It was not until the night of September tenth that our work began in real earnest. A steamer came in sight, and we approached her very cautiously, so as to give her a closer inspection. Quietly, and with lights screened, we crept up behind our intended victim. Our Commander ordered an approach to within one hundred meters of the steamer, which was peacefully and unsuspectingly proceeding on her course, and, after the manner of merchantmen, was paying little heed to anything except what was ahead of her and showing lights. Suddenly, through the stillness of the perfectly calm night, rang out our challenge through the speaking trumpet: "Stop at once! Do not use your wireless! We are sending a boat!" The steamer did not seem to realize what was meant by this order. Perhaps she did not expect, here in the heart of Indian waters, to run across an enemy's man-of-war. Or she may have thought it the voice of a sea god, and therefore no concern of hers. At any rate, she continued on her way undeterred. So, to explain the situation, we sent a blank shot whizzing past her. This made an impression, and, pell mell, her engines were reversed--we truly regretted the start we had given her dozing engineers--and with her siren she howled out her willingness to obey our order. One of our cutters, with a prize crew in it, glided swiftly to water, and thence to the steamer, of which we thus took possession. An unpleasant surprise was now in store for us, for soon there came flashing back to us a signal given by one of the men of our prize crew: "This is the Greek steamer, _Pontoporros_." ... The _Pontoporros_ was loaded with coal from India, the very dirtiest coal in the world.... I had, in jest, entreated our Commander to capture, as our first prize, a ship loaded with soap, instead of which we now got this cargo of dirty Indian coal. My disappointment was so great that I could not refrain from reproachfully calling our Commander's attention to it, and, with a laugh, he promised to do his best toward providing us with the much-needed soap. And he kept his word. On the morning of the eleventh of September, only a few hours after we had made the first addition to our squadron, there appeared, forward, a large steamer, which, in the supposition that we were an English man-of-war, manifested her delight at meeting us by promptly running up a large English flag while still a long way off. We could not help wondering what sort of expression her captain's face wore when we ran up the German colors, and politely requested him to remain with us for a while. The steamer hailed from Calcutta, had been requisitioned to serve as an English transport for carrying troops from Colombo to France, and was fitted out with an abundance of excellent supplies....