The apparent miracle had been accomplished in an absurdly easy fashion. About nine a.m. on the eighteenth a German orderly went into the post-office at Dover and handed in an official telegram signed "Von Roon," ordering the Hohenzollern to come round at once to Dover, as she was considered too open to attack there.
There was something so beautifully natural and simple in the whole proceeding that, although there were about a dozen German officers and non-commissioned officers in the room at the time that the orderly came and went without suspicion, the telegram was taken by the clerk, read and initialled by the Censor, and passed.
A few minutes later the orderly, marching in perfectly correct German fashion and carrying a large yellow envelope, walked out through the town northwards and climbed the hill to the eastward of the ruined castle. The envelope with its official seal took him past the sentries without question, but, instead of delivering it, he turned down a bypath to Fan Bay, under the South Foreland, gained the beach, took off his uniform in a secluded spot under the cliffs, and went for a swim. The uniform was never reclaimed, for when he reached the submerged Ithuriel Denis Castellan had a rub down and put his own on.
The captain of the Hohenzollern was only too glad to obey the order, for he also thought that it would be better protected from the dreaded ocean terror in Dover, so he lost no time in obeying the order; with the result that, just as he was entering the deserted Downs, the said terror met him and ordered him to the right-about under pain of instant sinking.
After that the rest was easy. The captain and officers raged and stormed, but not even German discipline would have prevented a mutiny if they had not surrendered. It was known that the Ithuriel took no prisoners. In five minutes after the irresistible ram had hit them they would be at the bottom of the sea, and so the Hohenzollern put about and steamed out into the North Sea, with the three wicked forward guns trained upon her, and the ram swirling smoothly through the water fifty yards from her stern.
At nightfall the course was altered for the mouth of the Thames. And so, with all lights out and steered by a thin shifting ray from her captor's conning-tower, the Kaiser's yacht made its strange way to Tilbury.
The instant she dropped her anchor a couple of destroyers ran out from the Gravesend shore and ranged alongside her. The next minute a British captain and three lieutenants followed by a hundred bluejackets had boarded her. The German Commander and his officers gave up their swords, devoutly hoping that they would never meet their War Lord again, and so the incident ended.
It will be easily understood that the Kaiser was about the most infuriated man in the United Kingdom when the Flying Fishes arrived at Canterbury and the Commander of the squadron described the arrival of the Hohenzollern in the Thames and asked for orders.
In the first place no one knew better than William the Second how priceless was the prize won by the impudent audacity of these two young British sailors. In his private apartments on board there were his own complete plans of the campaign—not only for the conquest of Britain, but afterwards for the dismemberment of the British Empire, and its partition among the Allies—exact accounts of the resources of the chief European nations in men, money and ships, plans of fortifications, and even drafts of treaties. In fact, it was such a haul of Imperial and International secrets as had never been made before; and that evening the British Cabinet held in their possession enough diplomatic explosives to blow the European league of nations to pieces.
Erskine and Castellan were honoured by an autograph letter from the King, thanking them heartily for their splendid services up to the present stage of the war, and wishing them all good luck for the future. Then the Ithuriel slipped down the Thames, towing half a dozen shabby-looking barges behind her, and for some days she disappeared utterly from human ken.