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Show COUNT LUCKNER THE SEA DEVIL end ran the other way. A a Iceberg curries -telther lights, lighthouses, buoys, nor sirens. She is cold, calculating, cal-culating, merciless Circe, and the wise mariner gives ber a wide berth, dome of os thought the berg was sli thousand thou-sand feet long while others thought It much more than that We were so near H that we could bear the filtering fil-tering and squawking of the thou-snnds thou-snnds of sea gulls that swarmed around the Ice mountain. In the wild, henvlng sea, the berg rolled like some mammoth ship. There were cracking sound as the heaving Ice strslned and split Once, under the stress of the movement, one whole vast corner broke off with s tremendous rending and tearing. The block, as big as s kyscraier, crashed Into the sen, and before It could start off on a cruise of Its own dashed It Into the berg with a noise like thunder, and this continued time and again as the parent par-ent berg drove Its husky offspring before be-fore It. Suddenly, there came an ominous scraping sound. The Seeadler quivered, quiv-ered, and our blood fairly froze. We had grazed a submerged snout of Ice. In such a sea, there would have been no chance to launch lifeboats. Although Al-though we bad not staved In our bull, nevertheless, the ship had sprung a leak. No matter who was captain. Everybody to the pomps. I took my place with the sailors In the hold, and we all fought to keep the water In check. The brush with the Ico was a warning. We veered a bit more to the north, and with pumps working madly, passed the berg. The wind wrenched us, the waves struck ns hard, but we kept on, beating our way to the Pacific and pumping. "Cruiser ahoy!" I saw through the storm a twenty-three-thousand ton auxiliary cruiser. I believe It was the Otrnnto, a converted convert-ed nnssenger liner, fast and well armed, capable of blowing ns out of the water before our little gun could throw a shell halfway to her. "Hard aport," I shouted. The ship shook as the helm was forced over, and the wind nearly turned as bottom side up. Storm or By Lowell Thomas ' Copyright by Doubled?. Dors A Co. CHAPTER X 13- Retcing th Enemy Around Cape Horn Ahoy, shipmate." I said to Leude-ma Leude-ma no, "yoa are the fellow who likes yacht racing. By Joe. It'a to be a race now a rare to see who gets to Caps Horn Drat." Wt knew that, as soon as our tor-mer tor-mer prisoners made port, the news of our presence In the 8outh Atlantic would be flashed abroad. Then the British would send their cruisers on the double-quick down the coast of south America to keep ns from doo-bllng doo-bllng the Cope. To be sure, we bad taken care to give ourselves a mighty good start. But In a race of windjammer wind-jammer against swift cruisers, what Is a start of a thousand miles or so. With decent weather, we had hope of making It. So far we had fair winds and had made good time. But the most difficult stretch of sea In all the world now lay before as. The storms for which the Horn Is famous often delay sailing ships for weeks. "And then." responded Leudemann, "even If we do get to the Cape before any cruisers that may be sent down from the North, they may bave a cruiser or two nosing around at the Pacific end of the Straits. Unless we round the Horn before those chaps reach Rio, the Jig may be up." Just south 'of the Falkland, we caught a wireless from a British cruiser, a warning message to allied merchantmen. "Steer clear of Fernando Noronha German cruiser Moewe reported there." "Moewe" means "sea gull" In German. Ger-man. "Uail to you, fur-distant Sea r .. ii . . I and that she might pass safely and even have sn opportunity to torpedo the Glasgow. The cruiser Instantly opened Ore and blew the poor, inoffensive inof-fensive cargo steamer out ef the water. wa-ter. It was only when they examined exam-ined the wreckage that they discovered discov-ered that (hey had made a mistake and sunk a British freighter I Uean while the Moewe bad escaped once more. Nor was that the only ship the British: Brit-ish: sank by mistake. They shelled two harmless sailing vessels to pieces, mistaking them for our Seeadler. It all came about because of one of those familiar war rumors a rumor to the cfte.-t that we were already somewhere off the Australian coast. An Australian cruiser encountered a Scandinavian three-master, and they seemed to think she was behaving queerly. Word bad been passed around that the 8eeudler carried torpedoes tor-pedoes So the cruiser thought sbc had better not run any chance of being be-ing blown up. She opened tire at long range. Only ten men aboard the Scandinavian ship were saved. Later La-ter ou the armored cruiser Kent snnk another sailing vessel under similar circumstances In the t'acltic. 