"I am not," he replied, "upon the word of a n.o.bleman. On the contrary, you please me extremely, and I was several times on the point of interrupting your story to ask a favor of you. Come and stay awhile with me. Whether you are reconciled with your father, as I hope, or if the breach be past closing, as you believe, at all events you must first have a roof over your head; and you cannot possibly stay here, where you are evidently not wanted. As I said, I will feel it a favor if you will accept my invitation. I cannot offer you much, but--there is my hand! Good! now we will pledge good fellowship in champagne."

I had already forgiven my mysterious but amiable acquaintance, and pledged him in the sparkling wine with all my heart. With merriment and laughter we had soon emptied the flask, when the smith entered. He had thrown off his leather ap.r.o.n, donned a sailor's jacket, and wrapped a thick m.u.f.fler round his muscular neck. It now struck me for the first time that he had not on the great blue spectacles which for several years I had never seen him without, and which he wore on account of his alleged near-sightedness: and it now occurred to me that he was not wearing them at the time of our quarrel. Still, I might be mistaken on that point; but I had no time to reflect upon so unimportant a matter, for my attention was at once fixed by some words exchanged in a low tone between the smith and the stranger.

"Is it time?" asked the latter.

"It is," replied the smith.

"The wind is favorable?"

"Yes."

"Everything in order?"

"Except the anchor, which you would not let me finish."

"We can do without it."

"Not well."

The stranger stood for a few moments in thought; his handsome face seemed suddenly to have grown twenty years older; he stroked his beard, and I noticed that he was observing me from the corner of his eye. He then caught the smith by the arm and led him out of the door, which he closed behind him. Outside the door I heard them talking, but could make out nothing, for the stranger spoke in a subdued voice, and the smith's growling speech was at all times difficult to understand; presently, however, the dialogue grew louder, and, as it seemed, more and more vehement, especially on the part of the smith.

"I will have it so!" cried the stranger.

"And I say no!" maintained the smith.

"It is my affair."

"And my affair as well."

The voices sank again, and presently I heard the outer door creak. They had left the forge; I stepped to the open window and saw them go to the little shed close to the beach, by which Pinnow's boat was usually drawn up on the sand. They disappeared in the shadow of the shed; then I heard a chain rattle, and a grating on the sand; they were launching the boat. All was then still: the only sounds audible were the stronger roaring of the sea, mingled with the rush of the wind in the leaves of the old oak, which threw its half-decayed boughs over the forge.

I heard a rustling in the room, and turned quickly round. It was Christel; she stood behind me, looking with an intense gaze, as I had just done, through the window into the darkness.

"Well, Christel!" I said.

She placed her finger on her lips, and whispered, "Hush!" then beckoned me from the window. Surprised rather than alarmed, I followed her.

"What is the matter, Christel?"

"Don't go with them, whatever you do. And go away from here at once.

You cannot stay here."

"But, Christel, why not? And who is the gentleman?"

"I must not tell you; I must not speak his name. If you go with them, you will learn it soon enough; but do not go!"

"Why? What will they do to me, Christel?"

"Do? They will do nothing to you. But do not go with them."

A noise was heard outside; Christel turned away and began clearing the table, while the voices of the two who were returning from the beach came nearer and nearer.

I do not know what another would have done in my place; I can only say that the girl's warning produced upon me an effect precisely opposite to that intended. True, I well remember that my heart beat quicker, and that I cast a hurried glance at the four double-barrels and the long fowling-piece that hung in the old places on the wall; but the desire to go through with the adventure was now fully awaked in me. I felt equal to any danger that might beset me; and, for the matter of that, Christel had just said that no harm was intended to me.

Besides--and this circ.u.mstance is, perhaps, the real key to my conduct that evening--the stranger, whoever he might be, with his partly serious and partly jocose, half-sympathetic and half-mocking language, had somehow established a mysterious influence over me. In later years, when I heard the legend of the Piper of Hameln, whom the children were irresistibly compelled to follow, I at once recalled this night and the stranger.

He now appeared at the door, dressed in a coa.r.s.e, wide sailor's jacket, and wearing a low-crowned tarpaulin hat in place of his cloth cap.

Pinnow opened a press in the wall, and produced a similar outfit for me, which the stranger made me put on.

"It is turning cold," he remarked, "and your present dress will be but little protection to you, though I trust our pa.s.sage will be a short one. So: now you are equipped capitally: now let us be off."

The smith had stepped to Christel and whispered her a few words, to which she made no reply. She had turned her back upon me since the men had entered, and did not once turn her head as I bade her good-night.

"Come on," said the stranger.

We went through the forge, where the fire had now burnt down, and stepped out into the windy night. After proceeding a few steps, I turned my head: the light in the living-room was extinguished; the house lay dark in the darkness, and the wind roared and moaned in the dry branches of the old oak.

The noise of the sea had increased; the wind had freshened to a stiff breeze; the moon had set; no star shone through the scudding clouds which from time to time were lighted with a lurid gleam, followed by a mutter of distant thunder.

We reached the boat which was already half in the water, and they made me get on board, while the stranger, Pinnow, and the deaf and dumb Jacob, who had suddenly made his appearance out of the darkness, and was, as well as I could make out, also in sailor's dress and fisherman's boots--pushed off. In a few minutes we were flying through the water; the stranger stood at the helm, but presently yielded it to Pinnow, when the latter with Jacob's a.s.sistance had finished setting the sails, and took his seat beside me.

"Now, how do you like this?" he asked me.

"Glorious!" I exclaimed. "But I think, Pinnow, that you had better take in another reef; we are carrying too much sail, and over yonder"--I pointed to the west--"it has an ugly look."

"You seem to be no greenhorn," said the stranger.

Pinnow made no reply but gave the hasty order: "Take in the foresail,"

at the same time putting up the helm and letting the boat fall off the wind. It was not a moment too soon, for a squall striking us an instant after made her careen so violently that I thought she would founder, though luckily she righted again. The jib was taken in altogether, and the foresail now hoisted only half-mast high, and under this canvas we flew through the waves, upon whose whitening crests played the pale glare of the lightning at ever shorter intervals, and still louder and louder followed the roll of the thunder.

After a while the squall abated as rapidly as it had come up, and the stars began to shine here and there through the clouds. I came aft--I had been helping Jacob to handle the sails--and took my seat again by the stranger. He pa.s.sed his hand over my jacket:

"You are wet to the skin," he said.

"So are we all," I answered.

"But you are not used to it."

"But I am nineteen."

"No older?"

"Not two months."

"You are a man."

I felt more pride from this short speech than I had ever felt shame during the longest diatribe of Professor Lederer, or any of my other teachers. There were few things which I would not have been willing at that moment to attempt had the stranger required it; but he offered no compact with the powers of darkness, nor anything of the sort, but only advised me to lie down in the boat and be covered with a piece of canvas, as the trip was likely to last longer than had been expected, the wind having hauled round another quarter; I could be of no more service now, and "Sleep is a warm cloak, as Sancho Panza says," he added.