t hauls, the
_Diplomat_, chock full of tea--we sunk $2,500,000 worth. On the same day
the _Trabbotch_, too, which steered right straight toward us, literally
into our arms.

[Sidenote: Madras oil tanks burned.]

"But now we wanted to beat it out of the Bay of Bengal, because we had
learned from the papers that the _Emden_ was being keenly searched for.
By Rangoon we encountered a Norwegian tramp, which, for a cash
consideration, took over all the rest of our prisoners of war. Later on
another neutral ship rejected a similar request and betrayed us to the
Japanese into the bargain. On September 23 we reached Madras and steered
straight for the harbor. We stopped still 3,000 yards before the city.
Then we shot up the oil tanks. Three or four burned up and illuminated
the city. They answered. Several of the papers asserted that we left
with lights out. On the contrary, we showed our lights so as to seem to
indicate that we were going northward; only later did we put them out,
turn around, and steer southward. As we left we could see the fire
burning brightly in the night, and even by daylight, ninety sea miles
away, we could still see the smoke from the burning oil tanks. Two days
later we navigated around Ceylon, and could see the lights of Colombo.
On the same evening we gathered in two more steamers, the _King Lund_
and _Tyweric_. The latter was particularly good to us, for it brought us
the very latest evening papers from Colombo, which it had only left two
hours before.

[Sidenote: Ships that the _Emden_ captured.]

"Everything went well, the only trouble was that our prize, the
_Markomannia_, didn't have much coal left. We said one evening in the
mess: 'The only thing lacking now is a nice steamer with 500 tons of
nice Cardiff coal.' The next evening we got her, the _Burresk_,
brand-new, from England on her maiden voyage, bound for Hongkong. Then
followed in order the _Riberia_, _Foyle_, _Grand Ponrabbel_, _Benmore_,
_Troiens_, _Exfort_, _Grycefale_, _Sankt Eckbert_, _Chilkana_. Most of
them were sunk; the coal ships were kept. The _Eckbert_ was let go with
a load of passengers and captured crews. We also sent the _Markomannia_
away because it hadn't any more coal. She was later captured by the
English together with all the prize papers about their own captured
ships. All this happened before October 20; then we sailed southward, to
Deogazia, southwest of Colombo. South of Lakadiven on Deogazia some
Englishmen c