At noon, with a heavy sea running, we sighted a steamer cutting diagonally across our course. No flag, no name. We signalled her for information, but there was no response. Surely she must be an Englishman with a hard-boiled efficient skipper. You know how a British captain often is, with his nose right down on his job, with no thought except his cargo and his lookout for submarines and cruisers? Well, evidently this chap couldn't be bothered with a funny old Norwegian windjammer. Sails set and motor running, we held across his course and got in front of him. Now, at sea, a sailing vessel always has the right of way over a steamship because the latter can manœuvre more rapidly. But that meant nothing to this steamship. She swerved not an inch, and seemed quite content to run us down. "This businesslike skipper must have an important cargo, since he doesn't care a rap, by Joe, about ploughing into a clumsy old Norwegian bumboat," said I to myself. And I could imagine how he was swearing there on his bridge. "Stupid blighter, by Joe," no doubt he was saying, "get out of my way or I'll ram you!" We had to jib and let him go in the wind, or there would have been a collision. The Englishman passed us at three hundred yards. The German flag was climbing swiftly to our masthead. "Fire," I commanded, "let's see if that will make him change his mind." The gun boomed and a shell went screaming over the steamer. "By Joe," I said, "he sticks to his opinions." The steamer's stacks belched fresh clouds of smoke. Her course changed not at all. Another shot, this one, by way of emphasis, just over the smokestack. The steamer turned into the wind. "A wise baby, that skipper," commented Leudemann sarcastically. "He knows a windjammer can't sail against the wind." We, of course, couldn't catch him in a chase, but our range was still point-blank. A shot through the smokestack and a couple into the hull. We could see the crew running around wildly. A siren was screaming. A shell exploded on deck. The propeller stopped, and the steamer slowed down and lay rolling in the trough of the sea. "This new invention of war without killing, what do you think of it now?" Leudemann looked up at me satirically. "I guess you'll find there are a couple of casualties over there." The Englishman must have known that he hadn't a ghost of a chance to escape under fire at such close range. First of all, he had been discourteous in ignoring our friendly signals. Then he had violated the rules of ocean traffic in not giving our clipper the right of way. And now in cold blood he had endangered the life of his crew. According to the unwritten rules of etiquette among pirates and raiders, it was up to us to put out a boat and board a prize. But instead I signalled the steamer: "Captain, come aboard!" Let him come over to us. If he's such a tough guy, we'll show him who rules the waves in this part of the Atlantic.