"It is half-past four o'clock," said Else; "we must go. Stay here! I am not sure that Father has arrived yet; even if he left by the noon train, he can't be in Warnow yet; but that dreadful man is certainly there, waiting for you, will perhaps go away again without waiting for your return—"
"I must speak with him," muttered Valerie.
"And you must speak with him alone, though I don't wish you to do so; and so we must go——"
"Without taking along any consolation for you, poor child!"
"I am consoled; I am quite calm.—You must know that from the way I talk and look."
Else bent down to her aunt and kissed her pale lips.
They were sitting at the window of Reinhold's study, to the right of the entrance of the one-storied house—a rather large one in comparison with the other houses. Else had been in almost all of them—in the houses of the two chief pilots, and in five or six of the twelve houses occupied by the other twenty-four pilots; and she would have gone into the houses of the other pilots, also, and the fisher-houses, of which there might have been several dozen, but it was not necessary, because the people were standing in the doors and stretching out their hands wherever she came—wrinkled hairy hands of a few worn-out tars, who had crept out from behind the warm stove; brown strong hands of brown strong women; small hard hands of rough, flaxen-haired children, who looked up with blue eyes to the beautiful lady and did not believe their mothers when they said that she was not a princess, but the Commander's betrothed, who was to live here always, and was so happy about it! And the Commander would come back, the women said, even if it were a worse storm, the worst which Claus Rickmann had ever seen—and he was ninety-two years old, so his word must mean something! The Commander understood his business, and had six with him who also understood their business, and he had already been out three times in the new life-boat without once upsetting, so it would not upset today, especially since his dear betrothed herself had come to meet him on his return.
So the women spoke, one after another, almost the same words, as if they had previously arranged what they should say; and then they had all said so many good things about the Commander, to the effect that he was better than the old commander, though he, too, had been a good man; and they had all said the same thing over again, one after the other, almost in the same words, with the same frank expression, and in the same tone; but Else could have heard it a thousand times more, and thanked each one individually, as if she heard it for the first time and as if it were a message from Heaven.
And then a whole host of women and girls, with a still larger number of children running beside them and after them, accompanied her to the place near the end of the peninsula, where signal-staffs and great light-buoys were placed on a high dune; and behind the dune, which offered at least some protection, a dense mass of men, in high wading boots and strange oilskin hats reaching far down behind, were looking out upon the raging sea; and, as the young lady slipped into their midst, they raised their oilskin hats, and left it to Claus Janssen, the oldest of them, to answer the young lady's questions, and listened and nodded eagerly, and, when they turned away to spy out over the sea, were careful that it was to the leeward.
And Claus Janssen related that, in the early morning, when it had grown light enough, a yacht, now anchored, had run in and brought the news that a ship was aground at the Gruenwald Oie, and was flying a signal of distress. There was such a high surf at that point that they could see only the masts and occasionally the hull and that there were people on it, hanging to the riggings. The ship—a small Dutch schooner—seemed to be well built, and could hold out a few hours or so, as it was on smooth sand, if the waves didn't wash the men overboard in the meantime. From the Oie no one could get to the ship—an ordinary boat would capsize immediately in the surf; half an hour later the life-boat was launched by the Commander, and they could follow it for three hours as it held its course against the storm, and they had finally seen it in the surf off the Oie. But the surf must have been very heavy, and the fog too dense, for they had lost sight of it then—even from the crow's nest, with the strongest glass—and they didn't know whether the Commander had got aboard—it was certainly a hard bit of work, because it had lasted so long; but the Commander—he would pull through. And now the young lady should go in and have Mrs. Rickmann make her a cup of tea; they would give her notice when the boat was in sight, and so far as the others were concerned the young lady should be quite at ease; the Commander understood his business, and the six who were with him understood their business, too!