Reinhold did not know what her exclamation meant. At this moment the others also surmounted the steep hill.
"Per aspera ad astra!" panted the President.
"I congratulate you, sir!" said the General.
"There was a good deal of luck in it," answered Reinhold modestly.
"And people must have luck, I suppose!" cried Elsa, who had quickly conquered that curious feeling, and now relapsed into her gay spirits.
The little company proceeded farther over the dunes. Reinhold again in front, while Elsa now kept with the other gentlemen.
"It is curious enough," said the General, "that our mishap should occur just at this part of the coast. It really seems as if we were to be punished for our opposition; and certainly if my opinion that a harbour for men-of-war would be of no good here does remain unshaken, it seems to me now that we ourselves have nearly suffered shipwreck here, that a harbour of some sort----"
"Is an object devoutly to be wished!" cried the President; "heaven knows it is. And when I think of the fearful cold I shall catch from this nocturnal walk in the horrible wet sand, and that I might instead be sitting in a comfortable railway carriage, and could sleep in my own bed to-night, I repent of every word that I have spoken against the railroad, and on account of which I have quarrelled with all our great people here, and not least with Count Golm, whose friendship now would be very convenient to us."
"How so?" asked the General.
"Castle Golm, according to my reckoning, is only four or five miles inland from here; the little shooting-box on the Golmberg----"