"The rummiest packet I ever set foot on," he admitted, "but she's a clinker. We've as fine a pair of 14-inch guns as a fellow could wish for. British made, too; they were manufactured in Canada. The old _Crustacean_ does not belie her name. She has a decided tendency to crawl crabwise, and she's as unhandy as a balsa-raft in a gale of wind." "Not very good points," remarked O'Hara. "But she has her qualifications, Pat. She's said to be torpedo-proof----" "Do you want a practical test, old man?" asked Denbigh. "Um--no; that is, not particularly if it can be avoided. Why?" "Because there are a pair of 60-centimetre tubes waiting to have a slap at you when you ascend the Mohoro River." "Steady, old man," protested Stirling with a hearty laugh. "The river's not broad enough for the _Pelikan_ to be lying athwart the stream. She must be quite twenty miles up the river." "Say ten and you'll be nearer the mark," declared Denbigh. "She's trapped, and we have to thank Mr. Armstrong for doing the trick." "Good man!" exclaimed the young skipper of the _Crustacean_, bringing his hand down upon the shoulder of the bashful mate of the _Myra_, after Denbigh had related the circumstances in which the _Pelikan_ was prevented from ascending farther up the river. "I'll have to inform Holloway, our senior officer. He's under the same impression that I was. But what did you say about those torpedo-tubes?" Concisely Denbigh explained the position and nature of the German shore defences. "It strikes me pretty forcibly that you'll come in most handy," said Stirling. "It's not the _Pelikan_ that is now our principal objective. She, apparently, is done for, unless the river forms a fresh bed round the hull of the sunken tramp. The batteries are our pigeon." "You were saying that the _Crustacean_ is practically torpedo-proof," Denbigh reminded him. "In what way?" "She's of very shallow draught. Unless a torpedo were set to travel only a few feet beneath the surface--in which case much of the bursting power of the war-head would be wasted--the 'tin-fish' would pass harmlessly under her bottom. If, however, a torpedo did explode, there's a cellular space of more than twenty feet between the outer and inner hulls. These compartments are stuffed with something. I can't tell you because I don't know myself what the stuff is. All I know is that it's fireproof and its specific gravity is approximately the same as sea-water. Hence, in the event of a hole being blown in the shell of the outer hull our stability will hardly be affected." At that moment a signalman approached and saluted. "Senior officer reports approach of sea-plane parent ship _Simplicita_, sir."