As the steamer was one that could serve our own purposes excellently well—she could be transformed into a very good German auxiliary cruiser—our commander decided not to destroy her, but instead to take her to Tsingtao. At a speed of fifteen miles we made our way southward. Behind us, in our wake, followed the Rjesan. A commanding officer with a prize crew of twelve men remained aboard of her, to make certain that the service of the ship and the engines, etc., would be according to our wishes.
From the newspapers, we had learned that the main body of the French fleet, consisting of the armored cruisers Montcalm and Dupleix, besides a number of torpedo boat destroyers, was lying somewhere off Vladivostok. With these ships the Emden must not be allowed to come in contact by daylight. As we were rounding the southern extremity of Corea, the look-out in the top suddenly sang out, "Seven smoke clouds in sight astern!" To make quite sure of it, the Commander sent me aloft. I, too, could distinctly see seven separate columns of smoke, together with the upper structure of a small vessel, the one nearest to us, just above the horizon. Upon hearing my report, the commander gave orders to change our course. We swept a wide circle, and so avoided the enemy. Without meeting with hindrance of any kind, we arrived at Tsingtao.
On the way we caught up an interesting wireless message. The Reuter Agency, so celebrated for its rigid adherence to facts, was sending a telegram abroad, informing the credulous world that the Emden had been sunk. How many sympathetic people must have shuddered as they read,—and so did we, of course!
During the following night, our prize occasioned us some further trouble. Naturally, her lights, as well as our own, had to be screened. It was a much easier matter to give orders to that effect, however, than to see to it that they were carried out. On the steamer were several women passengers, who, from the outset, were filled with mortal terror as to what the barbarous Germans would do with them. Most of them were fat Russian Jewesses. Every few minutes they would turn on the electric lights in their cabins, so that finally there was nothing left for the officer of the prize crew to do but to have the electric light cable in the engine capped....
III—IN THE HARBOR AT TSINGTAO
At Tsingtao our commander found orders awaiting him from the Admiral of our squadron, Count von Spee, who, with the armored cruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the small cruiser, Nürnberg, was in the South Pacific, steering northward. The Emden's orders were to join this squadron at a stated point of meeting in the South Pacific.
At sunrise on the following day the Emden left Tsingtao in the company of a large number of German ships, all bound for the south, where they were to join the Admiral's squadron.