n," answered that worthy, speaking almost involuntarily, as
the phrase the captain used, asking his name, was one of the few German
ones with which he was acquainted.

"Ah, ah!" exclaimed the captain, in a very meaning tone, addressing an
officer that stood by his side, and whom David fixed as the first mate.
"Sie sprechen Deutsch! Ah, ha!"

"Nein,--no," said Jonathan, "I do not. I cannot speak German, I assure
you."

"Very vell," said the little captain, in pretty good English, although
with a strong foreign accent. "We will suppose you cannot! Tell me,
how did you come in that boat in which we picked you up?"

Thereupon Jonathan told him of their being lost from the _Sea Rover_,
David adding, as Jonathan left out that part of the story, how his
friend had bravely plunged overboard to his rescue. The German captain,
however, much to David's disgust, did not believe him. He wasn't
accustomed to heroism in his sphere evidently!

"Oh, it's all very well," he said sneeringly, "but will you tell me how
it was that you two boys, belonging to the _Sea Rover_, as you say, came
to be in a boat belonging to the _Eric Strauss_, which boat was taken
away from that vessel by some of the crew--amongst whom, we were
informed at the Cape by the authorities there, were two lads like
yourselves--after a mutiny in which they nearly murdered the master?"

Of course they explained; but the captain only turned a deaf ear to all
they said. He insisted that they were the survivors of the mutineers of
the _Eric Strauss_, and told them he intended putting them in irons, and
taking them home for trial at Bremerhaven--where _Die Ahnfrau_ was bound
from Batavia, having only stopped at the Cape of Good Hope for fresh
provisions and water, and having there heard of the mutiny on board the
_Eric Strauss_, in which vessel the captain of the former was deeply
interested, being the brother of the master, whom the crew had set upon,
as well as partner of the ship.

All remonstrances on the boys' part were useless; and, after being so
miraculously preserved from the perils of the deep, they wound up the
history of their adventures when "lost at sea," as David pathetically
remarked, by being "carried off prisoners to Germany by a lot of
cabbage-soup-eating, sourkrout Teutons, who were almost bigger fools
than they looked!" It was all Jonathan's little knowledge of the German
language that did it, however.

Naturally, the mistake of _Die Ah