At seven o’clock next morning Christobal showed up on the far horizon, and by ten o’clock the Penguin was heading for the anchorage, with the Captain on the bridge and Harman beside him.

It was a lovely island.

A broken reef protected the beach from the full force of the sea, and the cliffs showed green with foliage and flecked at one point by the eternal smoke of a torrent. Beyond the beach a white frame house with a veranda showed, and on either side native houses nestled among the cocoanut trees and breadfruits. The faint wind blowing from landward brought the perfume of vanilla and flowers, coloured birds flew in the blue sky above the trees, while the tune of the blue sea beating on the reef came like the song of sleep and summer.

A sulphur-tinted butterfly flittered across the water on the wind, as if to inspect the ship, and flittered away again. On the beach could be seen several natives standing and watching their approach, motionless and seemingly incurious.

“It’s all deep water through the break and beyond,” said the Captain. “We don’t want any pilot.”

“There’s a chap come out on the veranda of the house,” said Harman.

The Captain picked up the glass he had been using, and turned it on the figure in the veranda.

“That’s him,” said he. “That’s the chap right enough. Take a look.”

Harman put the glass to his eye, and the veranda and the man leaped within ten feet of him.

The man was short, stout, bull-necked, bullet-headed, wearing a close, clipped beard and with his hair cut to the bone.

“He ain’t a beauty,” said Harman. “Look, he’s going into the house, and here he comes out again.”

Sprengel had brought out a pair of marine glasses and was observing the ship through them.

“Wonder if he recognises me,” said the Captain.

Then he stood silent, whistling now and then, and now and then giving an order to the fellow at the wheel.

One of the hands was heaving the lead; his hard, thin voice came up to the bridge in a snarl:

“Mark four! Mark four! Quarter less four!”

The Captain rang the engines to half speed, then to dead slow. The Penguin passed the opening in the reef. The water she rode on was like blue satin billowed under by wind; then, in the glassy smooth beyond, Harman, who was forward attending to the anchor, glancing over the side, saw the coral floor beneath them clearly as though he were looking at it through air.

The Captain rang the engines off, the wheel flew to starboard, and the rumble-tumble of the anchor chain through the hawse pipe came back in moist echoes from the woods and cliffs.

Then, the ship safely berthed, the Captain had time to turn his attention to the shore.

Sprengel had vanished into the house, and the few natives on the shore were still standing about in attitudes of indifference. One had taken his seat on the sand, and though there were several canoes on the beach there was no evidence of any thought of launching them.

“It’s a good job we scoffed that Pilsener,” said Harman, who had come up on the bridge. “It wouldn’t have been no use for this chap. You won’t get this chap on board without a windlass and a derrick. No, sir! He’s one of the retirin’ kind. He won’t trade, and he won’t be civil. I reckon you’d better get that spar gun trained on the beach and some of our chaps ready for a landin’ with the rifles, scoop all the money and valuables we can find, and cut stick.”

“I’ve been thinking so myself,” said the Captain. “There’s no use wasting time enticing this chap on board. Train the gun and get the landing party ready with rifles and cutlasses.”

He came down from the bridge, and went aft to his cabin to put on his best coat. When he came up again the whaleboat was lowered and the landing party getting into her.

They certainly were a most terrific-looking lot, and when the boat’s nose touched the sand and they scrambled out and lined up under the direction of Harman, the natives looking on lost their look of indifference, turned, and bolted for the woods.

“They don’t like the look of us,” said the Captain. “Now then, you chaps, no chasing them. You follow after me, and do what Mr. Harman bids you. Let one man of you disobey orders and he’ll have to settle with me.”

He produced a navy revolver from his pocket. It was the only serviceable weapon of the expedition, barring the cutlasses; they knew it, and they knew him, and they followed like lambs as he walked toward the house on whose veranda Sprengel had reappeared.

Ten yards away he ordered the others to halt, and advanced alone, putting the revolver back in his pocket.

