'And what was she like?' I asked, promptly, before he could hurry on.
'Oh, she seemed a very nice girl,' was the guarded reply, delivered with particular unconcern, 'and—the end of it was that I and the Medusa sailed away in company. I must tell you how it came about, just in a few words for the present.
'It was his suggestion. He said he had to sail to Hamburg, and proposed that I should go with him in the Dulcibella as far as the Elbe, and then, if I liked, I could take the ship canal at Brunsbüttel through to Kiel and the Baltic. I had no very fixed plans of my own, though I had meant to go on exploring eastwards between the islands and the coast, and so reach the Elbe in a much slower way. He dissuaded me from this, sticking to it that I should have no chance
