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If any doubt remained as to the significance of our change of cruising-grounds, dawn dispelled it. View there was none from the deck of the Dulcibella; it was only by standing on the mainboom that you could see over the embankments to the vast plain of Holstein, grey and monotonous under a pall of mist.
And, by the way, why in Heaven's name 'a prismatic compass'? I fingered a few magazines, played a game of fifty with a friendly old fogey, too importunate to be worth the labour of resisting, and went back to my chambers to bed, ignorant that a friendly Providence had come to my rescue; and, indeed, rather resenting any clumsy attempt at such friendliness. 2 The 'Dulcibella'
It was a relief to Pennie just now to cuff and scold Jemima, and to pet the Lady Dulcibella, who was a wax doll with a lovely pink and white complexion, and real golden hair and eyelashes. She had everything befitting a doll of her station and appearance a comfortable bed with white curtains, an arm-chair with a chintz cushion, private brushes and combs, and an elegant travelling trunk.
Her life altogether was a contrast to Jemima's, who never went to bed at all, and had no possessions except one ragged old red dress; nevertheless, it is possible that Dulcibella with all her elegance would have been the more easily spared of the two.
It was explained when I went on deck, and I found the Dulcibella wrapped in a fog, silent, clammy, nothing visible from her decks but the ghostly hull of a galliot at anchor near us. She must have brought up there in the night, for there had been nothing so close the evening before; and I remembered that my sleep had been broken once by sounds of rumbling chain and gruff voices.
It was an impulse that drove me forward; but an impulse founded on reason, with just a tinge, perhaps, of superstition; for the quest had begun in a fog and might fitly end in one. It was twenty-five minutes to eleven when we noiselessly pushed off. 'Let her drift, whispered Davies, 'the ebb'll carry her past the pier. We slid by the Dulcibella, and she disappeared.
All the time the distant hissing grew nearer and louder, and a deep, thunderous note began to sound beneath it. We turned our backs to the wind and hastened back towards the Dulcibella, the stream in our channel hurrying and rising alongside of us.
'Oh, really, I said, beginning to feel highly absurd, but keenly curious. 'And she inquired about the Dulcibella? 'Herrgott! she was difficult to satisfy! Stood over me while I searched the books. "A very little one," she kept saying, and "Are you sure all the names are here?" I saw her into her kleine Boot, and she rowed away in the rain. No, she left no message.
'You mean it's all very jolly about here? Of course I meant that. Before we went below we both looked for a moment at the little grey memorial; its slender fretted arch outlined in tender lights and darks above the hollow on the Alsen shore. The night was that of 27th September, the third I had spent on the Dulcibella. 6 Schlei Fiord
The only thing I could have sworn to from the first was that he had purposely left me in the lurch that day. I pieced out the rest in the next few days, which I'll just finish with as shortly as I can. Bartels came aboard next morning, and though it was blowing hard still we managed to shift the Dulcibella to a place where she dried safely at the mid-day low water, and we could get at her rudder.
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