For some time I had been standing high up on the tower with a spy-glass before my eyes and did not lose one of the steamer’s motions. Now it seemed to me the right moment had come to energetically command the steamer to stop. “A shot above the steamer! Fire!” The granate landed two hundred meters in front of the steamer. We waited a few minutes, but when the shot did not cause any change I gave the right distance to the gunners and shouted the command to aim at the steamer. The second shot hit and a thick, black and yellow cloud from the explosion shot into the air. The third shot tore a piece off the funnel, the fourth hit the bridge, and before the fifth had left the mouth of the gun the signal flew up, “I have stopped.” Ah! old friend, you had come to it, anyhow! An old sea-rule says: “Carefulness is the best seamanship.” Regarding all the tricks and subterfuges which the hostile merchant-marine has used against us, I did not consider it advisable to advance nearer the steamer at once. I therefore also stopped our machines and signaled: “Leave the ship immediately!” The signal was unnecessary. The English captain had himself given the command to the crew to take to the boats after he, frothing with anger, had comprehended the impossibility to flee. Snorting with wrath, he shortly afterwards came alongside our boat, and handed me at my request the ship’s papers and asked me to tow the three boats to the neighborhood of the coast. I promised this and said some simple words to him in regard to his bad luck and concerning the grim necessity of the war—which he dismissed with an angry shrug of his shoulders. I certainly could understand the man’s bad spirit. I then went forward and torpedoed the steamer, which sank, stern foremost, with a gurgling sound into the deep. At the same time four thousand tons of rice were lost to the English market. We had met with success and this put us into the highest spirits. Come whatever wants to come, our voyage had not been entirely useless. When I stepped down into the boat for a moment and passed through the narrow crew-room to my own little cabin, I saw to right and left joyful faces, and all eyes were smiling towards me as if they wished to say: “Congratulations!” The steamer’s sinking was the subject of discussion. Those who had witnessed the incident had to describe all the circumstances in smallest detail; where the torpedo had struck, how high the water-pillar had risen, and what afterwards happened to the steamer, how the people on the boat looked, and the like. Everything had to be explained.