Sprengel was in pajamas, and he had been perspiring with the heat; he was also in a bad temper and a bit frightened, all of which conditions did not add to the beauty of his appearance.

“Mr. Sprengel, I believe,” said the Captain, opening the business.

“That is my name,” replied the other. “And who are you, may I ask, and what is your ship doing here and these men?”

“We will go into the house and talk,” said the Captain, “if you will kindly lead the way. I am the Captain of a British auxiliary cruiser come to have a few words with you.”

He followed on the heels of Sprengel, who evidently had not recognised him in the least, into a large, airy room floored with native matting and furnished with American rockers, a bamboo couch, a table, and island headdresses and spears for wall decorations.

“You did not recognise me outside,” said the Captain. “Perhaps because I had my hat on. Do you not recognise me now?”

“Not from Adam,” replied Sprengel in a violent tone. “I only know that you have landed on my beach with armed men and that you had but till just now a pistol in your hand. Also, I recognise that your ship has a gun trained on my house. Are you aware that this is a German island?”

“That’s just the point, my dear man,” said the Captain, taking a seat unasked. “Are you aware that England is at war with Germany?”

“Eh, what!” said Sprengel, turning more fully on the other. “What you say? England at war with Germany!”

“England at war with Germany. Yes. That is what I said, and I have come to take your island in the name of the British government.”

Sprengel sat down in a chair and mopped himself. Sprengel had been practically monarch of Christobal for a long time.

And now the English had come.

It was an eventuality he had always feared, always reckoned with. He knew that war was in the air. He also knew international law, and he was not so much put out as might have been expected.

Indeed, he was frankly impudent.

“Well, I did not make the war,” said he. “I am an honest trader going about my business. If Christobal is English—well, it cannot be helped—till we take it back from England. I claim the rights of international law. My property is sacred.”

“International law, what is that?” asked Blood.

“Something you would not understand, but which your peddling government fears and respects. Something which they would like to put to one side, but which they cannot.”

“Oh, can’t they? Do you mean to imply that your property can’t be touched because of international law?”

“Ab-so-lutely.”

“We’ll soon see about that,” said Blood, “for I’ve come to take away every rag you’ve got and every penny. I’ll leave you, for you ain’t very good, and you can keep the house and the good will of the business, but I want your money.”

He stood up.

So did Sprengel. Say what we may about the Prussians, they are certainly plucky enough.

Threatened with spoliation, all the latent fury of the man flamed out and centred on Blood. He stood for a moment visibly swelling; then he charged.

Had that charge gone home it would have been the worse for the Captain. Instead of meeting it, however, he stepped aside; Sprengel met the wall, nearly bringing the house down, and Harman, who had been listening on the veranda, rushed in.

He had brought some signal halyard line with an eye for eventualities, and they bound the enemy without much trouble.

“Listen to him!” said Harman. “Listen to him chatterin’ about outrages to noncombatants. What are ye yourself but an outrage, you fat Proosian! Capt’in, lend me your wipe.”

The Captain handed over his handkerchief, and Harman, with suspicious dexterity, rolled it into a gag. “That’ll stop your tongue,” said he. “And now for the plunder.”

They found the safe where the unfortunate Sprengel kept his money. There were five thousand dollars there in silver and American gold coin, and a bank book showing a huge balance at a Berlin bank. Also securities for large amounts. They respected these, as they were useless, and took only the coin.

Then they went over the house and grounds adjoining, and the total loot tabulated roughly ran to:

The amount of coin already specified.

Five thousand cigars.

A suit of new pajamas and a safety razor in case.

A case of Florida water, six bottles of eau de Cologne, all the native headdresses adorning the sitting room.

A live parrot in a cage, half a dozen chickens, and half a boatload of vegetables.

It was not much, but it was all that they could lay hands on. Harman wanted to include a native girl who had come out from among the trees with a basket of fruit on her head, not knowing what was going on, but the Captain vetoed him. He only took the fruit.

