The steamer was getting closer by this time and her hull was plainly visible. The old superstition regarding the unlucky number "thirteen" flashed through my mind but was instantly dismissed. To all appearances she was the ordinary black-painted, dingy-looking ocean tramp. I studied her intently through the glass, trying to discover some detail that would show her nationality, and had just about concluded that she must be a Jap when Mr. Buckert, my Chief Officer, came along to where I was standing and asked if I could make her out. I told him she appeared to be either a British or Jap tramp, and handed him the binoculars so that he could have a look. After studying her for a while he said, "By God, Captain, I don't know her nationality, but she carries the largest crew I have ever seen." I snatched the glasses out of his hand and had a look. Sure enough, by this time the rails both forward and aft were black with men in the regulation man-of-war jumpers. Even at this time I did not think she was a German, but possibly a British armed merchantman, or a British converted auxiliary cruiser, sent from Australia to some of the South Sea islands for patrol duties. However, she soon showed her true colours. Suddenly she changed her course, heading to pass directly under my stern. At this moment she broke out the German Imperial Navy Ensign at her jackstaff aft and at her signal yard amidships she showed the letters G.T.E., which interpreted from the International Signal Code means "Heave to and I will send a boat on board." After giving me time to read this signal, possibly two minutes, the steamer dropped her bulwarks forward, uncovering her guns, and fired a shot across the _Beluga's_ bow. This dispelled any lingering doubt I had in my mind as to what was wanted, and it didn't take us long to clew up our light sails and throw the main yard about. It was only then that I actually realised that my little vessel had been stopped by a German raider in the South Pacific Ocean almost fifteen thousand miles from the war zone. I stepped to the forward end of the quarterdeck and looked down at the crew on the main deck to see how they seemed to be taking it. These Scandinavian sailor men were standing on the waist, smoking their pipes and discussing the appearance of the steamer, just as if to be captured by an enemy's raider were an every-day occurrence. For myself, I knew that this day marked a crisis in the lives of any of us that were American or British born, and as for my wife and child--God, the thought was like a stab in the heart and seemed to leave me numb and cold. In a moment there flashed through my mind all the accounts I had read in the papers of the German atrocities towards women and children in Belgium and barbarisms practised along the Russian front, and the thought of my wife and child being at the mercy of these people nearly drove me crazy.