It was a risky game I was playing. If Casement had really betrayed everything we were lost. If not, my effrontery might perhaps save the situation. The English, taken aback, looked at one another for a moment; and then all turned their eyes on me; they wished to note what effect Casement's name had on me. A long, uncomfortable pause followed, during which I made every effort to preserve an attitude of indifference. At last the examination came to an end. And--nothing more, either then or later, was heard about confronting me with Casement! The manner in which the English conducted the inquiry provoked me several times to declare that they should not forget they were dealing with a German officer and German sailors. I had told them that I had sealed orders which were not to be opened till we had left German waters, so that my crew knew nothing about our objective when they followed me. The English captain was intensely angry with me for having carried out these orders. I ought, he said, as soon as I had read them, to have turned back at once and refused to carry out such a commission! The only way I could answer such a disgraceful suggestion was with a contemptuous shrug and with the remark that such a thing might be possible in England, but not in Germany, where every soldier at once carries out every order of his superior officers without moving an eyelid. After this interrogation I was taken to an adjoining room, carefully guarded by several detectives. The English had not been able to prove that secret intercourse had taken place between us and the Irish in Tralee. They may therefore have come to the conclusion that they could not, as they had threatened, shoot or hang us without a gross violation of international law. They therefore looked round for some other excuse to vent their anger on me and catch me. They soon found one, and when I was again brought in the English captain explained to me that I must be shot because I had blown up my ship after I had been taken prisoner! This, of course, was nonsense. When I followed the English cruiser to Queenstown I was by no means a prisoner; I was simply a neutral obeying their command because no other course was open to me. Nevertheless, the English captain continued to point out that they were not violating international law, but that we ourselves had violated international law by misuse of a neutral flag. We could not, therefore, claim to be treated as lawful combatants, and must expect the treatment always meted out to pirates, hanging or shooting. As before, when on board the _Bluebell_, I tried the effect of the threat that the German Government would make reprisals. Then the inquiry ended. Before I was led away, however, the captain informed me that he could no longer regard me as an officer, as I had not told him the truth! These English really had a very naïve conception of a German officer's honour and sense of duty.