Still, too much cackling on the part of the jovial Philip might easily have been fatal; and, besides, it was not a time for expressing one's feelings, for ribald laughter, or even for jests, and certainly one would have thought that even the recklessness of a junior British officer would have been suppressed by the occasion. Philip checked himself with a gulp. He was thinking of that bald head down below, and of the extraordinarily good guess which he and his chum had made as to the appearance of the Commander of this boat long before they had set eyes on him. Then, suddenly, the question of his capture filled his mind, to the obliteration of everything else. "A big bounder!" he told Geoff. "It'll want some doing. How?" Geoff gave vent to a subdued whistle, a mere puff of air from his lips, and then he nudged his comrade. "See that sentry over there?" he asked abruptly. "Faintly. Not having quite the eyes of a cat, I can't say that I see him distinctly. What of him?" "Of him? Nothing. But you'll take his place within a minute." "Oh!" Philip exclaimed, and stared through the darkness at his chum. "Take his place in a minute? Certainly!" he said. "But--er--supposing he objects?" "That's his business," said Geoff, "and ours too, of course. I shall ask him in the politest way possible to step below; or, to be more precise, I propose now to march up to him as if I were one of those three officers down below in the cabin. If he doesn't obey the order I give him----" "That's our business," said Phil, and he chuckled again. "I've got the whole scheme, Geoff, and you can fire ahead at once. I shall come along quite close behind you, and if the fellow wants to kick up a row, or doesn't like taking orders from a superior officer, I'll knock him overboard. You can leave that part of the business to me. I'm just itching to tackle a Turk, and to start the campaign in real earnest." "Then come along!" Geoff told him. "We'll creep along as far as the cabin, and peep in to make sure that those fellows below are not likely to be moving, and then I'll go for'ard and accost the sentry. Come along!"