"We've rescued a German seaman from a destroyer. Can you give him a passage?"  

"Vat you say? Me no onderstan'," came the exasperating reply.  

"She's either a Dutchman or a German," said Detroit. "The name on her bows conveys nothing. Why not hail them in German?"  

"Couldn't trust myself to make a public confession of my inability," replied Hamerton, with a laugh. "But, by Jove, although we're doing all this for Pfeil, I quite forgot him. He can do the chin-wagging part of the business."  

In answer to a shout from the Sub, Hans Pfeil, who had been asleep in the fo'c'sle cot, came on deck. His clothes were still wet, since the air was too moist for drying purposes, and a comical figure he cut, wrapped up in a blanket, with his oilskin coat flung round his shoulders.  

The sailor hailed, and an animated conversation took place between him and the skipper of the tramp.  

"Heave her to," ordered Hamerton, seeing that the German tramp's propeller was going astern, and that the vessel was losing way. "They're going to lower a boat."  

The two craft were now less than a cable's length apart and hardly moving through the water, but Hamerton would not risk running the Diomeda alongside the wallowing hull of the tramp. He waited for a boat to be sent.  

Meantime Pfeil went below to assemble his saturated garments. Then, clad only in his oilskin, and with the bundle of clothing under his arm, he took leave of his rescuers, again thanking them for saving his life.  

This done, he entered the waiting boat, and was taken to the tramp. Without further delay the steamship gathered way, hoisting and dipping her ensign, to which the Diomeda replied, while from the taffrail could be discerned the oilskin-clad figure of the German sailor, still waving adieux to the men who had saved him from a watery grave.  

"Haul down that ensign, old man," said the Sub when the tramp was almost out of sight. "It's too pretty to be flapping itself against the mizen halyards, now that a breeze is springing up."  

Detroit, with his usual energy, sprang out of the cockpit and lowered the bunting, rolled it in a professional manner and jammed it between his knees, while he secured the halyard to a cleat. While thus engaged one end of the halyard slipped from 

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