The Frenchmen recognized the German uniform.
"Mon Dieu—des Allemands. I turn off my course to save castaways and I am captured by the Boches! Mon Dieu!"
The schooner was not big enough, nor had aboard provisions enough, for both the Germans and the prisoners. Kling decided to leave the prisoners, including the crew of the schooner, on the island, where they would be comfortable enough. When he was a week or so out, he would send a wireless that would bring ships to their rescue. So, the whole of Seeadler-town was given over to the prisoners, and the schooner sailed away. She was named the Lutece, but my men discovered that she had been the German ship, the Fortuna. She had been seized by the French during the war. So she got her old name back. She was German again—a German auxiliary cruiser. For Kling fully intended to go right on buccaneering.
Three days after the Fortuna sailed, our former prisoners saw a cloud of smoke on the horizon. Steaming at full speed, her funnels belching smoke, the Japanese cruiser, Usuma, steered to the island. On her bridge the admiral swore in Japanese.
"By Joe, the Count fooled me all right. He told me the truth. There is the wreck, and there are his men. Everything except the Manila. He tricked me with the tale about the Manila."
The Japanese found only men of the Allied nations.
"Where are the Germans?"
"I'm sorry," replied the French captain, "but they sailed away three days ago in my ship, the Lutece."
The Japanese admiral was thoroughly disgusted at that, but of course he took the whole crowd aboard and took them back to the Fijis. It was of no use to go racing about the immense spaces of the Pacific looking for a solitary sailing square-rigged schooner.
Kling's plan was to sail around Horn into the Atlantic, sink a few ships there, and then try to steal through the blockade and get back home. His course took him to Easter Island, a small, remote possession of Chile where there was no wireless station. There he intended to overhaul the ship, which was in bad condition, and take aboard supplies and fresh water. On October 4th, they sighted the island, but while sailing into the harbour struck an uncharted, sunken rock. The Fortuna was old and worm-eaten. The rock crashed right through her planks. The ship pounded and quickly broke up. The men had to swim for it.