Then they pushed off, having first ungagged their victim, unbound him, and locked him in the house.

“And the funny thing is,” said the Captain when they had gained the deck and the boat was being winched on board, “he never remembered me, and he doesn’t know yet who I am.”

“Why didn’t you tell him?” said Harman.

“I thought of it, and then I held my tongue. There might be a chance of him making mischief when the war is over if he knew my name.”

“But how in the nation could he make mischief?” said the simple-minded Harman. “Germany bust or England bust, it’s all the same. What you done was in war time, and so doesn’t count.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” said the Captain. “I am not at all too sure of that. All that blab of Sprengel’s about the property of nonbelligerents may have something in it. I’m not sure that it mayn’t. It seems to me I’ve heard something about it before. Blast all nonbelligerents; there’s always some thorn in the rose.

“Then, leaving the question of nonbelligerents aside, we have to think of our own position. We haven’t a letter of marque, we have no more right to go hoofing about the seas gobbling German property than you have to go down Broadway lifting folk’s watches.”

“Well, what right have we to anything at all?” cut in the exasperated Harman. “Accordin’ to you, we haven’t the right to breathe nor live.”

“Well, it’s this way,” said Blood. “We have a perfect right to breathe and live as long as we can keep our necks out of the noose.”

“D’ye mean to say they’d hang us?”

“It’s highly probable. The Germans would, anyhow.”

Harman had been attending to the unloading of the boat all through this talk. He now went and spat over the side, and then came back to his companion.

“That’s cheerful,” said he.

“They might give you the choice of shooting instead of hanging,” went on the Captain. “For myself, I prefer hanging, I think, if it’s properly done.”

“Oh, Lord, no!” said Harman. “I’ve seen three fellows hanged, and I’ve swore I would never get hanged if I could help it. Give me shootin’, but shootin’ or hangin’ there’s one thing fixed.”

“And what’s that?”

“We’ve got the boodle. I ain’t one of your clever chaps, and I’ve no education to speak of, but I’ve noticed in life that the chaps who get on are the chaps who get a thing fixed and stand on it, same as a chap stands on a scaffolding and builds from it, same as a chap builds a house and doesn’t care a durn for the future.

“Now we’ve got the boodle fixed,” Mr. Harman went on, “there’s no use in bothering whether we’re to be shot or die natural in our bunks. We’ve gone a certain distance, and what I says is, now we’ve gone so far let’s go the whole hog. Let’s rob every one we can lay hands on. That’s my idea.”

“Germans, you mean?”

“I ain’t particular about Germans,” said Mr. Harman. “Anything with money to it is good enough for me, but if it eases your mind we’ll call ’em Germans.”

The Captain whistled for a moment over this broad plan. Then he went to superintend the fellows who were making ready to get the anchor in.

There were no capstan bars on board the Penguin; a steam winch did the business. He gave the signal for steam to be turned on, and then went up on the bridge.

The rattle and rasp of the winch pawls and the links of the anchor chain as it was hauled through the hawse pipe roused echoes from the shore. The gulls fishing on the little harbour made by the protecting reef rose, clamouring and beating their wings, and, as though the sound of the anchor chain had managed to free Sprengel, he appeared, having managed to work his way out of a window.

He came running down to the beach, shaking his fist and shouting till the Captain, more for the fun of the thing than any other reason, picked up a rifle and aimed it at him.

Then he turned and vanished into the woods.

The slack of the anchor chain was now in, and now the anchor itself left the water and was hoisted, dripping, to the catheads. The Captain rang on the engines, and the Penguin began to back out. She could have turned, but it was easier to back her out, especially as the sea was so smooth.

Outside the reef, as she slued round, she let go her siren.

Three times its echoes returned from the moist-throated woods and cliffs; then, full speed ahead, she went toward the east.