The British subs stood at the rail watching the unwonted sight. No one offered to order them below. It was part of the business to let them see what was going on. No time was lost. While a party of officers from the _San Matias_ were being entertained by von Riesser in his cabin the Germans from her transferred themselves and their belongings to the _Pelikan_--nearly three hundred men of military age and bearing. Then came the work of transhipping stores from the capacious holds of the South American vessel. Carcass after carcass of oxen and sheep were brought on deck. From the oxen were produced long bundles wrapped in cloth. Every bundle contained four modern magazine rifles. Enclosed with the frozen mutton were small shells and rifle ammunition. As fast as the munitions were taken from their strange places of concealment most of the carcasses were dumped overboard, a few hundred being retained for food and stored in the _Pelikan's_ refrigerators. Then came bundles of hides, each containing parts of machine-guns, until it looked as if the ship had enough material to equip an army corps. Long before the _San Matias_ had disgorged her warlike stores Denbigh had overheard enough conversation to enable him to solve the mystery. The _San Matias_ had been chartered by a number of wealthy German merchants in Buenos Ayres for the purpose of sending some hundreds of reservists to German East Africa. The presence of the _Pelikan_ in the South Atlantic had been expected, and her progress, based upon reports from British cruisers and duly transmitted by spies to Buenos Ayres, reached the projectors of the scheme with remarkable promptitude. The arms and ammunition had been purchased sometime previously from a pro-German firm in New York, and sent to the Argentine to fulfil a fictitious contract for the Government of that republic. The _San Matias_ was then chartered, her owner, captain, and crew being heavily bribed to undertake the risk, comparative immunity being afforded by means of forged ship's papers and certificates of nationality of the "passengers". At the same time the report was spread in Buenos Ayres and Monte Video that the _Pelikan_ had been sighted making for Bahia--a matter of two thousand miles N.N.E. of the estuary of the La Plata. British agents swallowed the bait and telegraphed the news to London, whence, in turn, the false information was transmitted to the patrol vessels specially detailed to search for the daring raider. This report had literally done the trick. The northernmost group of British cruisers instantly converged upon the Brazilian coast in the neighbourhood of Bahia. The southern patrol remained in the vicinity of the Falklands. Thus the _Pelikan_ had the chance of a free and uninterrupted run eastwards until she approached the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. Although her adventures were by no means over, one source of danger had been removed.