"Stand by there, you men!" shouted Kapitan von Riesser, observing that the crew of the collier were provisioning and swinging out their boats. "I haven't said I was going to sink your ship. Come and bear a hand and we'll let you go." Somewhere from the vicinity of the wrecked bridge came a hoarse voice: "We want no favours from strafed Germans. Get your coal yourself if you want it. You'll have to jolly well look sharp, for the hooker'll be on her way to Davy Jones in half an hour." "Himmel!" gasped the astonished kapitan, completely taken aback by the bull-dog audacity of the collier's men. "Quick, Herr Klick. Sound the well." Accompanied by a couple of armed seamen the unter-leutnant hurried below. In a few minutes he reappeared. "They've opened the valves, sir," he reported. "The sea is rushing in like a sluice. It is already up to the floor of the engine-room." Von Riesser leant over the bridge rail and surveyed the deck of the collier forty feet below. "Unless you close those valves I'll smash every boat you have!" he shouted. A chorus of gibes was the only reply. The engine-room staff alone knew the position of the valves. It would take a stranger a couple of hours to locate them, and the men knew it. "Smash away," they replied derisively. "Smashing private property is the only thing you Germans can do properly." For a full minute Kapitan von Riesser lost all control of himself. He stormed and raved, cursing both in German and English, until he realized that during that minute the collier had sunk deeper in the water. There was a rush on the part of the _Pelikan's_ men who were loading the sacks in the vessel's holds, so fierce was the influx of the sea. Above their shouts of anger and surprise arose the ceaseless taunts of the British crew. Having fully made up their minds that no quarter would be given the stalwart men decided to die game, and in their opinion the spirit of independence was best shown in heaping sarcasm upon the baffled Teutons. Already the hawsers and springs holding the two vessels were straining almost to breaking point. Reluctantly von Riesser gave the order to cast off, at the same time telegraphing to the engine-room for half-speed ahead. Somewhat to the surprise of the collier's crew no attempt was made by the _Pelikan_ to interfere with them. Taking to the boats they hoisted sail and in twenty minutes the little flotilla was lost to sight. It was a long time before von Riesser got over his fit of bad temper. Precious time had been all but wasted, for the only result of the enterprise was the addition of roughly seventy tons of coal to the _Pelikan's_ sorely-depleted bunkers. "By Jove! that was a nasty knock," remarked O'Hara to his chum. "It's a wonder old von Riesser hadn't ordered those boats to be stove-in. The lip those fellows gave him was enough to make a British admiral commit an act of frightfulness."