"I am afraid we have only fallen from the frying-pan into the fire," said the President in a melancholy tone.
"It is a comfort to me that it is not our fault," answered the General, not without some sharpness in his deep voice.
"Oh! certainly not, most surely not!" admitted the President; "mea maxima culpa! my own fault entirely, Fräulein von Werben. But you must confess that our situation is deplorable, really miserably deplorable!"
"I don't know," answered Elsa; "I think it is quite beautiful here."
"I congratulate you with all my heart," said the President; "but for my part I should prefer a fire, a wing of chicken, and half a bottle of St. Julien; but if it is a consolation only to have companions in misfortune, it is a double one to know that what to the sober experience of the one is a very real misfortune, appears to the youthful fancy of the other as a romantic adventure."
The President had hit the mark, though he spoke in jest. The whole thing appeared to Elsa as a romantic adventure, in which she found most real and sincere pleasure. When Reinhold brought her the first news of the threatening danger, she was certainly startled, but not for a moment had she felt afraid, not even when angry men, shrieking women, and crying children had hurried from the ship, which seemed doomed to destruction, into the large boat, which tossed up and down on the dark waves, while from the open sea the evening drew in darkly and gloomily. The tall sailor with the bright blue eyes had said that there was no danger; he must know; then why should she be afraid? And if danger should arise, he was a man who would be sure to do the right thing at the right moment, and would know how to meet the danger. This feeling of security had not deserted her even when they came through the surf, the little boat tossing about like a nutshell in the foaming waves, the President as pale as death perpetually exclaiming, "Bless my soul!" and even her father's grave face showing a shade of anxiety. She had only looked towards the man at the helm, and the blue eyes had shone as brightly as before, even more brightly as he smiled in answer to her inquiring glance. Then as the boat ran ashore, and the sailors carried the President, her father, and the two servants to land, and she stood at the end meditating a bold spring, she had found herself suddenly encircled by two strong arms, and so half carried, half springing, she hardly knew how, landed on dry ground without wetting the sole of her foot.
And so she now stood here, a few paces apart from the men, who were consulting together, wrapped in her cloak, and with a feeling of such happiness as she believed she had never yet experienced. How wonderfully beautiful it was, too! Before her the dark, raging, thundering, endless sea, over which the black and threatening night drew on; right and left as far as the eye could see the line of white foaming surf, the glorious moist wind blustering round her, howling in her ears, blowing her dress about, even driving some flecks of foam in her face; behind her the barren ghostly-looking dunes, on which, still visible against the lighter western sky, the long bent-grass was nodding and beckoning--whither? further into this delightful, charming adventure, that was not ended yet, that could not end, that ought not to end! it would be too hard.
The gentlemen came towards her.
"Elsa," said the General, "we have decided to make an expedition over the dunes inland. The fishing hamlet at which the larger boat landed is nearly a mile off, and the walk there in the deep sand would be too fatiguing for our good friend the President. Besides, we should hardly find any accommodation there."
"If only we do not lose our way on the dunes!" sighed the President.
"Captain Schmidt's knowledge of the ground will guarantee us against that," said the General.
"I can hardly call it knowledge of the ground, General," replied Reinhold. "I have only once, and that was six years ago, looked over the country inland from the top of these dunes; but I distinctly remember having seen a farmhouse, or something of the sort, in that direction. I will answer for finding the place; but what sort of accommodation there will be there I cannot venture to say."
"At any rate we cannot spend the night here," said the General; "so forwards! Will you take my arm, Elsa?"
"No, thank you, papa. I can get up without it."
And Elsa sprang up the side of the dune after Reinhold, who, hastening forward, had already reached the top; while her father and the President followed more slowly, and the two servants with the baggage brought up the rear.
"Well," cried Elsa gaily, as somewhat breathless she came up to Reinhold, "are we at the end of our resources, like the President?"
"You may laugh," answered Reinhold, "but I begin to feel a little anxious already about the responsibility I have taken on myself. There--" and he pointed over some lower dunes inland where the advancing evening mist obscured all individual objects--"it must be there."
"Must be there if you are right! but must you be right?"
As if in answer to her mocking question, a light suddenly appeared in the precise direction in which Reinhold's outstretched arm pointed. A strange thrill of terror struck Elsa.
"Forgive me!" said she.
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----"
"I remember," interrupted the General; "the second headland to the north--on our right. We cannot be much more than a couple of miles from it."
"You see," said the President, "how convenient that would be! and the Count is probably there. To speak the truth, I have been secretly counting on his hospitality, in case, as I greatly fear, we cannot find decent accommodation at the farmhouse, and you will not overcome your objection to going to Warnow, which certainly would be the simplest and most comfortable arrangement."
The President, who had spoken with many pauses and pantings for breath, here stood still; the General answered in a morose tone:
"You know that I am not on terms with my sister."
"But you said that the Baroness was in Italy."
"She was to return about this time; has perhaps already returned, and if she were not I would not go to Warnow, if it were but ten paces from here. But we must hasten to get under shelter, or to all that we have already gone through we shall add a thorough