8allors since Mugellan, by Joe, have talked about the storms around Cape Horn. 8ea stories usually have something some-thing about the tough times rounding she Cape. I bad seen those storms myself when I had sailed In the forecastle, fore-castle, end as a oavul oOlrer I bad many a time told tales to my brother officers of gales and tempests 1 had witnessed In an old windjammer rounding Horn. But our trip this voyage was to be the most unusual of all. If the stnrtns held us back, the cruisers would be almost certain to catch un. We had sailed south In fine time, and if we made a quick passage pas-sage round that boisterous tip of South America, we might Blip Into the. I V U 1 1, II I U J juu ml, Rfl VII JVUI warlike flight as we bone to fore In our Sea Eagle 1" A feeling of homesickness for the Old Moewe came over n't as It does over any sailor at the mention of a ship on .vhlcb he has sailed. My service aboard the Moewe hod been neither long nor eventful, hut already she had made for herself a heroic reputation. I have always regretted that I was not with her on her raids. She made several, slipping out through the blorknde, sinking quantities quan-tities of allied shipping, and stealing back Into German waters. She wus built Just before the war, and originally designed to carry flie exotic banana from soutLwes' Africa and "Ger tin East" to Hamburg Plans had Just been made to flood Germany with them. Her sister ship to the banana trade was the Wolf, and she, too, became a famous raider. Ail manner of Ingenious devices were Invented In fitting out the Moewe for her career as a raider. She was altered so that she could disguise dis-guise herself and change disguise while steaming at full speed Just like a quick-change actor. One day she would be a three or two funneled steamer, the next she would look like a alow tramp with one funnel. The line of ber deck could be changed In a few minutes also. She also bad fake superstructures that could be raised or lowered in s few moments by means of a fake section that slipped out from ber steru. One day she would he a tramp, the next, with fake btilla'-eyes, a liner. These startling start-ling metamorphoses were a great success suc-cess and enabled ber to dodge many an allied cruiser. Of course, the British soon got on wide pacinc and continue our raids. Well, we ran Into the dirtiest weather weath-er off the Horn, gales and hurricanes. Why, there were days when even with our motor running we could make no headway at all. It took us three weeks to beat our way through the gules and around the point. By that time, the cruisers luy there in wait for ns, not Just one or two, but a whole half dozen of them. Ordinarily, a sailing ship tries to hug Cape Horn as closely as It can, keeping quite near land. If you veer too fur to the south, you run Into Icebergs. Ice-bergs. Navigating among Icebergs with the wind whistling through your rig glng Is enough to give any skpper the chills So the storms had held us up, snd now our best chance probably prob-ably would be to steer as wide a course to the south as possible, whether wheth-er safe or not. The mountains of Ice were there, and a hurricane was blowing. blow-ing. But we considered the Ice the lesser of two evils. The British watch to the Far South was bound to be less vigilant than up nearer the Cape. We must try to soil around them. So, ho for the Antarctic! On onr way through the blockade, we had steered into the Arctic. Now here we were heading Into the Antarctic. Ant-arctic. To muke It pleasant, by Joe, the weather, which hud been quite decent to us on the way South, changed In order to give us a regular Cape Horn welcome. It turned Into a veritable hurricane. Nevertheless, we were determined de-termined to carry as much sail as pos slide. Risky, hut we had to take chances In the hope of getting through. As the tempest Increased, nut even the Seeadler dared carry more than a rag or two of lowei sull With ,1.1a I. A , r iwl ... Ii .1 .1 - no storm, we were all dead men if thut cruiser ever caught us. "Set all sails." We must risk It and run with ail our canvas before the hurricane, and perhaps, somehow, we knew' not how, in the shelter of the storm, we might be lucky enough to evade the cruiser. Only men who Imve been to sea In windjammers can Imagine what It Is to set sail In a hurricane. The canvas can-vas whipped as though a devil hud taken hold of It The masts bent under un-der the force of the wind as It blasted blast-ed against the sails The ship and Its rigging creaked and groaned as though crying out against tlte sudden strain. So, with the combined force of the gale and our one thousand-horse power pow-er motor, we scudded