apparently they changed their minds and turned back. Then the little one turned around and calmly steamed in our direction. At first I was somewhat alarmed at this, but nothing happened. She circled around us with her tars excited and grinning and somewhat grimy. They signalled to our captain many questions, and then turned and finally disappeared. The captain told us that the two big ships were Germans which had been caught in the Mediterranean and which were trying to escape from the British fleet. He said that the British ships are chasing them all over the Mediterranean, and that the German ships are trying to get into Constantinople. Have you seen anything of them? Where do you suppose the British fleet is?” [Illustration: THE DARDANELLES AND THE BLACK SEA] A few hours afterward I happened to meet Wangenheim. When I told him what Mrs. Wertheim had seen, he displayed an agitated interest. Immediately after lunch he called at the American Embassy with Pallavicini, the Austrian Ambassador, and asked for an interview with my daughter. The two ambassadors solemnly planted themselves in chairs before Mrs. Wertheim and subjected her to a most minute, though very polite, cross examination. “I never felt so important in my life,” she afterward told me. They would not permit her to leave out a single detail; they wished to know how many shots had been fired, what direction the German ships had taken, what everybody on board had said, and so on. The visit seemed to give these allied ambassadors immense relief and satisfaction, for they left the house in an almost jubilant mood, behaving as though a great weight had been taken off their minds. And certainly they had good reason for their elation. My daughter had been the means of giving them the news which they had desired to hear above everything else--that the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_ had escaped the British fleet and were then steaming rapidly in the direction of the Dardanelles. For it was those famous German ships, the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_, which my daughter had seen engaged in battle with a British scout ship! The next day official business called me to the German Embassy. But Wangenheim’s animated manner soon disclosed that he had no interest in routine matters. Never had I seen him so nervous and so excited. He could not rest in his chair more than a few minutes at a time; he was constantly jumping up, rushing to the window and looking anxiously out toward the Bosphorus, where his private wireless station, the _Corcovado_, lay about three quarters of a mile away. Wangenheim’s face was flushed and his eyes were shining; he would stride up and down the room, speaking now of a recent German victory, now giving me a little forecast of Germany’s plans--and then he would stalk to the window again for another look at the _Corcovado_. “Something is seriously distracting you,” I said, rising. “I will go and come again some other time.”