n ships,
showing up a deeper black against the black shadow of the frowning
cliffs away to starboard; and a second or two later a long, brilliant
beam of intensely white light shot out from one of the black shapes and
slowly swept hither and thither, now striking the heaving surface of the
black water, and anon vividly illumining one of her sisters. Our orders
had been not to discharge at a higher range than five hundred metres.

Slowly, the beam swept round toward us until it halted and rested
steadily upon a great lump of a craft that towered out of the water like
a castle, almost immediately between itself and us. Luckily, the
dazzling light itself was hidden from our eyes by the bulk of the ship
upon which it rested, but it invested her with a sort of halo of
radiance against which she stood out black and grim, a perfect
silhouette. She was a big craft, evidently a battleship, with a lofty
superstructure, three big funnels cased half-way up, a long overhanging
bridge, and two stout military masts with fighting tops, and two yards
across each. She was just within range, and, seizing a megaphone, I was
in the act of raising it to my lips to order Ito to let fly at her, when
I saw a long, silvery shape flash out from our after-deck, and a few
seconds later a great cone of water leaped into the air and fell like a
deluge upon the great ship, which seemed to lift half out of the water,
as though hove up by a giant. A heavy _boom_ followed, and I had the
extreme gratification of knowing that the little _Kasanumi's_ first
Whitehead had got home.

The explosion was quickly followed by several others; and in the midst
of them a sudden transformation took place. The pitchy darkness gave
way to the glare of a perfect network of searchlight beams streaming out
from ship after ship and from the cliffs above, sweeping here, there,
and everywhere, lighting up the fleet, the cliffs, the channel leading
to the harbour, the lighthouse, everything, in fact, except our
destroyers, which they all seemed to miss in the most miraculous way.
Excited shouts came pealing across the water to us from the decks of the
various ships, boatswains' whistles shrilled, order after order was
hoarsely bellowed, and with a rattling crash of gun-fire a perfect
tempest of projectiles was sent hurtling out to sea from the now
thoroughly awakened and panic-stricken Russians, not a solitary shot of
which came anywhere near us; for the enemy seemed to