"Allow me," I felt like saying, "allow me to throw my arms around your neck, my dear fellow." "Yes, sir! I'd like nothing better." Good health and high spirits had given me boundless confidence. I was the sort of fellow who believes he can do almost anything--at any rate, anything with a sailing ship. The admiral replied that the mission was mine. And it turned out that I had been picked for this venture because I happened to be the only officer in the German Navy who had served "in sail." But what if we should slip through? What then? What could one lone windjammer do against the naval might of John Bull and his allies? What chance had a romantic clipper ship in this era of giant ocean liners, of hush-hush armoured cruisers, of speedy destroyers, and against the combined strength of Jellicoe and Beatty's super-dreadnaughts? For that matter, what chance had a poetic sailing ship against an ordinary tramp steamer? Well, it may sound mad, but the sea lanes of commerce can even be disrupted by a lone sailing ship in wartime. But whether the idea was mad or not, I was itching for action and ready for anything. "What," the admiral asked, "should you consider of the greatest importance for the venture?" "Luck," I replied. "All right; then take the _Pass of Balmaha_. She has already carried British prisoners for us. She has been lucky for us once, she may be lucky for us again." The Admiralty officials had picked the _Pass of Balmaha_ because she was a staunch ship, an American clipper, built in Glasgow.[1] They had also picked her because she had suddenly arrived in a German port with an unexpected present of some British prisoners for us. We sailors believe in good and bad omens, and we are right. Some ships are lucky and some unlucky. If something has happened to indicate a certain ship is lucky for you, take that ship. You want Lady Luck on your side when you put to sea. [1] See Note A, Appendix. Now, about the past record of this Yankee clipper that was to be converted into a German raider. The _Pass of Balmaha_ had sailed from New York with a cargo of cotton for Archangel. Her commander was a Captain Scott, a well-known American shipmaster, a big-hearted, bushy-bearded, New England skipper with a very red face. Off the Norwegian coast, a British cruiser hailed her. Uncle Sam was then a neutral, and the blockade was getting tighter every month. The British were becoming suspicious of everybody, including neutrals and themselves. The overcautious commander of this cruiser, although he had no grounds for suspicion, ordered the _Pass of Balmaha_ to turn back to the search port of Kirkwall in the Orkneys.