Full of ironical enthusiasm, he raised his glass of champagne and saluted them. Then with joy that he made no effort to conceal, he clasped the hands of the two captains whose advice he had scorned and who had encountered the same fate as he. They returned his welcome with a grim humour. The presence of these three captains aboard the _Seeadler_ represented a loss of ten thousand tons of saltpetre destined for French powder mills, and a saving of hundreds, perhaps thousands of German lives. * * * One Sunday morning, we sighted a large British barque and started after her. She thought we were playfully challenging her to a race, and tried to run away. I don't know whether we could have caught her in a straight sailing ship against sailing ship contest; at any rate, our motor gave us the edge. A strange feeling came over me as we gained on her and as her lines became more distinct. It was a sense of sadness and of vague, dimly dawning recollection. Had I seen that ship before? Was it possible... "Signal and ask her for her name," I called. Our signal flag went aloft. The reply came back: "_Pinmore_" Ah, my old _Pinmore_, on which I had made the longest and most harrowing voyage of my life. Memories swept over me of those endless storms and of the disease on board, beri-beri, scurvy. My whole being seemed to leap back to the days of my youth. Homesickness seized me. I could not say a word to Leudemann, who stood beside me. "No use, the ship must be sunk," a harsh inner voice told me. It was hard for me to sink any sailing vessel, but doubly cruel to have to sink my old ship. I felt as though she were a kind of mother. No sailor with any kind of sailor's soul in him will raise a hand against his own ship. We took her as we had taken the others. When her crew came aboard, I looked for familiar faces. There were none. The skipper, Captain Mullen, came up to me with a humorous, seamanly air. "Well, Captain, our hard luck is your good luck." "Lucky?" I felt like saying. "Do you call this lucky?" He was a typical old seaman, afraid neither of enemy in war nor storms at sea. The seven seas had been his home. Like the sailing ship, the old-time windjammer captain is vanishing. Captain Mullen was indeed like the king of a vanishing race. He swaggered down below, and saluted our other skippers with a jovial air. He soon became the leading figure of the "Captains' Club." When everyone had left the _Pinmore_, I had a boat take me over to her. I clambered aboard and sent the boat and its crew back, telling them I would give them a hail when I wanted them again. "Why does the Count want to remain alone aboard her?" I heard one of them say.