"We could scarcely move," narrated Lieutenant Gerdts, who commanded the stranded boat. "The other boat was nowhere in sight. Now it grew dark. At this stage I began to build a raft of spars and old pieces of wood that might keep us afloat. But soon the first boat came into sight again. The commander turned about and sent over his little canoe; in this and in our own canoe, in which two men could sit at each trip, we first transferred the sick. Now the Arabs began to help us. But just then the tropical helmet of our doctor suddenly appeared above the water in which he was standing up to his ears. Thereupon the Arabs withdrew: We were Christians, and they did not know that we were friends. Now the other sambuk was so near that we could have swum to it in half an hour, but the seas were too high. At each trip a good swimmer trailed along, hanging to the painter of the canoe. When it became altogether dark we could not see the boat any more, for over there they were prevented by the wind from keeping any light burning. My men asked: 'In what direction shall we swim?' I answered: 'Swim in the direction of this or that star; that must be about the direction of the boat.' Finally a torch flared up over there--one of the torches that was still left from the _Emden_. But we had suffered considerably through submersion. One sailor cried out: 'Oh, psha! It's all up with us now, that's a searchlight.' About ten o'clock we were all safe aboard, but one of our typhus patients wore himself out completely by exertion and died a week later. On the next morning we went over again to the wreck in order to seek the weapons that had fallen into the water. You see, the Arabs dive so well; they fetched up a considerable lot--both machine guns, all but ten of the rifles, though these were, to be sure, all full of water. Later they frequently failed to go off when they were used in firing. "Now we numbered, together with the Arabs, seventy men on the little boat. Then we anchored before Konfida and met Sami Bey. He had shown himself useful, even before, in the service of the Turkish Government, and had done good service as a guide in the last months of the adventure. He procured for us a larger boat of fifty-four tons. We sailed from the 20th of March, 1915, to the 24th, unmolested to Lith. There Sami Bey announced that three English ships were cruising about in order to intercept us. I therefore advised traveling a bit overland. I disliked leaving the sea a second time, but it had to be done." Captain Muecke explained that Lith is nothing but desert, and therefore it was very difficult to get up a caravan at once. They marched away on March 28, 1915, with only a vague suspicion that the English might have agents here also. They could travel only at night, and when they slept or camped around a spring, there was only a tent for the sick men. Two days' march from Jeddah, the Turkish Government having received word about the crew, sent sixteen good camels.