'HERE she comes,' said Davies. It was nine o'clock on the next day,
22nd October, and we were on deck waiting for the arrival of the
steamer from Norddeich. There was no change in the weather--still the
same stringent cold, with a high barometer, and only fickle flaws of
air; but the morning was gloriously clear, except for a wreath or two
of mist curling like smoke from the sea, and an attenuated belt of
opaque fog on the northern horizon. The harbour lay open before us,
and very commodious and civilized it looked, enclosed between two
long piers which ran quite half a mile out from the land to the
road-stead (Riff-Gat by name) where we lay. A stranger might have
taken it for a deep and spacious haven; but this, of course, was an
illusion, due to the high water. Davies knew that three-quarters of
it was mud, the remainder being a dredged-out channel along the
western pier. A couple of tugs, a dredger, and a ferry packet with
steam up, were moored on that side--a small stack of galliots on the
other. Beyond these was another vessel, a galliot in build, but
radiant as a queen among sluts; her varnished sides and spars
flashing orange in the sun. These, and her snow-white sail-covers and
the twinkle of brass and gun-metal, proclaimed her to be a yacht. I
had already studied her through the glasses and read on her stern
Medusa. A couple of sailors were swabbing her decks; you could hear
the slush of the water and the scratching of the deck-brooms. '_They_
can see us anyway,' Davies had said.

For that matter all the world could see us--certainly the incoming
steamer must; for we lay as near to the pier as safety permitted,
abreast of the berth she would occupy, as we knew by a gangway and a
knot of sailors.