Those two people on the dune, however--he had not liked to say so to Elsa--but they could not be shipwrecked people, for any vessel that had gone ashore there would have been signalled long ago from Wissow Head. They could not well be from Pölitz's farm either, though that was close by, for Frau Rickmann had told him when he went to change his clothes, that Pölitz had sent back word by the messenger he had despatched to him, that he would send little Ernst and his men with the live stock to Warnow; but he could not go away himself, neither could Marie, and still less his wife, who had been confined last night, of a boy. Things could not be so bad with them either. But things were serious now--very serious--and even if the head pilot Bonsak had a little exaggerated, as he did sometimes in similar cases, there was danger any way; danger for poor Frau Pölitz, who was kept to the house by the most sacred of duties; greater danger still for the two of whom he asked to know nothing but that they were fellow-creatures who without him must perish. CHAPTER X. The large room at the Warnow Inn, filled with the smoke of bad tobacco and the odour of stale beer and spirits, was crowded with the noisy waggoners who had arrived that morning, and who had been joined in the course of the afternoon by two or three drovers, who also thought it pleasanter to remain here. The landlord stood near, snuffing the tallow-candles and bawling even louder than his guests, for he must be the best judge whether a railway from Golm direct by Wissow Head to Ahlbeck, without passing by Warnow, were a folly or not. And the Count, who had ridden in that afternoon, would pull a long face when he saw what havoc had been made; but if a man wouldn't hear reason anyhow, he must suffer for it. There were terrible doings at Ahlbeck, he heard, and murder and fighting too; it served the Ahlbeck people well right, they had been bragging enough lately about their railway station, and their harbour, and their fine hotels; they might draw in their horns again now! The landlord was so loud and eager in his talk, that he never noticed his wife come in and take the keys of the best rooms upstairs from the board on the door, while the maid took the two brass candlesticks from the cupboard, into which she put candles, and then lighted them and ran after her mistress. He only turned round when some one touched him on the shoulder and asked where he could put up his horses, the ostler said there was no more room. "No more there is," said the landlord; "where do you come from?" "From Neuenfähr; the gentlefolks I brought are upstairs now."