I nodded and laughed, though in reality I was very far from being amused.
“Where was it you met?” I asked.
“In an ugly place, and in ugly weather,” he answered, gravely, but with a twinkle of fun in his eye. “But has he not told you?” he added, with ponderous slyness. “I came just in time. No! what am I saying? He is brave as a lion and quick as a cat. I think he cannot drown; but still it was an ugly place and ugly——”
“What are you talking about, Bartels?” interrupted Davies, emerging noisily with a boiling kettle.
I answered the question. “I was just asking your friend how it was you made his acquaintance.”
“Oh, he helped me out of a bit of a mess in the North Sea, didn’t you, Bartels?” he said.
“It was nothing,” said Bartels. “But the North Sea is no place for your little boat, captain. So I have told you many times. How did you like Flensburg? A fine town, is it not? Did you find Herr Krank, the carpenter? I see you have placed a little mizzen-mast. The rudder was nothing much, but it was well that it held to the Eider. But she is strong and good, your little ship, and—Heaven!—she had need be so.” He chuckled, and shook his head at Davies as at a wayward child.
This is all the conversation that I need record. For my part I merely waited for its end, determined on my course, which was to know the truth once and for all, and make an end of these distracting mystifications. Davies plied his friend with coffee, and kept up the talk gallantly; but affectionate as he was, his manner plainly showed that he wanted to be alone with me.
The gist of the little skipper’s talk was a parental warning that, though we were well enough here in the “Ost-See”, it was time for little boats to be looking for winter quarters. That he himself was going by the Kiel Canal to Hamburg to spend a cosy winter as a decent citizen at his warm fireside, and that we should follow his example. He ended with an invitation to us to visit him on the Johannes, and with suave farewells disappeared into the fog. Davies saw him into his boat, returned without wasting a moment, and sat down on the sofa opposite me.
“What did he mean?” I asked.