behind its web of sands and shallows. My mind went back to my question at Bensersiel, 'Can this coast be invaded? to his denial and our fruitless survey of the dykes and polders.
Word Of The Day