With the perspiration oozing in large beads on his bullet forehead he lay and quaked, his mind torn with agitated thoughts. He remembered vividly--the reminiscence was frequently in his mind--how on one occasion, when he was in command of a U-boat, he had taken out of a badly-damaged boat an old, white-haired British merchant skipper. It was not by reason of the call of humanity that he had done this: it was part of a cool, calculated plan of action whereby the Huns vainly thought that, with British captains and engineers detained on board the submarines as hostages, the hunters would hesitate to sink the modern pirates. It was but one of the many instances in which the Hun miscalculated the spirit of Britain. Von Brockdorff-Giespert's submarine was being chased by a particularly aggressive P-boat. A depth charge was exploded so near that the hunted U-boat reeled and quivered under the shock. By sheer good luck Count Otto's command escaped, and the Hun commander lost no time in taunting his captive. "Are you not glad you weren't blown up by your fellow-countrymen?" he asked. The old skipper shook his head. "I'm downright sorry," he replied boldly. "Sorry our fellows didn't do you in. My sole regret would have been that I should have to go to Davy Jones' locker in such rotten company." Filled with a violent passion von Brockdorff-Giespert swore at and threatened the imperturbable Englishman. He gave him no credit for his patriotism. To the Hun such a standpoint was incomprehensible. He could only attribute it to the crass stupidity of the schweinhund Englander. Yet, somehow, Count Otto rather admired the old skipper in the present juncture. He envied his calm demeanour. The bronzed face and white hair of the old man haunted him. Then came the terrific impact of the Boche torpedo. Flung completely out of his bunk von Brockdorff-Giespert lay inertly upon the floor for nearly a couple of minutes. At length, regardless of his injuries, he staggered to his feet and battered the locked door with his open palm, the while bellowing for assistance. To be drowned like a rat in a trap: it was a fate inconceivable to a member of the Prussian nobility--a junker of the first water. He redoubled his cries as the doomed destroyer listed more and more. Had he but known it he might well have saved his breath. His shouts were drowned by the hiss of escaping steam and the inrush of water. At length through sheer exhaustion he ceased his cries, yet he sobbed like a child in his rage and terror. It seemed an eternity, but in reality only three minutes elapsed between the time of the explosion and the unlocking of his prison door. "Blow me, ain't the Boche got the wind up?" remarked one of the bluejackets to his raggie, as the pair lifted the now speechless Hun from the cabin floor, over which the water was rising swiftly, and carried him up the narrow companion-way to the deck.