The three British officers relapsed into silence, devoting their whole attention upon the disabled liner which was now momentarily looming larger and larger as the _Nichi Maru_ hastened to her aid. Presently the engine-room telegraph bell clanged and the Japanese vessel's engines began to slow down. Two of the boats were swung out ready to be lowered, while the four ship's surgeons stood by, ready to be taken to the helpless Dutchman. "Bad boiler-room accident," exclaimed one of the European passengers, who had learnt the news from a Japanese petty-officer. "Boiler accident be hanged!" ejaculated Denbigh, excitedly. "We're done in, you fellows. That vessel's no Dutchman." As if in confirmation of the Sub's announcement the tricolour of Holland was smartly lowered, its place being taken by that shame-faced and palpable imitation of the good old British White Ensign--the Black Cross of Germany. Simultaneously portions of the vessel's plating swung outboard, revealing a battery of six fifteen-centimetre Krupp guns. "_Nichi Maru_, ahoy!" shouted a guttural voice in English, for the two vessels were now within megaphone-hailing distance. "Surrender instantly, or we send you to the bottom." There was a pause, while the officer who had shouted the message was being prompted. "Make no attempt to use your wireless," he continued. "That will not save you. It will make things very bad for you. Stand by to receive a prize crew." Although completely surprised by the dramatic turn of events, both the crew and passengers of the _Nichi Maru_ remained perfectly calm. The captain, a descendant of the knightly Samurai of Old Japan, was on the point of ordering full speed ahead, with the object of ramming the perfidious vessel and sending both ships to a common destruction; but the knowledge that the safety of nearly a thousand non-combatants, many of them women and children, would be in dire peril through such an act compelled him to submit to the inevitable. Humanity, not fear, had conquered the courteous and lion-hearted yellow skipper. Boats were lowered from the German auxiliary cruiser--for such she undoubtedly was. Into them clambered a number of motley-garbed men armed with rifles and automatic pistols. But for their modern weapons the boat's crew might have come from the deck of an Eighteenth-Century buccaneering craft. "I say, you fellows," said O'Hara, "I'm off below." "What for?" asked his companions in surprise. Not for one moment did they imagine that the Irishman was showing the white feather, but at the same time they were mystified by his announcement. "To get into uniform," he replied. "Those skunks won't find me in mufti." "Right oh!" declared Denbigh. "We'll slip into ours, too." In a few minutes the chums had changed into their naval uniforms. By the time they regained the promenade deck the Germans were in possession of the ship.