"'Fraid so," agreed O'Hara.
As there was hardly any sea running the two vessels ran alongside each other. The new-comer had the name San Matias painted on her stern and on her boats and life-buoys. She carried no guns except a couple of small brass signalling pieces. Her officers and a few of her crew were South Americans, beyond doubt, but the rest of the crowded complement were of marked Teutonic origin.
The British subs stood at the rail watching the unwonted sight. No one offered to order them below. It was part of the business to let them see what was going on.
No time was lost. While a party of officers from the San Matias were being entertained by von Riesser in his cabin the Germans from her transferred themselves and their belongings to the Pelikan—nearly three hundred men of military age and bearing. Then came the work of transhipping stores from the capacious holds of the South American vessel. Carcass after carcass of oxen and sheep were brought on deck. From the oxen were produced long bundles wrapped in cloth. Every bundle contained four modern magazine rifles. Enclosed with the frozen mutton were small shells and rifle ammunition. As fast as the munitions were taken from their strange places of concealment most of the carcasses were dumped overboard, a few hundred being retained for food and stored in the Pelikan's refrigerators. Then came bundles of hides, each containing parts of machine-guns, until it looked as if the ship had enough material to equip an army corps.
Long before the San Matias had disgorged her warlike stores Denbigh had overheard enough conversation to enable him to solve the mystery.
The San Matias had been chartered by a number of wealthy German merchants in Buenos Ayres for the purpose of sending some hundreds of reservists to German East Africa. The presence of the Pelikan in the South Atlantic had been expected, and her progress, based upon reports from British cruisers and duly transmitted by spies to Buenos Ayres, reached the projectors of the scheme with remarkable promptitude. The arms and ammunition had been purchased sometime previously from a pro-German firm in New York, and sent to the Argentine to fulfil a fictitious contract for the Government of that republic.
The San Matias was then chartered, her owner, captain, and crew being heavily bribed to undertake the risk, comparative immunity being afforded by means of forged ship's papers and certificates of nationality of the "passengers". At the same time the report was spread in Buenos Ayres and Monte Video that the Pelikan had been sighted making for Bahia—a matter of two thousand miles N.N.E. of the estuary of the La Plata. British agents swallowed the bait and telegraphed the news to London, whence, in turn, the false information was transmitted to the patrol vessels specially detailed to search for the daring raider.
This report had literally done the trick. The northernmost group of British cruisers instantly converged upon the Brazilian coast in the neighbourhood of Bahia. The southern patrol remained in the vicinity of the Falklands. Thus the Pelikan had the chance of a free and uninterrupted run eastwards until she approached the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope. Although her adventures were by no means over, one source of danger had been removed.
The German reservists were certainly optimists. They firmly believed that Egypt had been wrested from the British, and that their role was to join the large army concentrating in German East Africa and march victoriously down the valley of the Nile and crush the remnant of the English in the vicinity of Khartoum. According to their idea and belief South Africa was in rebellion, and that German South-West Africa was once more a Teutonic colony. India, too, had revolted and joined the Turks, who had occupied Persia and Beluchistan. Mention was also made of the impending advance of the Turco-Germanic armies through Tibet and China to establish a vast empire from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to avenge upon Japan the loss of Kiau-Chau. In short, the German armies were everywhere triumphant, although they could hardly understand why they should have to be smuggled out to sea when the German High Seas Fleet roamed unchallenged and the British navy skulked in harbours.
At length the last of the San Mathias's cargo was transhipped. The two vessels parted company, the Argentine returning to Buenos Ayres while the Pelikan headed eastward on her perilous passage round the Cape of Good Hope.