It was a desperate scheme that gave fair promises of success. The one fly in the ointment was the knowledge that the _Titania_ mounted a 4.7-inch quickfirer. Von Giespert did not, of course, know that the "quick-firer" was at that moment performing its ordained task of carrying off the smoke of the galley-fire in its humble, yet important, capacity of a chimney. As a counter-measure, if the _Titania's_ gun should be manned and trained, von Giespert could hoist a "not under control" signal and trust that the excuse would pass, but he was beginning to have a wholesome respect for Harborough. Not once but many times that fool of an Englishman had got to windward of him. It behoved him to act warily. Von Giespert was a firm believer in the German equivalent for the proverb "Desperate diseases need desperate remedies". To him the _Titania_ and her crew represented the disease; the _Zug_ was to apply the remedy. At the same time he realized that it was the last straw, the final desperate plunge of the despairing gamester, staking his all upon the cast of the die. For the greater part of the day the carpenter and his crew toiled in the burning rays of the sun, hauling and setting in position huge baulks of timber, supplemented by lengths of stout bamboo, felled and towed alongside and thence whipped up and placed in the for'ard hold by means of the vessel's derricks. Before sunset the carpenter reported complete, but von Giespert was not satisfied. He ordered the men to fill sacks with sand and pile them up against the timber shores. He meant to make certain of that bulkhead. The _Zug's_ bows might be torn like paper in the projected ramming evolution, but the bulkhead must hold at all costs. The crew obeyed reluctantly. They were of a type that could be driven and did not take kindly to being led; but in the matter of being driven there could be "too much of a good thing ". And von Giespert failed to realize the presence of the danger-signal. Headed by one of the quartermasters, the deck hands came aft in a body and demanded of the now astounded but still mule-headed von Giespert the reason for this excessive amount of work. They could not see why the bulkhead should be strengthened, considering it was strong enough already, unless some desperate scheme were afloat. Von Giespert told them. He had to admit failure in the quest of the gold and that his British rivals had both hoodwinked him and secured the real prize. "That is all very well, Herr Kapitan," observed the spokesman of the deputation. "We don't mind taking desperate measures if there's anything to be got out of it. If we sink the English yacht, how do we stand as far as the gold is concerned? And suppose we fail, how do we stand then? It will mean penal servitude in an English prison."