Above the confused mass of crowded treetops rose the tower of the castle. Between Golmberg yonder and the height on which she stood was the brown plain over which she had passed--inhospitable as the sea itself, from which it was only divided by the yellow outline of the dunes. The only abode of mankind was the fishing hamlet of Ahlbeck, which, close to the foot of the promontory, now lay almost directly at her feet. There also, between the houses and the sea, on the broad strand, were long moving lines of workmen as far as the two piers, which, curving towards each other, ran out into the sea. At the piers were two or three large vessels, which seemed to be unloading, whilst a fleet of fishing-boats, all on the same course, were making for the shore. Though all the sails were set, yet the boats were really only moved by the oars. The uniform position of the brown sails and the monotonous movements of the oars, formed a curious contrast to the confused whirring of the white gulls, who, as before, circled incessantly above her head, between her and the shore. She saw it all with her clear-sighted eyes, as a traveller on the railway mechanically observes the details of the landscape which the train rushes through, while his thoughts are at home, tasting the rapture which he will feel after his long separation from those he loves. And she, alas! dared not hope to look into the dear eyes, to hold the loved hands in hers, to hear the sound of that strong, yet gentle and kind voice. She only wanted to see the place where he lived. And it seemed as if even that small consolation was to be denied to her. She had already wandered some way along the path on the top of the hill, without gaining the slightest glimpse of the other side, where Wissow must lie, only the sky looked leaden over the edge of the plateau. Perhaps she might see it if she followed the broader road that she had now reached, and that, coming from her right, led upwards along the side of the hill to a heap of immense logs, above which rose a huge signal-post, which must be erected on the topmost height of the headland, and probably also on its extreme edge. And in fact, as she now climbed higher and higher, a pale streak appeared to her right--the shore of the mainland--and then again the leaden surface of the sea, on which here and there a sail was seen, and at last, immediately beneath her on this side, a white point of dune, which spread gradually like a wedge towards the headland, until it formed a little peninsula, in the centre of which lay a dozen or so of houses of various sizes between the white sands and the brown moor. That was Wissow! That must be Wissow!