Lawrence was a man slight and frail, diffident, silent, and soft-spoken, who might have been taken offhand for the most bashful of youths, a most erudite scholar, an archæologist whom the war caught practising his profession among the antiquities of Assyria and Babylon. War and its forays must seem the last degree removed from this studious and utterly cerebral spirit. One could find no greater contrast to him than in this brawny sea rover with the booming voice and blustery manner, who raided the seas from Skagerrak and Iceland to Fiji and the Marquesas. The ex-Kaiser, the ex-Crown Prince, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Von Tirpitz, and sundry others of our late enemies, have given us their personal accounts of the part they played in the World War. But none had a tale to tell like Count Felix von Luckner. With me the story lies close as a companion piece to the story of Lawrence of Arabia, and I pass it on to you in the words of the Sea Devil and, I hope, with something of the tang of the sea.* * The reader will notice that in Count von Luckner's narrative, the precise chronological order of events is occasionally not observed. The map used as lining paper in this book shows the route of the _Seeadler_ and the names and dates of ships sunk, and other events in their chronological sequence. II FELIX RUNS OFF TO SEA Take a windjammer out as a cruiser? Sneak through the blockade and go buccaneering on the high seas? "By Joe!" I thought, "that's something." It was a romantic thing all right in this day and age, when the sailing ship is getting to be something of a relic of the fine old times, the heroic age of the sea. But it wasn't because I had read a lot of sea stories and had become fascinated with the old world of rigging and canvas. I had been there myself, had been there good and proper. The reason I was assigned to the command of the _Seeadler_ was because I was the only officer in the German Navy who had had actual experience with sail. I was born Graf Felix von Luckner and was now a lieutenant commander, in the Imperial Service, but I had spent seven years of my early life as a common jack-tar before the mast. The fo'c'sle was as familiar to me as charts are to an admiral. That was why this windjammer cruise of war meant so deuced much to me, why it hit so close and was so personal. I cannot make that part of it clear without telling you something of my early life at sea, a thing or two about the old days when sailing before the mast was all they say--and more. It's a yarn about shipwreck, storm, and cantankerous captains. So, sit yourself down there, by Joe, while I light my pipe and weigh anchor.