The President, while intending to banter, had hit upon the right word. To Else the whole affair appeared a "romantic adventure," in which she felt a genuine hearty delight. When Reinhold brought her the first intimation of the impending danger, she was, indeed, startled; but she had not felt fear for a moment--not even when the abusive men, crying women, and screaming children hurried from the ship, which seemed doomed to sink, into the long-boat which rocked up and down upon the gray waves, while night came over the open sea, dark and foreboding. The tall seaman, with the clear blue eyes, had said that there was no danger; he must know; why should she be afraid? And even if the situation should become dangerous he was the man to do the right thing at the right moment and to meet danger! This sense of security had not abandoned her when into the surf they steered the skiff, rocked like a nut-shell in the foaming waves. The President, deathly pale, cried out again and again, "For God's sake!" and a cloud of concern appeared even on the earnest face of her father. She had just cast a glance at the man at the helm, and his blue eyes had gleamed as brightly as before, even more brightly in the smile with which he answered her questioning glance. And then when the boat had touched the shore, and the sailors were carrying the President, her father, and the three servants to land, and she herself stood in the bow, ready to take a bold leap, she felt herself suddenly surrounded by a pair of strong arms, and was thus half carried, half swung, to the shore without wetting her foot--she herself knew not how. And there she stood now, a few steps distant from the men, who were consulting, wrapped in her raincoat, in the full consciousness of a rapture such as she never felt before. Was it not then really fine! Before her the gray, surging, thundering, endless sea, above which dark threatening night was gathering; right and left in an unbroken line the white foaming breakers! She herself with the glorious moist wind blowing about her, rattling in her ears, wrapping her garments around her, and driving flecks of spray into her face! Behind her the bald spectral dunes, upon which the long dune grass, just visible against the faintly brighter western sky, beckoned and nodded--whither? On into the happy splendid adventure which was not yet at an end, could not be at an end, _must_ not be at an end--for that would be a wretched shame! The gentlemen approached her. "We have decided, Else," said the General, "to make an expedition over the dunes into the country. The fishing village at which the long-boat landed is nearly a quarter of a mile distant, and the road in the deep sand would probably be too difficult for our honored President. Besides, we should scarcely find shelter there." "If only we don't get lost in the dunes," sighed the President. "The Captain's knowledge of the locality will be guarantee for that," said the General.