'Seven-ten, captain,' came the whispered reply. 'Sharp look-out ahead. We're close on the line.' It was odd to see how every man, as though to see farther, craned his neck forward, as he sought to pierce the thick veil ahead. The minute-hand marked 7.15. The minutes were passing much too slowly for us. But what was that? 'Hard a-port!' 'Increase speed to the utmost!' 'Emergency stations!' The wheel flew over to port with a jerk, the wires of the engine-room telegraph underneath the deck-planks creaked as though they would break. As a startled sea-bird sheers away, so the _Aud_ shoots in a sudden curve to port, while to starboard, not two cables' lengths off, a dark, black-gray mass looms ghostly out of the fog. Damnation! An auxiliary cruiser! Her silhouette became clearer--two masts, high upper works, a thick funnel. 'Half speed!' 'Course, south-by-west!' There is no possibility of escape by flight. We are discovered, for the English ship, which I estimated roughly as of 10,000 tons, alters course at the same moment, and steams along parallel to us, scarcely 200 yards away. She must be going at reduced speed, for she keeps obstinately just abreast of us. The comedy is about to begin. At the first alarm, the 'watch below'--who had all been keeping a look-out on deck--hurry away to their bunks, the suspicious objects are hidden; we on the bridge, with beating hearts but outwardly cool and collected, tramp up and down with our hands in our pockets, expectorating freely and smoking like chimneys. There is nothing to indicate that we are in the least perturbed by the appearance of the cruiser. Dully, as if it was all a matter of course, we take an occasional glance ahead through our glasses, tooting every couple of minutes, like the simple merchantman we are, with our hoarse steam siren, in dutiful obedience to the rules laid down for warning-signals during fog. To the unwelcome stranger we scarcely give a glance. The crew of a tramp are apt to be indifferent. Thus, for an appreciable time, we steam quietly along, side by side, neither making any overtures to the other. I am, of course, burning to know what the Englishman is up to. In order to make unobtrusive investigations--it is evident that all the available binoculars on the cruiser were being turned on us--I send my second-officer into the charthouse. The observations which he makes through the charthouse window he then communicates to me on the bridge through the voice-pipe. 'Several large guns forward--same aft,' is the tenor of his first report. Gradually, over yonder on the cruiser, things begin to liven up. More and more men appear on deck, and stare hard at us. 'Our reckoning was right to a hair, any way,' opines the second-officer, with a sarcastic grin--small consolation in the present circumstances. We wait and wait for a signal from the Englishman, ordering us to stop, or a round of blank fired for the same purpose; but nothing of the kind happens.