In the meanwhile the incoming steamers had discovered the nature of this curious new arrival, and lit us up on all sides with their searchlights.
Thus our arrival in American waters was rather in the nature of a weird nocturne.
The search for our tug-boat was, however, by no means an easy matter in the darkness. We cruised around for some time till at last, after two hours, we found her.
It was the tug "Timmins," under the command of Captain Hinsch of the North German Lloyd.
Great was his delight, for the gallant captain, whose steamer, the "Neckar," had lain at Baltimore since the beginning of the war, had been waiting nearly ten days for us between the capes. Our long delay had filled him with distress as to our possible fate.
Now, however, he was delighted to see his long-expected protégé safe and sound before his eyes. He communicated to us thereupon the order to proceed to Baltimore instead of Newport News, where everything was already prepared for our arrival.
We parted therefore from our honest pilot, and travelled on, accompanied by the "Timmins," into Chesapeake Bay, after proudly hoisting the German flag which had not fluttered over these waters since the arrival of the "Eitel Friedrich" in front of Hampton Road.
In this manner we entered the bay in the grey morning light. Our course became by degrees a triumphal procession. All the American and neutral steamers that met us greeted us with prolonged tootings from pipes and sirens. One English steamer only passed by us in poisonous silence, while our black, white and red flag fluttered proudly in the wind before her eyes.
Captain Hinsch, moreover, in his tug, took devilish care that the Englishman should not by chance run too close in by the rudder and ram us by mistake!
The gallant "Timmins" was useful to us in other ways. Our only means of responding to the greetings of the various steamers was by driving the siren by means of our precious compressed air. This would have gradually become an expensive game, and so the "Timmins" undertook to return thanks for us with her hoarse steam whistle.