"Hardly had we been towed out again after twenty-four hours, on the evening of the 28th, when a searchlight appeared before us. I think: 'Better interned than prisoner.' I put out all lights and withdrew to the shelter of the island. But they were Hollanders and didn't do anything to us. Then for two weeks more we drifted around, lying still for days. The weather was alternately still, rainy and blowy. At length a ship comes in sight—a freighter. It sees us and makes a big curve around us. I make everything hastily 'clear for battle.' Then one of our officers recognizes her for the Choising. She shows the German flag. I send up light rockets, although it was broad day, and go with all sails set that were still setable, toward her. The Choising is a coaster, from Hongkong for Siam. It was at Singapore when the war broke out, then went to Batavia, was chartered loaded with coal for the Emden, and had put into Padang in need, because the coal in the hold had caught fire. There we had met her.
The crew board the Choising.
"Great was our joy now. I had all my men come on deck and line up for review. The fellows hadn't a rag on. Thus, in Nature's garb, we gave three cheers for the German flag on the Choising. The men on the Choising told us afterward 'we couldn't make out what that meant, those stark naked fellows all cheering!' The sea was too high, and we had to wait two days before we could board the Choising on December 16. We took very little with us; the schooner was taken in tow. In the afternoon we sunk the Ayesha and we were all very sad. The good old Ayesha had served us faithfully for six weeks. The log showed that we had made 1,709 sea miles under sail since leaving Keeling. She wasn't at all rotten and unseaworthy, as they had told me, but nice and white and dry inside. I had grown fond of the ship, on which I could practice my old sailing manoeuvres. The only trouble was that the sails would go to pieces every now and then because they were so old.
The Ayesha is sunk.
"But anyway she went down quite properly, didn't she?" Mücke turned to the officer. "We had bored a hole in her; she filled slowly and then all of a sudden plump disappeared! That was the saddest day of the whole month. We gave her three cheers, and my next yacht at Kiel will be named Ayesha, that's sure.
Turkey an ally of Germany.
"To the Captain of the Choising I had said, when I hailed him: 'I do not know what will happen to the ship. The war situation may make it necessary for me to strand it.' He did not want to undertake the responsibility. I proposed that we work together, and I would take the responsibility. Then we traveled together for three weeks, from Padang to Hodeida. The Choising was some ninety meters long and had a speed of nine miles, though sometimes only four. If she had not accidentally arrived I had intended to cruise high along the west coast of Sumatra to the region of the northern monsoon. I came about six degrees north, then over Aden to the Arabian coast. In the Red Sea the northeastern monsoon, which here blows southeast, could bring us to Djidda. I had heard in Padang that Turkey is allied with us, so we would be able to get safely through Arabia to Germany.
"I next waited for information through ships, but the Choising did not know anything definite, either. By way of the Luchs, the Königsberg, and Kormoran the reports were uncertain. Besides, according to newspapers at Aden, the Arabs were said to have fought with the English. Therein there seemed to be offered an opportunity near at hand to damage the enemy. I therefore sailed with the Choising in the direction of Aden. Lieutenant Gerdts of the Choising had heard that the Arabian railway now already went almost to Hodeida, near the Perim Strait. The ship's surgeon there, Docounlang, found confirmation of this in Meyer's traveling handbook. This railway could not have been taken over by the Englishmen, who always dreamed of it. By doing this they would have further and completely wrought up the Mohammedans by making more difficult the journey to Mecca. Best of all, we thought, we'll simply step into the express train and whizz nicely away to the North Sea. Certainly there would be safe journeying homeward through Arabia. To be sure, we hadn't maps of the Red Sea; but it was the shortest way to the foe, whether in Aden or in Germany.
On toward Aden.
"Therefore, courage! Adenwards!"