nts to port and head up in the direction
from which he had appeared. The reason for this manoeuvre, which was
carried out precisely as planned, you will understand in a moment.

"On came Fritz, coolly contemptuous, and on went the show, like the
unrolling of a movie scenario. For a while I was fearful that he might
order back my boat to use in boarding me with, but as soon as he was
close enough to be sure that I had no gun he must have decided so much
trouble was superfluous. He had only one gun, it was evident--the
gunners kept sweeping it back and forth to cover from about the bridge
to the engine-room as they drew nearer--and presently I saw men, armed
with short rifles, coming up through both fore and after hatches. Far
from exhibiting any signs of belligerency, I still kept three or four of
my 'flannelled fools' mildly panicking. Or, rather, I _ordered_ them to
panic mildly. As a matter of fact, they did it rather violently--a good
deal more like movie rough stuff than the real thing.

"Little difference it made to Fritz, though, who seemed to take it quite
as a matter of course that the British yachtsman should show his terror
like a Wild West film drama heroine. On he stood, and when he came
within hailing distance, a burly ruffian on the bridge--doubtless the
skipper--shouted something in guttural German-English which I never
quite made out, but which was probably some kind of warning or other. I
don't think I saw any of my crew exactly 'Kamerading', but I needn't
tell you that every man in sight was doing his best to register
'troubled passivity', or something like that. I had anticipated that I
might not be in a position to signal his cue to R----, and so had
arranged that he should keep watch from a cabin port, and to use his own
judgment about the time of his 'entrance.' I was afraid to have him on
deck all the time for fear the 'che-ild' might be subjected to too
careful a scrutiny. R---- was just in flannels, understand, so there was
nothing suspicious in his own appearance. He did both his play-acting
and his real acting to perfection, neither overdoing nor underdoing one
or the other.

"The U-boat was close alongside, rapidly easing down under reversed
propellers, before R---- appeared, just as natural an anguished father
with a child as you could possibly ask for. Two or three of the Huns
covered him with their carbines as he dashed out of the port door of the
saloon--that one just behind you--but lo