The two subs were busily engaged in scrubbing off their sooty coats, to make the rest of their bodies harmonize with their faces. Fresh water being strictly limited and yellow soap microscopic in size their task was not an easy one. "Well, if they attempt to bring the _Pelikan_ up the river," commented the mate of the _Myra_, "I hope they'll pile her up on the bar. If they succeed we'll have to try our hand. Don't I wish they'd let me have charge of the wheel for five minutes. Now what do you think of these? I call them champion." He held out the two dummy forelocks, which he had completed in the absence of Denbigh and his chum. They had been coated with aluminium paint, while to give them a worn appearance he had rubbed charcoal over the paint. Only by actual handling, when the difference in weight between the real and the spurious article could be detected, could the deception be discovered. "Capital!" exclaimed O'Hara, suppressing a yawn. "Oh, dash it all! This is the result of being out of bed when one ought to be enjoying one's beauty sleep. I'm turning in again." "Also this child," added Denbigh; but before the chums could throw themselves upon their bunks a bugle sounded. It was the signal that another working day had begun, and that the prisoners had to turn out and assist their captors. "Morning," was Captain Pennington's greeting as Denbigh and O'Hara came on deck. Then, making sure that no German was within earshot, he asked, "And what little game were _you_ up to last night?" "What do you mean?" asked Denbigh in surprise. "Like you I have a liking for fresh air," replied the skipper of the captured tramp. "The Huns screwed down the dead-light to the port-hole, but forgot to enquire if I had a spanner. They saved themselves an unnecessary question, by the by, for I would not have owned up to being in possession of a very serviceable one. So during the night I opened the port-hole to get a breather. I was rather surprised to find a rope-ladder dropped over the side, and still more so to see two disreputable niggers, whom I recognized as you two, swarm down and take a cold bath. Also I had the pleasure of seeing the same dusky pair return, and had the intense satisfaction of hearing a German bellow like a whipped child." "Then we weren't so smart as we imagined," observed O'Hara. "Fortunate it was for us that you weren't a Hun." Before the subs could enlighten Captain Pennington as to the nature of the mystery the unter-leutnant came up. "You vill haf to vork, kapitan," he said without further preliminaries. "If you no keep your crew up to concert pitch trouble you vill haf. You men vill vork vatch and vatch, see?" Captain Pennington merely nodded in reply. He realized that passivity was desirable; on the other hand, having heard of Armstrong's little plan, it would not do to show unwonted eagerness to assist in working the ship. "Turn up der men," ordered Klick.