"Jingo!" he exclaimed. "You're right, of course we don't know whether the old bounder is young or old, or even toothless; but we do know that there's a captain or an officer in charge of that steamer, and, what's more, we know, what you want and didn't tell me, that we're going to capture him." "We're going to!" exclaimed Geoff. "I thought I'd already said, as the officer commanding this expedition----" "Ahem!" coughed Philip. "Certainly, sir, you did say that," he said in his most demure manner. "But the job, if you'll allow me to say so, is rather a big one--in short, and in fact, it's a 'tough nut' you propose to crack, and in cracking it you're just as likely to come to grief yourself, and possibly to have your head cracked. Indeed, as your immediate junior, as one anxious for the success of this most important expedition, it becomes my duty to point out that failure on your part, failure because you have gone into the matter without sufficient forces at your command, will lead inevitably to the ghastly failure of the whole expedition. Once the alarm is given, once there is no longer the chance of a surprise, in fact, once the Turks are on the qui vive, and know what we are up to, the game's up, and we've lost! Nice to have to return to the camp on the Shatt-el-Arab, and tell 'em that we've been a hideous failure!" He was piling it on with a vengeance, was Philip, but then he was an artful, if light-hearted and jovial fellow, and here he had a most distinct object in view. He plucked Geoff eagerly by the sleeve. "Rotten, that!" he told him. "Just fancy what the fellows would say! They'd not forget to tell us all about it, and make nasty remarks about chaps with swollen heads who'd gone up the river on their own, thinking to do a heap, and returning without carrying out their object, or even nearly completing it. See?" he asked Geoff, with decided emphasis, and repeated his demand as a movement of his chum seemed to denote some signs of giving way. "Just think it over, Geoff! You go aboard the steamer and creep along the deck till you come to the Captain's cabin. Don't forget that you want the bounder to talk about the Turks and their position, and just remember what I said when I suggested that he'd talk on any and every subject rather than that. Well, aboard the steamer you can't make him answer your questions, or launch out into an explanation of the Turkish plans of campaign; so you decide to kidnap him, and have the idea of plugging his mouth with that cotton-wool, and winding a bandage about his head. Very pretty! Awfully nice if the thing works! But will it? Supposing he shouts before you plug his toothless mouth--he was toothless I think we agreed--supposing he's not alone, what then? You're done! Your plan's defeated. You might just as well have stayed aboard this launch and rested. But----"