"How could you ever bring yourself to commit such villainy?" Darrin demanded, sternly. "You are not a German?" "No," assented the other, shifting his weight from his right foot to his left. "You are a subject of a neutral country." "Dot is true," admitted the skipper. "And yet, for hire, you and your men have been engaged in sowing mines, and have taken pay from Germany for your crimes." "Mines? No! Ve do it not any. Ve never any had," declared the skipper. "Tell that to an Admiralty court-martial," Darrin retorted. "You will have difficulty in clearing yourself. Fellow, you will find that you and your men will be charged with piracy, for you have been sowing death and destruction in the seas. Indeed, there can be no estimating how many ships you have already helped send to the bottom, no guessing how many lives your infamous work has cost. And you a neutral! Piracy!" Skipper, mate and chief engineer turned pale at this significant speech. The rest of the crew looked on in stolid wonder, for they understood no word of English. "Vat? You proof it can't!" quivered the skipper. "Wait!" Dave gave Ensign Burton an order in an undertone. The ensign hurried to the bridge and almost immediately from the "Olga's" whistle a series of sharp blasts struck out on the air. From the distance came an answering whistle. The "Olga's" whistle sounded again, and continued at minute intervals, until the outlines of another craft came up out of the mist and proved to be one of the mine-sweepers. Dave had already reasoned out the probable course of the neutral country's freighter in the last hour before he had overhauled it. As the mine-sweeper slowly came abreast, Darrin, a megaphone at his lips, shouted an order for the course to be taken by his small helper, and added: "Sweep thoroughly, and try to find some mines near by." "Aye, aye, sir." Within fifteen minutes a distant whistle came up from the fog. "They've picked up one mine," Darrin announced. Ten minutes later the sweeper's signal whistle was repeated. "Two mines," he added, and the "Olga's" skipper shivered slightly. Twenty minutes later came a whistle that was barely heard. "Three mines," clicked Dave, and ordered the recall sounded, to be by direction signals at minute intervals. "You make dot noise too much den have us all torpedoed yet," protested the "Olga's" skipper. "If that happens, we have a rescue craft near at hand," retorted Darrin, meaning the "Grigsby," though the destroyer was now hidden by the fog. "That was more than you knew when you planted mines to destroy vessels on the high seas." "I did noddings do," growled the skipper.