The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers Chapter 9 I Sign Articles Free Teens Audiobook.
chapter 9 of the riddle of the sans this is the librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recorded by gezena the riddle of the sands by erskine childers chapter 9 i sign articles it was not an easy question to answer for the affair was utterly outside my experience its background the sea and its actual scene a region of the sea of which i was blankly ignorant there were other difficulties that i could see perhaps better than davies an enthusiast with hobbies who had been brooding in solitude over his dangerous adventure yet both narrative and theory which have lost i fear in interpretation to the reader had strongly affected me his forcible roughnesses tricks of manner sudden bursts of order sudden retreats into shyness making up a charm that i cannot render

i found myself continually trying to see the mans through the boy to distinguish sober judgment from the hot-headed vagaries of youth lothar dreamed for a moment of dismissing the story of his wreck as a hallucination his clear blue eyes and insane simplicity through ridicule and such treatment evidently too he wanted my help a matter that might well have influenced my opinion on the facts had he been other than he was but it would have taken a finished and finite claude to resist the attraction of the man and the enterprise and i take no credit whatever for deciding to follow him right or wrong so when i stated my difficulties i knew very well that we should go there are two main points that i don't understand i said first you've never explained why an englishman should be watching those waters and ejecting intruders secondly your theory doesn't supply sufficient motive there may be much in what you say about the navigation of those channels but it's not enough you say he wanted to drown you a big charge requiring a big motive to support it but i don't deny that you've got a strong case dave is lighted up i'm willing to take a good deal for granted until we find out more he jumped up i did a thing i never saw him do before or since bumped his head against the cabin roof you mean that he'll come he exclaimed why i hadn't even asked you yes i want to go back and clear up the whole thing i know now that i want to telling it all to you has been such an immense relief and a lot depended on you too and that's why i've been feeling such an absolute hypocrite i say how can i apologize don't worry about me i've had a splendid time and i'll come right enough but i should like to know exactly what you no but wait till i just make a clean breast of it about you i mean you see i came to the conclusion that i could do nothing alone not that two are really necessary for managing the boat in the ordinary way but for this sort of job you do want to besides i can't speak jammed properly and i'm a dull chap all round if my theory as you call it is right it's a case for sharp wits if ever there was one so i thought of you you're clever and i know you had lived in germany and knew german and i knew he added with a little awkwardness that you had done a good deal of yachting but of course i ought to have told you what you came in for roughing it in a small boat with no crew i felt ashamed of myself when you wired back so promptly and when you came

davis stammered and hesitated in the humane resolve not to wound my feelings of course i couldn't help noticing that it wasn't what you expected was the delicate summary he arrived at but he took it splendidly he hastened to add only somehow i couldn't bring myself to talk about the plan it was good enough for you to come out at all without bothering you with hair brain schemes besides i wasn't even sure of myself it's a tangled business there were reasons there are reasons still he looked nervously at me which well which make it a tangled business i had sort of confidence was coming and was disappointed i was in an idiotic state of uncertainty he hurried on but the plan grew on me more and more when i saw how you were taking to the life and beginning to enjoy yourself all that about the ducks on the frisian coast was humbug part of a stupid idea of decoying you there and gaining time however you quite naturally objected and last night i meant to chuck the whole thing up and give you the best time here i could then bottles turned up stop i put in did you know he might turn up when he sailed here yes said davis guiltily i knew he might and now it's all come out and he'll come what a fool i've been long before he had finished i had grasped the whole meaning of the last few days and had read their meaning into scores of little incidents which had puzzled me for goodness sake don't apologize i protested i could make confessions too if i liked and i doubt if you've been such a fool as you think i'm a patient that wants careful nursing and it has been the merest chance all through that i haven't rebelled and built it we've got a good deal to thank the weather for and other little stimulants and you don't know yet my reasons for deciding to try your cure at all my cure said davis what in the world do you mean it was jolly decent of you too never mind there's another view of it but it doesn't matter now let's return to the point what's your plan of action it's this was the prompt reply to get back to the north sea via keel and the ship canal then there will be two objects one to work back to nordenai where i left off before exploring all those channels through the estuaries and islands the other to find dolman discover what he's up to and settle with him the two things may overlap we can't tell yet i don't even know where he and his yacht are but i'll be banned there somewhere in those same waters and probably back at northern i it's a delicate matter i'm used dubiously if your series correct spying on a spy it's not like that said dave is indignantly anyone who likes can sail about there and explore those waters i say you don't really think it's like that do you i don't think you're likely to do anything dishonorable i hasten to explain i grant you the sea's public property in your sense i only mean that developments are possible which you don't reckon on there must be more to find out than the mere navigation of those channels and if that's so mightn't we come to be genuine spies ourselves and after all hang it exclaimed davis if it comes to that why shouldn't we i look at it like this the man's an englishman and if he's in with germany he is a traitor to us and we as englishmen have a right to expose him if we can't do it without spying we have right to spy at our own risk

there's a stronger argument than that he tried to take your life i don't care rap about that i'm not such a nurse as to cest for revenge and all that like some japanese shilling shocker but it makes me wild to think of that fellow masquerading as a german and up to who knows what mischief mischief enough to make him want to get rid of anyone i'm keen about the sea and i think they're apt to be a bit slack at home he continued and consequently those admiralty chaps weren't waking up anyway as far as i'm concerned it's quite natural that i should look him up again quite i agreed you parted friends and they may be delighted to see you you'll have plenty to talk about i i'm said davies withered into silence by the they hello i say do you know it's three o'clock how the time has gone and by jova believe the fog's lifting i've returned with a shock to the present to the weeping walls the discolored deal table the ghastly breakfast litter all the visible symbols of the life i had pledged myself to disillusionment was making rapid headway when davis returned and said with energy what do you say to starting for keel at once the fog's gone and there's a breeze from the so west now i protested why it'll mean sailing all night won't it oh no said davis not with luck why it's dark at seven yes but it's only 25 miles i know it's not exactly a fair wind but we shall like close hold most of the way the glass is falling we ought to take this chance to argue about winds with davis was hopeless and the upshot was that we started lungeless a pale sun was flickering out of masses of racing vapour and through delicate vistas between them the fair land of schleswig now revealed and now withdrew her pretty face as though smiling are due to her faithless courtiers the clank of our chain brought up bottles to the deck of the johannes rubbing his eyes and pulling around his throat a grey shawl which gave him a comical likeness to a lodging house landlady receiving the milk in mourning disability rough bottles said davis without looking up from his work see you at keela hope you are always in a hurry captain bleated the old man shaking his head he should wait till tomorrow this guy is not good and it will be dark before you are off a conferder davis laughed and very soon his mentor's sad little figure was lost in haze

that was a curious evening dusk soon fell and the devil made a determined effort to unman me first with a scrambled tea which was the tardy substitute for an orderly lunch then with the new and nauseous duty of filling the side lights which meant squatting in the fox call to inhale paraffin and dublin lump black lastly with an all-round attack on my nerves as the night fell on our frail little vessel pitching on her precarious way through driving mist in a sense i think i went through the same sort of mental crisis as when i sat upon my pokemon toe at flensburg the main issue was not seriously in question for i had signed on in the dulce bella for good or ill but in doing so i had outrun myself and still wanted an outlook a mood suited to the enterprise proof against petty discouragements not for the first time a sense of the ludicrous came to my assistance as i saw myself fretting in london under my