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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 I should have expected.
And so that outworn creed took a new lease of life; though for my part the words that clashed with it were those that had sunk the deepest. 'Esens, I protested; 'that town behind Bensersiel. 'Wassertiefe, Lotsen, Schleppboote, spluttered Davies. 'Kilometre Eisenbahn, from me, and so on. I should earn the just execration of the reader if I continued to report such a dialogue.
'This is interesting, said von Brüning, 'in what sense? 'It begins to dawn on me that you made fools of us at Bensersiel. Don't you remember, Davies, what an interest he took in all our doings? I wonder if he feared our exploring propensities might possibly lead us to Memmert? 'Upon my word, this is the blackest ingratitude. I thought I made myself particularly agreeable to you.
You could hear the murmur of the rising flood on the sands outside, but the harbour was high above it still, and the Dulcibella and the other boats squatted low in a bed of black slime. 'I wish I could get a look at your cargo, my friend, I thought to myself. We gazed at Bensersiel in silence. 'There can't be anything here? I said. 'What can there be? said Davies.
It had been dawning on me in the last half-hour that this canal was only one of several; that in concentrating myself on Esens and Bensersiel, I had forgotten that there were other villages ending in siel, also furnished on the chart with corkscrew streams; and, moreover, that Böhme's statistics of depth and distance had been marshalled in seven categories, A to G. The very first match brought full recollection as to the villages.
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.
Would they drive, as von Brüning had done a week ago? I tightened my belt, stamped my mud-burdened boots, and thanked God for the Munich beer. Whither were they going from Bensersiel, and in what; and how was I to follow them? These were nebulous questions, but I was in fettle for anything; boat-stealing was a bagatelle. Fortune, I thought, smiled; Romance beckoned; even the sea looked kind.
'When the banks uncovered we lay more quietly, so landed and took a long, tempestuous walk over the Rute, with compass and notebooks. Returning at two, we found the glass tumbling down almost visibly. 'I suggested running for Bensersiel, one of the mainland villages south-west of us, on the evening flood, as it seemed just the right opportunity, if we were to visit one of those "siels" at all.
'Why, that you must have known at Bensersiel only three days ago exactly when Herr Dollmann was coming back, having an appointment at Memmert with him for to-day. 'Which I wished to conceal from you? 'Yes, and that's why I'm so inquisitive; it's entirely your own fault. 'So it seems, said he, 'with mock humility; 'but fill your glass and go on, young man. Why should I want to deceive you?
I would rather it blew, if it wasn't for exploring those gaps, where an on-shore wind would be nasty. Six-thirty to-morrow; not later. I think I'll sleep in the saloon for the future, after what happened to-night. 15 Bensersiel THE decisive incidents of our cruise were now fast approaching.
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