There was on board a certain amount of live stock; some chickens, which seemed to thrive quite well on coal-dust, and a couple of cows, each of which had a calf born on board; these all met the usual fate of such things on appropriate occasions.  There were also a few cats and kittens, which later on were joined by a couple of mongrel dachshund pups born on the Wolf.  The Spanish carpenter had a sporting hen, which had some lively scraps with the dogs, the latter always coming off second best.

For many days after we parted company with the Wolf we ambled and dawdled through the sea on a south-westerly course, sometimes going back on our tracks for half a day, sometimes stopping altogether for an hour or two, sometimes for half a day, sometimes for a whole day.  The monotony of this performance was deadly beyond words.  On one of these days the Captain offered to land us at Mauritius on the following morning and give himself up with the crew and ship if we could raise L100,000 for him.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t!

On the afternoon of the 23rd the Germans became very agitated at the sight of smoke on the horizon.  At first we all thought it was the Wolf, but before long we could see two columns of smoke, evidently coming from two steamers travelling together.  The prisoners then became very agitated also, as help might be at hand.  But the Germans at once changed the course, and manoeuvred at full speed in such a way that we soon got out of sight of the smoke, when we resumed our original course again, after having boxed the compass more than once, and the German Captain came down from the bridge and told us there was no relief for us yet.  We all felt that if the Hitachi had only avoided distant smoke as the German Captain had done we need never have made the acquaintance of the Wolf.

On the 24th we again met the Wolf in the evening.  Whenever the Wolf had an appointment to meet her prize at a certain time and place, the prize always hoisted recognition signals directly she saw the Wolf on the horizon.  These were made of wicker, and varied in shape on different occasions.

We were now well to the south of Africa, in the roaring forties, and we saw many schools of whales, and albatrosses accompanied us for many days.  A Spanish officer shot one one day—­we told him this would bring us bad luck, as the souls of lost sea captains are said to inhabit these majestic birds.  And one day we saw a dead whale floating along not far from the ship—­it was smothered with a huge flock of seabirds, gorging themselves on it.  By December 1st we had begun to steer north-west, and on the 3rd the Captain informed us we were the nearest we should ever be to Cape Town, the port to which I had set out.  On this morning the Captain said to me, “Mr. Trayes, didn’t you say you were going to Cape Town?” “Yes,” I replied.  “Come out on deck with me,” he answered.  I went with him.  He took my