"Why, you're all right. But at first we thought you were Germans. We could get fifty pounds if you were Germans." Now, as an American sailor would say, you've got to "hand it" to the English. They know how to spend money when it is useful. We Germans are usually more niggardly, or "careful" some might call it. We will try to save a mark and then lose thousands. Having received the wireless warning from the resident at Aitutaki of mysterious armed Germans in the South Seas, the authorities in the Fijis had passed word among the natives to be on the lookout for us, and had offered a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar reward to anyone who turned in definite information about a party of Germans posing as neutrals. It was clear enough that the half-breed and the white man had been plotting to hand us over to the authorities, but how far they had gone we did not know. We didn't find out that night. It was not until later that we learned the white man's horseback ride had been to give a warning about us to the captain of a cutter in the harbour, and that the cutter had at once shoved off to carry the message to the officials on one of the larger islands a day's sail away. Not knowing this, we used a good deal of persuasion to put the idea firmly into the heads of the two men that we could not possibly be Germans. It may have been our eloquence, or, more likely, the genial influence of the rum, but, at any rate, they seemed to lose all of their suspicions and became convinced that we were the truest Norwegians from Scandinavia. Kircheiss and I, somewhat the worse from our session at detective work, slept at the Englishman's house. The four others were offered quarters ashore for the night, but two of my boys remained in the boat as a precaution. It was well they did, too. During the night, native swimmers went out to her and cut the anchor rope. They were put up to it by a Malay police officer who was suspicious of us. Not knowing any or my men would remain on board her, since she was only an open lifeboat, he planned to search her. So he sent his swimmers out to pull her ashore and beach her. The wind was inshore. The anchor rope cut, the boat drifted in. Our two men were asleep, and only awakened when keel jarred against bottom. Dark figures were around in the water, trying to pull the boat on the beach. Our men, pistol in hand, drove them away and then pushed out into open water.