elderly and peculiarly taciturn sailor named Koske, whom we
observed carefully because Robber, who was usually so friendly,
had taken an irreconcilable dislike to him. Oddly enough, this
fact was to add in some degree to our troubles in the hour of
danger. After seven days' sailing we were no further than
Copenhagen, where, without leaving the vessel, we seized an
opportunity of making our very spare diet on board more bearable
by various purchases of food and drink. In good spirits we sailed
past the beautiful castle of Elsinore, the sight of which brought
me into immediate touch with my youthful impressions of Hamlet.
We were sailing all unsuspecting through the Cattegat to the
Skagerack, when the wind, which had at first been merely
unfavourable, and had forced us to a process of weary tacking,
changed on the second day to a violent storm. For twenty-four
hours we had to struggle against it under disadvantages which
were quite new to us. In the captain's painfully narrow cabin, in
which one of us was without a proper berth, we were a prey to
sea-sickness and endless alarms. Unfortunately, the brandy cask,
at which the crew fortified themselves during their strenuous
work, was let into a hollow under the seat on which I lay at full
length. Now it happened to be Koske who came most frequently in
search of the refreshment which was such a nuisance to me, and
this in spite of the fact that on each occasion he had to
encounter Robber in mortal combat. The dog flew at him with
renewed rage each time he came climbing down the narrow steps. I
was thus compelled to make efforts which, in my state of complete
exhaustion from sea-sickness, rendered my condition every time
more critical. At last, on 27th July, the captain was compelled
by the violence of the west wind to seek a harbour on the
Norwegian coast. And how relieved I was to behold that far-