"Very good, my lords," said Denis, saluting. "If she's not coming up the Thames to-morrow night with the _Ithuriel_ under her stern, ye'll know that she's on the bottom in pieces somewhere. And now," he continued, taking a long envelope from an inner pocket, "here is the full report of our doings since the war began, with return of ships sunk, crippled and escaped; number of men landed, and so on, according to instructions. We will report again to-morrow night, I hope, with the _Hohenzollern_." They shook hands and wished him good-night and good luck, and in half an hour the _Ithuriel_ was running half-submerged eastward along the coast, and the motor was on its way to Faversham by the northern road, as there were certain reasons why it should not go back through Canterbury. CHAPTER XXIX THE LION WAKES At daybreak on the nineteenth, to the utter amazement of everyone who was not "in the know," the Imperial yacht, _Hohenzollern_, was found off Tilbury, flying the Imperial German Ensign and the Naval flag, as well as a long string of signals ordering the aerial bombardment of London to cease, and all the _Flying Fishes_ to return at once to Canterbury. The apparent miracle had been accomplished in an absurdly easy fashion. About nine a.m. on the eighteenth a German orderly went into the post-office at Dover and handed in an official telegram signed "Von Roon," ordering the _Hohenzollern_ to come round at once to Dover, as she was considered too open to attack there. There was something so beautifully natural and simple in the whole proceeding that, although there were about a dozen German officers and non-commissioned officers in the room at the time that the orderly came and went without suspicion, the telegram was taken by the clerk, read and initialled by the Censor, and passed. A few minutes later the orderly, marching in perfectly correct German fashion and carrying a large yellow envelope, walked out through the town northwards and climbed the hill to the eastward of the ruined castle. The envelope with its official seal took him past the sentries without question, but, instead of delivering it, he turned down a bypath to Fan Bay, under the South Foreland, gained the beach, took off his uniform in a secluded spot under the cliffs, and went for a swim. The uniform was never reclaimed, for when he reached the submerged _Ithuriel_ Denis Castellan had a rub down and put his own on. The captain of the _Hohenzollern_ was only too glad to obey the order, for he also thought that it would be better protected from the dreaded ocean terror in Dover, so he lost no time in obeying the order; with the result that, just as he was entering the deserted Downs, the said terror met him and ordered him to the right-about under pain of instant sinking.