southward. Suddenly, Sud-denly, a flooding rain broke over us, a providential squall If there ever was one. It was like a gift of heaven. It I blotted us out from the cruiser. I "It Is the hand of God," I shouted. "Our hour hasn't struck yet" Under cover of the squall, we got away from there as fast as we could go, and after a few hours we felt certain cer-tain we had given our pursuer the slip. In reality, we bad not been pursued pur-sued at all. The cruiser hadn't even seen us, and our lookout bad been shurper thun berg We learned this from later reports. The Ironical thing now would have been for os to have impaled the Seendlei on an Iceberg In that mad sprint southward. But luck with us again. The storm blew Itself out. Still, we were not out of the danger zone. Days went by before we were safely out of that boisterous reglnu and spreading out wings on the broad expanse ot the i'arlflc Cruisers were i,x , W i"iH wm may Through the ml si we hiiw a great wall It came moving toward us. A vusi wall of while, an Iceberg. The wind was driving this white specter through the water, and we had to veer off In order to avoir) collision To the north were the cruisers, and here, but a few hundred yards away, an equally relentless enemy bearing down upon us, as though determined to turn us Into the arum of our pur suers. A shout to the helmsman. Ie termlned as we were to gi no further north, we knew we could do no mure than hug the Antarctic Ice Hold. The . mountain of Ice nearest us seemed coining closer and closer nine times as much ice below the water as above. As every schoolboy knows. It a berg looms up two hundred feet above the waves, Its tiuse extends eighteen hundred feet btt'nw the sur face I How far Its sharp hard edges and spurs may extend on either side you never can tell unless one of them rips open your hull. . The test way to avoid running Into s spur la to turn DOOOOOOOMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO still watching for us. snd we had to keep a constant lookout. Our prob : lem now was how to put them off tbe scent The Seeadler carried twenty life IhihIs and a corresponding equipment of life preservers These were much more than enough for our crew We had taken ten of them off captured ships to accommodate our prisoners In case of necessity. Now we threw all these extra lifeboats uverlxiurtl. taking tak-ing care thai on each boat and each life preserver was painted Seeudler Our hoe wus that some of them would be picked up. and that the report re-port would then be sent out that we had gone down off the Horn. That wus exactly what happened. Two days later we picked up a wireless. It carried the news thot a coastguard cutter had found one of our little boats Iler, two more were picket) up. Then three. All along the coast of South America we were now given up for lost. The cruisers abandoned the chase and steamed north. (TO BBJ CONTINUED.) to the Moewe' qulck-chunge bublis. and were not to be fooled by theia On one of her adventures the Moewe was trapped off the eastern const of South America. Tbe British cruisers Glasgow and Amethyst were warned by wireless that the Moewe was steer Ing south from Fernando Noronhn to take coal. So they rushed out front Rio de Janeiro to trap her. presently present-ly the Glasgow spotted the Moewe on the horizon. The German ship had on one of her Innumerable disguises, and the captain of tbe Glasgow could not recognize her. tie was wary, however, and on to the Moewe's tricks, so he wirelessed her to atund by to be searched. The Moewe turned and ran south. The Glasgow could make twenty-five knots and easily outrace her. The Moewe was well armed with guns and torpedoes and would tight, but she would be no match for an armored ship. The men aboard tbe Moewe seemed as good as at the bottom of tbe sen. The Glasgow knew that the fleeing ship must be the long-sought-for raider, and prepared to sink ber. Tbe two ships steamed with straining strain-ing boilers, and tbe Glasgow was fast creeping up on the Moewe. When almost al-most within range th bunted raldsr ran Into one of those sudden rain squalls that sweep over the ocean. Like the Biblical cloud. It bid her from tiie pursuing cruiser. Of course, the Glasgow followed her Into tl squall. But as the Moewe run through the swirling storm, she passed another et earner, this one steaming north. Tbe cruiser - saw emerging from the squall this new ship. She bad three masts,- The Moewe bad bad but two. Tbe captain cap-tain of the Glasgow thought only of the Moewe's ability to disguise herself. her-self. He presumed that the Moewe bad taken advantage of tbe squall to run up a third mnst and then double back on ber trail In tbe bone that tbe Englishman would not recognize ber |
