What's that, by Joe? Nothing happened, no movement on deck, no slowing down of the ship. Then a flag went up the mast, the British flag. It was like the fantastic things that happen in a dream. I thought I must be asleep. Another shot across her bows. She suddenly changes her course. Hello, she wants to get away. A shot over the stern, another over the smokestack, and now she hove to. A boat was in the water rowing toward us. We all put on our best manners, and I welcomed Captain Chewn aboard the _Seeadler_. What did we want of him, he asked, so bewildered that he stuttered. "Well, first a friendly chat," I replied. He was an old salt with a scraggly gray beard. I liked him right off. His ship was the _Gladys Royal_, bound from Cardiff with five thousand tons of coal for Buenos Aires. I told him that, much as I disliked sending any ship to the bottom of the sea, nevertheless, we must sink the _Gladys Royal_. "Oh, no," he argued, "we are bound for a neutral port and won't harm anything. It will be bad for me to lose my ship, and I have a wife and children at home." "Do you believe, Captain Chewn, that, under the same circumstances, a British naval officer would show any mercy to a German ship?" He made no reply. We now got an explanation of the queer behaviour of his ship that had so puzzled us after our first shot. Captain Chewn, an old-timer at sea, simply thought we were trying to compare time in the old traditional way, by firing a blank mortar. He had raised his flag to serve as the mortar shot on his side. He would afterward lower it to give the exact moment. That is the way in vogue to-day. But when our second shot was fired, the cook on the _Gladys Royal_ saw the shell strike the water and thought we had sighted a submarine and were firing at it. He gave the alarm, and the captain started to zigzag. It was only after the third shot that they saw our cannon pointed at them and the German battle flag at our masthead. "By Joe," and the captain pounded the rail with open admiration, "you fooled me bloody well. It was the damnedest trap I ever saw." I sent a prize crew aboard the _Gladys Royal_ with orders to have her follow the _Seeadler_. I wanted to wait and blow her up after nightfall. Cruisers might be roaming somewhere in these parts, and it would be unwise to run the risk of attracting their attention with the sound of an explosion. We photographed our capture carefully. At dusk we transferred the steamer's twenty-six men, white and black, to our ship. The captain brought his belongings aboard. I also sent Lieutenant Preiss to pack up everything aboard the captured vessel that he thought we might need and ferry it over. He displayed excellent judgment, too, and turned up with a welcome store of excellent provisions. We sailors could be content with a sailor's fare whenever need be, but we wanted our guests to dine well at all times to help make up for the sorrow of losing their ships.