might have taken up the chase, and ordered the _Hitachi_ to stop. We
heard afterwards that one ship--the _Wairuna_, from New Zealand to San
Francisco--had been caught in this way. The seaplane had hovered over
her, dropped messages on her deck ordering her to follow the plane to a
concealed harbour near, failing which bombs would be dropped to explode
the ship. Needless to say, the ship followed these instructions.

"There was no panic, and the women were splendid." How often one has
read that in these days of atrocity at sea! We were to realize it now;
the women were indeed splendid. There was no crying or screaming or
hysteria, or wild inquiries. They were perfectly calm and collected:
none of them showed the least fear, even under fire. The women took the
matter as coolly as if being shelled and leaving a ship in lifeboats
were nothing much out of the ordinary. Their sang-froid was marvellous.

As we thought the ship was slowly sinking, we pushed off from her side
as quickly as possible. There were now four lifeboats in the water at
some distance from each other. The one in which we were contained about
twenty-four persons. There was no officer or member of the crew with us,
while another boat contained officers and sailors only. No one in our
boat knew where we were to go or what we were to do. One passenger
wildly suggested that we should hoist a sail and set sail for Colombo,
two days' _steaming_ away! Search was made for provisions and water in
our boat, but she was so full of people and impedimenta that nothing
could be found. It _was_ found, however, that water was rapidly coming
into the boat, and before long it reached to our knees. The hole which
should have been plugged could not be discovered, so for more than an
hour some of the men took turns at pulling, and baling the water out
with their sun-helmets. This was very hot work, as it must be remembered
we were not far from the Equator. Ultimately, however, the hole was