Within two hours of the Actæon's wireless message additional small cruisers, armed auxiliaries, and destroyers left Table Bay, while others were ordered from the Pacific Station to proceed to the vicinity of Cape Horn and guard both the passage to the southward of that place and also the intricate Straits of Magellan.
In the event of the Pelikan eluding the cordon in the Atlantic, and since it was known that her desired destination was German East Africa, the squadron operating in conjunction with the British military expedition was warned to exercise a particularly sharp look-out, both in the Mozambique Channel and off the East African coast between 4° S. and 11° S. lat.
Four swift destroyers of the Australian Navy were also given instructions to proceed to Mauritius and await orders. Thus the net was being swiftly tightened around the fugitive liner that alone flew the Black Cross ensign of Germany outside European waters.
CHAPTER VIII
Reinforcements
Under reduced speed, in order to economize her coal, the Pelikan held on her southerly course. By dint of careful stoking, her funnels emitted little or no smoke that might betray her position. At night every light was screened.
Fortune seemed to be favouring her, for without sighting a single vessel she reached the fortieth parallel, or considerably farther to the south'ard than she need do in ordinary circumstances in order to round the Cape of Good Hope.
The air was rapidly becoming colder, and her crew, being unprovided with warm garments, suffered acutely after coming straight from the Tropics.
While the work of repairing the damage done by the British cruiser's shells was progressing as well as the limited means at the disposal of the ship would permit, one of the crew slipped, and striking his head against the edge of an iron plate, was so severely injured that he died within two hours of the accident.