'The "conjurer's box" is watertight,' came the report from below, and the usual 'bag of tricks' was hurriedly passed down. It was high time, for the Englishman was approaching us with alarming rapidity. He looked as if he meant to bite us, damn him! 'Down, Hector! Down, sir!' The dog was barking furiously on the forecastle head. They must have heard him clearly on the English ship, for we, on our part, could hear the ringing of their engine-room telegraph. She stopped her engines scarcely five hundred yards away. Now for the prize crew, thought I. But as I had no desire for a closer acquaintance, I kept the _Aud_ waddling quietly along at a 'speed'--if you can call it so--of five knots. We carried on meanwhile, as if the English ship was not there. She was an old Oriental liner of some 6000 tons burden, and somehow I could not help thinking that I had seen her before. Suddenly I remembered. Of course, it was on that very promenade deck that I had spent a pleasant hour or two at a reception held on board her, in Fremantle, West Australia. What a contrast the deck presented then and now! Instead of the fair faces and gay summer frocks, which then made so pleasing a picture, some dozens of English bluejackets were crowded at the rail, watching us curiously, and where the comfortable liner deck-chairs had stood, a couple of grim-looking three-inch guns were turning their ugly muzzles on us. Whether she perhaps expected us to wish her a polite good-morning, I do not know, but any way, instead of her old tattered scrap of bunting, she suddenly ran up a brand-new ensign. No doubt she wanted to impress us. However, we Norwegians were far too phlegmatic to worry ourselves about little things like that. And so everything remained just as it was before. No boat was lowered; no prize crew came on board. And yet the auxiliary cruiser did appear to be taking an unwelcome interest in us. She came closer, took a good look at our starboard side, and crossed our stern once or twice. Then she lay to port of us with her engines stopped, but without making any signal. The gun crews meanwhile had disappeared. It looked as though they intended to respect our 'neutrality,' and no wonder if it was a question of looks. As I kept quietly steaming ahead, the distance between us gradually increased. On the English ship all eyes were fixed on us as though we had been some kind of strange animal. Then we heard her engine-room telegraph bell, and a second time she came speeding towards us. This time she came up close on our port side and ... shot past and went foaming off to the eastward. 'That puts the lid on it,' muttered Düsselmann. 'Captain, let's make all speed for Tralee, and steam right in with colours flying. If they don't have a triumphal archway ready to welcome us, they're not the men I take them for.' Certainly, anything seemed to be possible to these English.