thereof the chartroom to sleep in--and was naturally very chagrined at
the course events had taken, especially as he said he had been informed
by the Consul at Lourenço Marques that the course between there and
Colombo was quite clear, and had not even been informed of the
disappearance of the _Hitachi_, though she had been overdue at Delagoa
Bay about a month. Consequently he had been showing his navigation
lights at sea, and without them the _Wolf_ would probably not have seen
him, as it was about 1 a.m. when the _Wolf_ picked him up.

The remaining Spanish officers took their watch on the bridge, always
with a member of the prize crew in attendance; the Spanish engineers
remained in charge of the engine-room, again with a German always
present; and the Spanish crew remained on duty as before. There was a
prize crew of nine Germans on board; the Captain, Lieutenant Rose, who
had also been in charge of the _Hitachi_ after her capture, and the
First Officer, who had also filled that post on the _Hitachi_, being the
only officers. Lieutenant Rose spoke Spanish in addition to English and
French, and the Spanish Captain also spoke very good English. Some of
the Spanish officers also spoke English, but the knowledge of it was not
so general as it was on the _Wolf_, where every officer we met spoke our
language, and most of the prize crew spoke quite enough to get on with.

The Spanish Captain, a charming gentleman, and in appearance anything
but a seafaring man, was, however, frankly puzzled by some current
English slang. One of the passenger prisoners--the hero of the kerosene
porridge--was known among us as the "hot-air merchant." This was simple
enough, but when we said he also suffered from cold feet, the Spanish
Captain admitted defeat. Such a contradictory combination seemed
inconceivable. "If a man were full of hot air, how could he have cold
feet?" he said. Lieutenant Rose, however, was _au fait_ with the latest