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Show j I THE SEA DEVIL f H,uwSjrKy c By LOWELL THOMAS t I H"MHHHH' 3 t t 'I t' t 'I' 'I' f ft $ t 1 ft H $ $ H4 up and forced the vessel back to port We returned trltb her. And now we should have taken her while she lay at anchor. Tbe people ashore would have seen what was going on, but we could have held op the Islund and tlieu put to sea, storm or no storm. That was our first Impulse. We should have followed It Always trust your first Impulse at any rate. If yog go Into the pirate business. It Is the boldest and best. Instead, we chose more cautious course. We resolved to wait until the following day and capture cap-ture our ship when It had got out to sea. While we waited, another vessel arrived. She was a beauty, too, and would have delighted any seaman's eye as she came sailing Into the harbor. She had Just arrived, we were told, from Suva. She ran regularly among the Islands, carrying merchandise to tbe traders. She was a handsome three-masted three-masted schooner with auxiliary motor power, new, clean, and trim. Just the kind of ship we wanted. - "By Joe," I said to my boys, "there's our ship." We Immediately dismissed all Idea of the old windjammer we had Intended Intend-ed to capture, and devoted ourselves to this new beauty. A council of war A steamer slid Into port I The skipper ot our clipper who wat standing next to me said he supposed she had brought over the proprietor of the Island. The new arrival lowered low-ered a boat In it were military officer offi-cer and font Indian soldiers. Tbe boat rowed straight toward our ship. We surmised at once that they were coming for us. Having received the message sent by the suspicious half-breed half-breed and the white man that there were six Germans on the Island, the authorities bad sent a force of military mili-tary police to arrest us. There bad 1 been some delay In this, as the only available boat on which to send tbe police was a cattle steamer, tbe Amra. and she could not raise anchor for some hours. She bad arrived now right In the nick of time, had communicated commu-nicated with the shore, and been informed in-formed that we were aboard the schooner. .The storm bad cleared during tbe early morning. Tbe palm trees ashore were ahluze wttb the tropical sunshine. sun-shine. The water nnder ns was of the deep blue that you see only In tbe South Seas. A brisk, refreshing wind blew from the rest The boat wi n the officer and four soldiers came rowing row-ing with long, powerful strokes. Tbe Indians wore puttees and those funny little pants that leave the knees bare. Tbey carried no arms other than bayonets. bay-onets. The officer bad a sword and a revolver. We could easily bave shot tbem down wltb our pistols, or thrown a band grenade In their boat, or held them up at pistol point when they came aboard. Tben we could bave captured the ship and sailed away. The steamer would have been powerless power-less In the face of our machine guns. There were multerings among my men. Tbey were full of fight We should, they urged, make the capture and get away. i -" t CHAPTER XV Caught by the British at Wa- I ' kaya -: The Island was Wakaya. Several rid sailing ships were In the harbor. We gazed at them with hungry eyes, ond eager plans of capturing one ran through our minds. Natives on shore spied us, took ns for shipwrecked sailors, sail-ors, and put a boat out to meet us. it suited our plant to let them go right Ho thinking we bad been shipwrecked. That might make It much easier for us to get some information about the vessels at anchor. Leaving a couple of my boys In the boat the other four of us srcompanled the natives to their huts, where they treated ns hospitably. Tbey were a simple, trusting people. Seversl half-breeds and a couple of white men, however, looked at ns suspiciously. sus-piciously. One half breed was par tleularly offensive and Insisted on asking ask-ing ns many questions. We did not like his behavior at all. Klrcheiss snd I took a walk along a path In the woods to talk over what teemed another menacing situation. A white man came galloping by on horseback. He was pale wltb excite ment He slowed down for a moment s gazed at us, responded curtly to our greeting, and went on. Thoroughly alarmed, we hurried back to the village. vil-lage. Some curious business was afoot, and we were determined to find out what It was. "Our lat half gallon ot rum." Klichelss murmured regretfully. "Yes," I responded, "it is too bad, but it will go to a useful purpose." We got hold of the half-caste who had been so inquisitive. Tbe white mn we had seen on horseback was with him. Something, Indeed, was afoot. We talked casually with them and then suggested drinking. They were Interested, and became enthusi astlc whpn we produced our half-gal- I loo of rum. In the half breed's but ; we staged a drinking bout which last Ied half through tbe night Nothing like rum to make men friendly and conversational. The half-breed got to conversational that he blurted out: "Why. you're all right But at first we thought yon were Germans. We could got fifty pounds if you were Germans." Now, as sn American sailor would any, you've got to "band It" to the English. They know bow to spend money when It is useful We Germans Ger-mans are usually more niggardly, or "careful" some might call It We will try to save a mark and then lose Ihou-' Ihou-' samls. Having received the wireless I warning from tbe resident at Altutakl of mysterious armed Germans In the South Sens, the authorities In the FIJIs had passed word among the oa-tlves oa-tlves to be on the lookout for us, and had offered a two-hundred and-fifty-dollar reward to anyone who turned In definite Information about a party of Germans posing ss neutrals. It was clear enough that the half-breed half-breed and tht white man had been plotting to hand us over to the au thorltles, but how far they had gone we