(“And we run aground every day,” I remarked, with resignation.)
“Is that where the Medusa gave you the slip?” asked von Brüning, still studying Davies with a strange look, which I strove anxiously to analyse.
“She wouldn’t have noticed,” said Davies. “It was very thick and squally—and she had got some way ahead. There was no need for her to stop, anyway. I got off all right; the tide was rising still. But, of course, I anchored there for the night.”
“Where?”
“Inside there, under the Hohenhörn,” said Davies, simply.
“Under the what?”
“The Hohenhörn.”
“Go on—didn’t they wait for you at Cuxhaven?”
“I don’t know; I didn’t go that way.” The Commander looked more and more puzzled.
“Not by the ship canal, I mean. I changed my mind about it, because the next day the wind was easterly. It would have been a dead beat across the sands to Cuxhaven, while it was a fair wind straight out to the Eider River. So I sailed there, and reached the Baltic that way. It was all the same.”