then rounded up all the officials and their servants, placing them under a strict guard, while a second party prepared to blow up the wireless installation and to smash the instrument rooms of the cable office.  This they did most thoroughly, but the officials seem to have kept their heads in the most praiseworthy manner, as, just as soon as they discovered that the enemy was upon them, they sent out distress signals by wireless, and warned adjacent stations by cable that they were about to be smashed up.

The landing party now blew up the wireless mast and the store in which spare cable and cable gear was kept; a third explosion wrecked the wireless hut, and completed the destruction of the installation.  The dynamo rooms and workshops were destroyed with flogging hammers and axes, everything breakable, including clocks, being smashed to atoms.  Their next proceeding was to cut the shore ends of the submarine cables, and this was done in full view of the prisoners.  There are three cables from the Cocos—­to Perth, to Batavia, and to Rodriguez—­and the pleasure of the prisoners can be imagined when they saw the Germans spend much hard labour in destroying a dummy cable.  Eventually the Perth cable and the dummy were cut, the others being left, presumably because the Germans did not know that they existed.

The party from the Emden had landed at 7.30 a.m., and by 9.20 their mission of destruction was accomplished.  At this time a signal was blown on the siren from the ship; the officer in command collected his men, marched them down to the beach, and re-embarked.  The telegraphists report that they were fairly and courteously treated.  On arrival the Emden was still using her now famous fourth funnel, a dummy, and this it was that caused the telegraphists to mistake her in the first instance for the Minotaur, which is a four-funnelled armoured cruiser.  As she steamed away in the bright light of the tropic morning for what was so shortly to prove her last cruise, the Emden hauled down, and stowed away, her dummy.

The action that ensued between the Sydney and the Emden is here given in the official despatch of Captain Glossop, dated from Colombo on November 15th: 

I have the honour to report that whilst on escort duty with the convoy under the charge of Captain Silver, H.M.A.S. Melbourne, at 6.30 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 9th, a wireless message from Cocos was heard reporting that a foreign warship was off the entrance.  I was ordered to raise steam for full speed at 7.0 a.m. and proceeded thither.  I worked up to twenty knots, and at 9.15 a.m. sighted land ahead and almost immediately the smoke of a ship, which proved to be the H.I.G.M.S. Emden coming out towards me at a great rate.  At 9.40 a.m. fire was opened, she firing the first shot.  I kept my distance as much as possible to obtain the advantage of my guns.  Her fire was very accurate and rapid to