heard our story and
examined our passports, to the humblest village child, rejoiced at our
escape. The good motherly folk at the lighthouse fairly bubbled over
with joy as they chattered and poured out sympathy and busied themselves
with attending to our creature comforts.

After interviews with some Danish Government officials we were taken to
hotels in Skagen, the nearest town, a small summer bathing resort, just
to the south of the Skaw. It was a gloriously clear, bright, and sunny
day, though very windy and cold, and the condition of the fields showed
that "February fill dyke" had been living up to its reputation. Some of
us walked into Skagen, and on the way heard the most enchanting sounds
we had heard for months--the songs of skylarks--music which we certainly
had never expected to hear again. Our spirits were as bright as the
larks' on that day, and the birds seemed to be putting into music for us
the joy and gratitude we felt in our hearts. The ladies were, of course,
too exhausted to walk, and my wife got a lift in a cart in which a
Danish girl and a man were proceeding to Skagen. They asked her endless
questions, and she expressed her opinions very strongly on the German
treatment of their prisoners, and of the endless lies they had told us.
On arrival at Skagen we discovered that the man was the German Consul at
that town! So, for once in his life, he heard the truth about his
countrymen!

After lunch, the first square meal we had had for months, we set off to
telegraph to our relatives and friends, to announce we were still in the
world. It was one of our greatest anxieties on board that we could not
communicate with our friends, who we knew would be grieving over our
disappearance and, we feared, would have given us up for lost, for we
had been out of communication with the outside world for five months.
Never daring to hope that an opportunity to despatch it might ever
occur, I had many a time mentally framed a cablegram which, in the
fewest possible words, should tell our friends of our adventures since
we disappeared from human ken. But the long-delayed opportunity had at
last arrived, and our wildest hopes and dreams were realized. They had
become solid fact, and the words flashed over the wires from Denmark to
friends in Siam and relatives in England were: "Captured September
26th--proceeding Germany--ashore Denmark--lifeboat rescue--both well."
The last two words were not, of course, strictly true,