The wounded were all sent to hospital. They would be conveyed to the Cape by the very next steamer.
But something was in the wind surely, for the fleet on this station now received orders by cable to return to Symon's Bay with all speed after taking in sufficient coal.
Kep had time to go on shore. He went in mufti, not his Arab dress. In mufti and after dark. He could do nothing to find out the whereabouts of little boy Bungle's "ole mudder," and so she would never know what had been the fate of her little son.
Perhaps it was better so. For she would do now as most mothers do--just live on in hope of one day seeing him back again.
Taking great care not to be seen, Kep now went to pay a visit to his friend the Arab and to wee Zeena.
I need not waste a sentence in telling of the reception he had nor of the happy evening he spent, or the farewells said. Zeena was Kep's little romance, and it would be very long indeed before he could forget the child.
* * * * *
Why had the ships been ordered down to the Cape? It is a question I cannot really answer. It was now the year 1908, and notwithstanding the great advances in every kind of science, there will still be a few blind men at the Admiralty and in the Government generally. The consequence was that there was far too much wire-pulling. Much was lost by our fleets on the various stations having to wait for orders from home.
The scare on this particular occasion was brought about by what was called an unpremeditated attack by a supposed German cruiser on some British merchant steamers.
In fact some of the latter had been looted and sunk, and their crews and passengers landed almost starving on the nearest land. But as the Germans disclaimed all knowledge of the cruiser, which they advanced in their arguments must be a sort of pirate or Alabama, then the British bull-dog began to growl, and the peace-at-any-price tried to appease him, and said he must not fly at poor Germany, for that heavenly land and all in it were most friendly to the bull-dog. Negotiation, negotiation, that, they said, would settle all disputes.