SHIPWRECK
Our return to Sanaa was accomplished in the same manner as we had traveled thither, and without hindrance of any kind. In order to make arrangements for our onward journey by sea, I had taken a few of my men with me and hurried on ahead of the caravan. In this way I succeded in getting to Hodeida a day and a half ahead of the others. It took the caravan eight days to get there. To be sure, our little advance guard had spent both day and night in the saddle, the only halts being made when we changed animals.
As the Choising had been sent on, and there was nothing in the way of steamboats to be had at Hodeida, there was but one thing left for us to do,—to continue our journey in zambuks. A zambuk is a small sail-boat much in use all along the Arabian coast, and is provided with a dhow sail.
I procured two such boats in Hodeida, each about fourteen meters long and four meters wide. These two zambuks I sent to Yabana, a little bay to the north of Hodeida. Because of the French armored cruiser, still sleepily rocking at anchor, a departure from the harbor of Hodeida was out of the question for me. The Frenchman might accidentally have a spell of wakefulness. As I was aware that the country was swarming with English and French spies, I took pains to spread abroad the report that it was our intention to sail from Isa Bay on the thirteenth of March. It happened just as I had foreseen. On the afternoon of the twelfth of March the little and out-of-the-way Isa Bay, where no house, nor tree, nor bush is to be seen, and where there is hardly any water, was honored for the first time since the beginning of the war by the presence of an English gun-boat, which hunted for us with its search-light all up and down the shore. The poor fellows! How they must have wondered where we were!
On the fourteenth of March, at five o’clock in the afternoon, my fleet sailed from Yabana. The Imperial war flag flew proudly at the masthead of my flagship, and with three cheers for His Majesty, the Emperor, we began our onward journey. The flagship of the second admiral was in command of Lieutenant Gerdts. We made up for the total lack of any further ships in the fleet by our absolutely correct discipline. As the second zambuk was somewhat larger than mine, the sick were put aboard of it. Malaria, dysentery, and typhus were still prevalent among the men, of whom there were always one or two so ill as to cause us the gravest anxiety. Under no circumstances, however, would I have been willing to leave any of them behind, for their only hope of improvement lay in a change of climate.
With regard to the English I had kept myself posted up to the last minute as best I could, and I was aware that an English blockade was being maintained by two gun-boats together with the auxiliary cruiser Empress of Russia, in a line extending from Loheia across Kamaran, Jebel Sebejir to Jebel Soghair. My problem now was how I could run this blockade with my sail-boats. To avoid the possibility of both boats being captured at the same time, I gave Lieutenant Gerdts orders to separate from me. A meeting place farther to the north was appointed, where we were to wait a while for each other.
Soon the other zambuk was lost to sight in the darkness of the approaching night. Now, for the first time, our lucky star forsook us, for, as the day dawned, the wind died away entirely, and, after the sun had risen, we discovered to our extreme discomfiture that we were exactly where we had no wish to be, namely, right in the middle of the English blockade line. We expected at any moment to see the masthead of an English ship appear above the horizon. Our frame of mind was not of the happiest. The absence of wind detained us more surely than the most superior of foes could have held us. But it had not been without a good reason that I had delayed our departure to the end of the week. I was sufficiently familiar with English customs to know that the gentlemen are disinclined to work during week ends, that is, on Saturdays and Sundays. And nothing did, in fact, come in sight during the entire day.