It was not Britain's white ensign that they flew, those cruisers. It
was the red sun flag of Japan, one of Britain's allies against the
Hun. They had their vigil in vain, did those two cruisers. It was
valor's better part, discretion, that the German captain chose.
Aweel, you could no blame him! He and his ship would have been blown
out of the water so soon as she poked her nose beyond American
waters, had he chosen to go out and fight.

I was glad indeed when we came in sight of the Golden Gate once more,
and when we were safe ashore in San Francisco. It had been a
nerve-racking voyage in many ways. My wife and I were torn with
anxiety about our boy. And there were German raiders loose; one or two
had, so far, eluded the cordon the British fleet had flung about the
world. One night, soon after we left Honolulu, we were stopped. We
thought it was a British cruiser that stopped us, but she would only
ask questions--answering those we asked was not for her!

But we were ashore at last. There remained only the trip across the
United States to New York and the voyage across the Atlantic home.



CHAPTER III

Now indeed we began to get real news of the war. We heard of how that
little British army had flung itself into the maw of the Hun. I came
to know something of the glories of the retreat from Mons, and of how
French and British had turned together at the Marne and had saved
Paris. But, alas, I heard too of how many brave men had died--had
been sacrificed, many and many a man of them, to the failure of