The strait in which we now were is the highway for all ships. We had little desire to remain here, if for no other reason than that we were very likely to encounter some hostile cruiser. By this time a complete calm had set in. We therefore lowered our two jolly-boats, the smaller one manned by one, the larger boat by two men, hitched them to our _Ayesha_, and so attempted to make some headway. For the men at the oars, this was no light task, exposed as they were to the full rays of a tropical sun, as they sat unprotected from it in the open boats. We, on board, were not idle either. The oars of the _Emden's_ two cutters, which we had with us, were fetched out and tied together by pairs, so as to lengthen them, and with these we proceeded to row the _Ayesha_. Although it cannot be said that we attained the speed of a fast mail steamer in this way, we did, however, make some progress. On the following day a light wind did at last set in, and relieved us of this strenuous labor. In the distance, near the coast, we saw a number of steamers that were evidently either entering or leaving the port of Padang. One of these roused our interest more than any of the others, because she apparently did not change her position at all, and so was evidently laying to, as the great depth of water in this vicinity precludes the possibility of anchoring. As we drew near to the vessel, we could make out with some degree of certainty that she was not a merchantman. She appeared to be a small warship of some kind--a gun-boat, or a torpedo-boat destroyer, and flew a flag which we could not distinguish, because of its great distance from us. Suddenly, the ship that had been lying so motionless began to move. Thick clouds of smoke poured from the smoke-stacks; she turned sharply, headed for us, and approached at high speed. In a short time we recognised the war flag of the Netherlands flying at the masthead. As we had no desire to drop our incognito as yet, and as we were sailing in free waters, there was no reason why we should show our colors. We therefore quickly gathered up all our rifles, and, together with our artillery equipment, stowed them away below decks. All the men quickly disappeared down the main hatchway, which was closed after them. The wildest looking one of the sailors and myself were the only ones who remained in sight. That we both belonged to the Imperial Navy no one would ever have imagined, as our clothing was so scant that we would much more readily have been sized up as belonging to the war fleet of some one of the island kingdoms of the Pacific.