, was
lying near Yap, an island in the Pacific, that had been, until
captured by the Japanese, the wireless station of most importance
to the Germans in the Pacific Ocean. She immediately, after being
apprised that she was part of a navy engaged in a war, set sail
and was not reported again until the 7th of September, when she
appeared at Fanning Island, a cable station maintained by Britain,
and from which cables run to Vancouver to the east and Australia
to the west. Here she performed a clever bit of work by entering
the harbor flying the tricolor of France and appearing as though
she was making a friendly visit. Officials on the island, happy
to think they would have such a visitor, saw two cutters leave
the warship.

Great was the surprise of those watching events from the shore
when they saw the French flag lowered from the masthead of the
visitor and in its place the German naval ensign run up. The cutters
were just about reaching knee-deep water at the shore when this
surprise came, and it was augmented when, with the protection of
the guns of the vessel, the men in these cutters showed themselves
to be a hostile landing party.

Her presence was not reported to the rest of the world for the
good reason that she cut all cables leading from the island. All
the British men there were put under guard, and after damaging
all cable instruments she could find, the _Nuernberg_, accompanied
by a collier that had come with her, again took to the high seas.

She next turned up at the island of St. Felix, 300 miles west of
the Chilean coast, but did not come to the harbor. During the night
of October 14 the inhabitants of that island saw the flash and heard
the roar of an explosion miles out to sea, and for a number of
days later they picked up on their beach the wreckage of what must
have been a collier. As has been related in preceding paragraphs,
the _Nuernberg_ took part in that fight. The end of her career came
in the battle off the Falkland Islands, which will be dealt with
later.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXV

THE GERMAN SEA RAIDERS

While British men-o'-war were capturing German merchant-men and
taking them to British ports, the German raiders which were abroad
were earning terrifying reputations for themselves because the
enemy merchantmen with which they came upon had to be destroyed
on the high seas, for there were no ports to which they could be
taken. Prominent among thes