About nine a.m.
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 . 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 aërial 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 .