whole party to the dinghy. Our friends of the smack insisted on our
sharing their boat out of pure good-fellowship--for there was not
nearly room for us--and would not let us go till a bucket of
fresh-caught fish had been emptied into her bottom. After much
shaking of scaly hands, we sculled back to the Dulcibella, where she
slept in a bed of tremulous stars.

Davies sniffed the wind and scanned the tree-tops, where light gusts
were toying with the leaves.

'Sou'-west still,' he said, 'and more rain coming. But it's bound to
shift into the north.'

'Will that be a good wind for us?'

'It depends where we go,' he said, slowly. 'I was asking those
fellows about duck-shooting. They seemed to think the best place
would be Schlei Fiord. That's about fifteen miles south of
Sonderburg, on the way to Kiel. They said there was a pilot chap
living at the mouth who would tell us all about it. They weren't very
encouraging though. We should want a north wind for that.'

'I don't care where we go,' I said, to my own surprise.

'Don't you really?' he rejoined, with sudden warmth. Then, with a
slight change of voice. 'You mean it's all very jolly about here?'

Of course I meant that. Before we went below we both looked for a
moment at the little grey memorial; its slender fretted arch outlined
in tender lights and darks above the hollow on the Alsen shore. The