There were serious difficulties in his path. The partial surrender of Germany's mercantile fleet had made it an impossible matter to procure a ship in any German port. As a Hun, von Giespert knew that "his name was mud" in almost every important seaport on the Atlantic and Pacific shores. A nation cannot "run amok" and institute a policy of "sink everything without trace" and then expect to be treated on a pre-war footing by the States whose flags she has wantonly flouted and insulted. So von Giespert, quick to realize that as a German he was "down and out", had no qualms about renouncing, temporarily at all events, his nationality and becoming Kristian Borgen, a Swede. And as such he found little difficulty in taking up his abode in Southampton, whence he could control his latest mercantile enterprise with comparative ease. He had succeeded in getting a picked crew of twenty-two German seamen--men who in pre-war days had served in the British Mercantile Marine, where frequently 75 per cent of a crew sailing under the Red Ensign were either "Dagoes" or "Dutchies". And these men could all speak English as spoken on shipboard, and most of them, with the Hun's versatility in learning languages, were equally at home with Swedish. Von Giespert had a firm hold upon his band of desperadoes. For one thing he paid them well and made fair promises of a substantial share of the treasure, if and when it were recovered. Anyone possessing capital could do that, but von Giespert, being a Hun, went further. The men he picked carefully from the crews of certain U-boats whose record of piracy was of the blackest--men who had carried out infamous orders with alacrity when they thought Germany was winning, and who had not hesitated to mutiny and assault their officers when they discovered the long-hidden truth that all was lost. Von Giespert knew how to trade upon their fears. He told them that they were "wanted" by the British Government for their past crimes, and that the only safe course for them was to take the bull by the horns, become Swedish subjects, and accept employment in the country that was their former enemy, where, by their audacity, they would fling dust into the eyes of the hated English. The _Zug's_ crew accepted the statement and acted with corresponding discretion. For the present he had no intention of sailing on the s.s. _Zug_ for the Pacific. He was content to allow the vessel to proceed in the charge of Siegfried Strauss, who had been a quarter-master in the North German Lloyd Line before serving in the Imperial navy. Strauss was under orders to navigate the _Zug_ by a circuitous route round the Cape of Good Hope and pick up his employer at Batavia. "Donnerwetter! Who is this?" inquired von Giespert angrily, as the unconscious Villiers was unceremoniously dumped at his feet. "This is not Harborough." The kidnappers cowered before the wrath of their Prussian pay-master.