He dropped the questioning for a while and asked me about the Battle of Jutland, which always seems to interest Japanese naval men tremendously. When I said I had been through the battle, they made me tell them every detail I could remember. They were interested in everything. The admiral's comment on what I told him was interesting. "Another proof," he exclaimed, "that the smaller fleet was superior per ship to the larger." And now the admiral came square to the point. "Tell me, Count, where your _Seeadler_ is." I was in a tight hole. I must strike a blow for my comrades out there on Mopelia. The elements I had to work upon lay in the fact that the diary which had been found mentioned merely that we had put stores aboard at Mopelia and told of the capture of the _Manila_ and said nothing of the fact that we had sunk that ship. Then, also, the truth is rarely believed. I proceeded to skate very near the truth. "The _Seeadler_," I replied, "was lost." "How was it lost?" "We got on the coral reef at Mopelia. We tried our best to get off, put our stores ashore to lighten the ship. But it was no use." "What did you do then?" "We went aboard the _Manila_." "The four-masted schooner, _Manila_?" "Yes, we captured her and took her along with us." "Where is the _Manila_ now?" "She is waiting for me off Mopelia. My men are having a good vacation on the island until I come back." "I say, Count, we Japanese are not such fools. You had the four-master _Manila_, and you sailed from Mopelia to the Fijis in a small boat." "Yes," I replied. "There was not room enough for all of us aboard the _Manila_." The admiral looked at me with a sly Oriental smile. Fine, I thought. I had figured out their minds correctly. They had not set straight out for Mopelia, in spite of their knowing that we had landed stores there, because it seemed wildly impossible that I with my five men had sailed from Mopelia to the Fijis in an open boat. "Count," exclaimed the admiral, "I will tell you where your crew is. You did not leave a four-masted schooner and sail twenty-three hundred miles in a lifeboat. You sailed here in the _Manila_, and, having got here, you put out in your lifeboat to capture another ship in a near-by harbour. You tell me your crew is at Mopelia, hoping I will get up steam immediately, go hurrying away for a few thousand miles on a wild-goose chase, and leave them in peace. The _Manila_ is in these waters. In four days, your crew will be my prisoners." He respected me too much to think that I would ever give my crew away. He knew I would try to throw him off the scent. His object was to outwit me, to get my story and read between the lines. "Very good, Admiral," I thought, "let us see how it will work out." We parted the best of friends. He was an excellent fellow. Our meeting had been one of mutual deceit with lies that no gentleman would tell in ordinary times. Now they were quite respectable, as ruses of war.