did not know. We didn't find out that night It was not ULtll later that we learned the white man's horseback ride hnd been to give t- warning obnut us to the captain of a cutter In the I harbor, and that the cutter had at !' once shoved off to carry the message to the officials of the larger Islands a , day's sail sway. 1 passed an uncomfortable moment of indecision. Our uniforms were packed In our bundles, stowed below. We would have to fight off arrest and take the ship in tbe guise, not of naval soldiers but of civilians, and as civilians civil-ians we wonld bave to raise our weapons against soldiers. That not only went against the grain, but It went against tbe unwritten lawt ef the game. There are many sporting traditions that are carefully inculcated incul-cated In every German naval officer. If we could bave fought in our uniforms. uni-forms. It would bave been as honorable honor-able naval men. In the end, tbe odds would be all against us snd tbe chances were at least a hundred to one that we would be captured before getting bark home. If we fought as naval men and were later captured, we would be entitled to the treatment due honorable prisoners of war. If we fought in citizens' clothes, we were nothing more than International bandits ban-dits and as sucb almost sure to bang finally from a yardnrm. They say that all Is fair In love and war, but this does not alter the fact that there are things you can do that are not playing play-ing Hie gntne. Of course, eacb side has its spies, and a spy. If caught; expects ex-pects no quarter and gets none. Moa, Captured by ths Escaping Prls- oners. was held, after which Klrchelss went to the captain of the vessel, whlcb now had docked, and told him that we were Norwegians who, while making a cruise In a lifeboat bad missed our Mp, which was taking coal from Australia Aus-tralia to Suva. Could we not take passage with him to Suva Instead ot on the other slower old craft, so thsl we could get back to our own ship? We wonld pay regular rates for the passage. "All right," replied the captain, a Jovial, unsuspecting fellow. "Come aboard at eight o'clock this evening We 8ull In the morning." It was our plan sgaln that once aboard this lovely ship snd out at sea we would suddenly appear In our unl forms and hoist the German flag. We made ready to abandon the Hf boat. Our belongings required careful pncklns- We put rifles, machine guns, cartridges, and grenades In our canvas hags, wrapped our naval uniforms around these, and then rolled each bundle In a couple of blankets and tied It" securely. A. casual handling would not reveal the armament In9lde. Eacb of ns took a pistol In one pocket and a hand grenade In the other. At But during the War of 1870, and during dur-ing the lute war, too, we Germans were most severe with franctlreurs, civilians who sniped at soldiers. It has been one of our cardinal principles prin-ciples thut war must be waged by uniformed uni-formed soldiers. In the World war, both sides were charged with Introducing Intro-ducing new methods ot warfare that were not In accordance wltb the ethics of the game. But you will recall re-call that even Allied cargo and passenger pas-senger ships armed with guns to fire on submarines made It a general rule to carry gun crews of onlformed marines ma-rines to handle the guns "No." I siild to my men, "In the uniforms uni-forms of our country we can tight As civilians we cannot At any rate, we are not going to drop a bomb down there and kill that poor defenseless police, po-lice, officer snd his men In those short pants! There would be neither fun nor glory In that." (TO BE CONTINUED.) eight o'clock we went aboard tne schooner. Our maneuvers had been made carefully, end we had attracted no niidye notice of the people who were suspicious ot us. Aboard, the captain received us hospitably, hos-pitably, and we went around looking over what we expected to make out 1 next prize of war. And a prize she was, just a year out of the shipyard nnd beautifully finished In every detail. de-tail. I could hardly wait for her to ralsu anchor and set sail. But we had. counted that brood ot mental chick eus before they had hatched, by Joe. Not knowing tnts, we useo a gooa deal of persuasion to put the Ides firmly Into the bends of the two men that we could not possibly be Ger mans. It may have been our eloquence, elo-quence, or, more likely, tbe genial In fluence of the ruin, but, at any rate, they seemed to lose all of their suspicions sus-picions and became convinced that we if were the truest Norwegians from Scandinavia. Klrchelss and I, somewhat some-what the worse from our session at detective work, slept at the Englishman's English-man's house. I The four others were offered quar ters ashore for the night, but two of my boys remained In the boat as a precaution. It was well they did, too. During the night, native swimmers went out to her and cut the anchor 1 rope. They were put up to It by a I Malay police officer who was suspl- clous' of us. Not knowing any of my v men would remain on board her, since - tV1" tie was only an open lifeboat, he ! planned to search her. So he sent bis j swimmers out to pull her ashore and I beach her. The wind whs Inshore. The anchor rope cut the boat drifted In. Our two men were asleep, and only awakened when keel Jarred agulnst bottom. Dark figures were around In the water, trying to pull the boot on the beach. Our men, pistol In hand, drove them sway and tben pushed out Into open woter. tin the following day, we made our tlmil costly error. The ships In the harbor weighed anchor and raised sail We picked the one that seemed the newest and arranged with the skipper to take us along wltb blm to Suva, on the imiln Islund Vitl Leva Of course, oni plan wus simply to sail a few miles out to sea with blm and then lake the ship ourselves after donning tir uniforms and getting out all ot uiir weapons. A sudden squall blew |