"Donnerwetter!" he exclaimed. "This is a colossal shock."
With an effort he pulled himself together, clicked his heels and saluted the British senior officer. Then fumbling in his breast pocket he produced a doc.u.ment and handed it to the captain.
It was a formal surrender.
In it Kapitan von Riesser agreed to hand over the _Pelikan_ at the hour of nine on the following morning.
"Very good," said Captain Holloway. "We are willing to give you a few hours" respite, but you are to clearly understand that nothing must be done in that interval that will affect the _Pelikan_ from a military point of view. You must also send the _Myra"s_ men down by boat before sunset."
"To that I agree," replied von Langer, and stiffly refusing the invitation to have a gla.s.s of wine the German officer went over the side.
Von Langer"s steam cutter was barely out of sight when a couple of German officers belonging to the land forces appeared on the bank, bearing a white flag.
Their business was quickly transacted. They desired to surrender forthwith and unconditionally the remaining troops under their command.
Within an hour eighty-five men, many of them badly wounded, were shipped on board the sea-plane parent ship _Simplicita_. Out of the three hundred reservists who had transhipped from the _San Matias_ to the _Pelikan_ but thirty-three were untouched by the British fire.
Well before sunset the first of the conditions of the _Pelikan"s_ surrender was carried out. The steam cutter returned towing a whaler in which were the crew of the _Myra_. British reticence went by the board when they hove in sight. They cheered frantically like delighted children. Having been under the talons of the German Eagle, they realized more than ever before the world-wide power of Britain"s sea-power.
Amongst them was Captain Pennington, who was warmly greeted by the officers of the _Crustacean_.
He reported that the _Pelikan_ was being prepared for surrender; that her garb of palms was being removed, but as far as he knew no attempt had been made to throw overboard the remaining guns, or to destroy the stores and munitions.
"And to-morrow," remarked Stirling to his chum--"to-morrow we will redeem these."
And he held out Kapitan von Riesser"s receipt for the gold that he had taken from the three subs when they were captured on the _Nichi Maru_.
CHAPTER XXIII
How the _Pelikan_ Surrendered
As soon as darkness set in the monitors switched on their searchlights, the _Crustacean_, which was farthest up-stream, training her projectors on the channel in the direction of the distant _Pelikan_, while the _Paradox_ swept both banks with her powerful beams. In the lagoon the _Eureka_ and the _Simplicita_ directed their searchlights upon the sh.o.r.e.
About one bell in the middle watch the look-out on the _Crustacean_ noticed two dark objects drifting down-stream. At first he thought them to be a pair of hippopotami, but as their relative distance seemed constant and there was no sign of propulsion, he reported the matter to the officer of the watch.
"It"s only a part of the boom, smashed by our sh.e.l.l fire," he remarked casually. "We"ll get a lot of wreckage down with the ebb-tide."
Nevertheless he gave orders for the helm to be starboarded. The monitor, sheering to port under the force of the current until her cable was hard athwart her stem, missed the barrels, for such they were, by a good twenty yards. Steadily they drifted by, eventually stranding in the mud at a distance of two hundred yards from the _Paradox_. In half an hour they were high and dry, lying directly in the rays of the larger monitor"s searchlight.
Twenty minutes later another pair of barrels came drifting down. The officer of the watch of the _Crustacean_ executed a similar manoeuvre, but before the monitor sheered out of the track of the derelicts, the barrels were hung up one on either side of the bows.
"I can hear something ticking, sir," reported a seaman leaning over the low freeboard.
The officer hastened for"ard and listened.
"Nonsense!" he declared. "It"s the bull-frogs on sh.o.r.e that you can hear, or else the lap of the water. They"re only waterlogged barricoes. Push them clear with a boat-hook."
Three or four seamen tried to free the bows from the obstruction but without success. The barrels afforded little or no grip, and pinned down by the rush of tide refused to be thrown clear.
"Away sea-boat!" ordered the officer of the watch.
Quickly the boat was manned, and rowing well ahead of the _Crustacean_, was allowed to drop stern foremost until the c.o.xswain was able to bend a rope to one of the barrels.
"Can you hear anything, Sanders?" asked the officer of the watch.
"No, sir," replied the petty officer.
As a matter of fact he was suffering from gun deafness, but from praiseworthy yet indiscreet motives he had kept the knowledge of his temporary physical defect to himself.
Ordering the men to give way, the c.o.xswain jerked the obstruction clear of the _Crustacean"s_ hawse.
"Shall I make this fast alongside, sir?" he asked. "Perhaps you"d be likely to examine it in the morning."
"No," was the reply, "Tow it clear of the _Paradox"s_ hawse and cast it adrift."
The boat pushed off. The officer of the watch, returning to the bridge, watched the progress of the two barrels as they wobbled in her wake.
Suddenly his attention was aroused in another direction by a loud shout of; "Vessel dead ahead, sir!"
Sweeping round a bend in the river into the glare of the searchlights was the _Pelikan_. She was drifting broadside on, her length appearing to occupy the whole breadth of the deep channel.
"Action stations, there!" roared the officer of the watch.
A bugle blared. Up from below tumbled swarms of men dressed in motley array of a meagre description. The officers, berthed in the after part of the superstructure, rushed out. In thirty seconds the turret, with its pair of monster 14-inch guns, was surging round as a preliminary test of the turning mechanism.
At a glance Stirling took in the situation. The _Pelikan_, being not under control, had been turned adrift with the object of fouling and seriously damaging the British vessels lying in the strong tideway.
He telegraphed for half-speed ahead. The engine-room bell had not clanged a minute when the propellers began to churn. Hurriedly the cable was slipped, and the anchor with eighty fathoms of studded steel chain was lost for ever in the muddy bed of the Mohoro.
The youthful lieutenant-commander"s first duty was to avoid the danger of being fouled. He could not go astern until the _Paradox_ was safely under way. Regarding the _Pelikan_ he was as yet uncertain whether to order the sea-boats to board her and drop anchor, if by chance her ground tackle were ready for instant use, or whether to sink the raider without further ado.
His deliberations were cut short by a tremendous explosion on the bank of the river on the starboard quarter of the _Crustacean_. Where the stranded barrels had been was a huge cavity in the mud, into which the water was pouring rapidly.
A few seconds later another explosion occurred well astern of the _Paradox_. The barrels were nothing more or less than deadly infernal machines. Had they exploded close to the side of either of the monitors it would be doubtful whether, even with their elaborate protection against torpedoes, they would have kept afloat after the terrific concussion.
Almost simultaneously the searchlights on the _Paradox_ went out.
Fragments from the explosion had put the two projectors out of action.
The echoes of the explosion had scarce died away when a shout was raised that the drifting _Pelikan_ was on fire.
With startling suddenness lurid flames were belching from her decks.
Spurts of red-tinged smoke eddied from her open scuttles. In a few seconds she was a ma.s.s of fire from bow to stern.
Slowly she drifted down-stream. At intervals her stern hung up in the mud, till, caught by the current, she would swing round and slide away from the bank. The flames reached well above her mastheads, yet there was comparatively little smoke. The roar of the devouring elements out-voiced every other sound, even the terrified noises of the denizens of the mangrove forests as they fled from the glare that rivalled that of the sun.
From the conning-tower Stirling ordered a shot to be fired from one of the huge turret-guns, but before the muzzle could be depressed a stupendous explosion shook sky, land, and water.