more opaque by the
vivid brilliance of the searchlight beam that covered the stern-half of
her, and it immediately occurred to me that if I could but climb down
into her, unobserved, and cut her adrift, I might possibly contrive to
avoid entering a Russian prison after all.

No sooner thought of than done; the moment was propitious, the towing
hawser lay under my hand, and in another moment I was down upon her tiny
forecastle, hacking away at the grass rope with my pocket-knife. The
blade was keen, as a sailor's knife should always be, and with a few
vigorous slashes the hawser was severed and I was adrift. Then, taking
advantage of the heave of the two craft, I managed to move the junk
until she lay entirely in the shadow cast by the _Kinshiu's_ hull.

At this juncture I heard the gruff voices of Russians overhead, on the
transport's deck, and, thinking discretion the better part of valour
under the circumstances, dropped off the junk's short fore deck into her
shallow hold and there concealed myself, lest any inquisitive Russian
should peer over the bulwarks, catch sight of me, and order me up on
deck again. I don't know whether it occurred to any of the enemy to
look over the side, but I do not think so; at all events, if they did,
nobody took the trouble to come down and search the junk; and in a few
minutes the voices ceased; I took it that the visitors had gone below to
search the ship. If they had, what would happen to them, with over a
hundred armed Japanese soldiers down there?

I had not long to wait for an answer to this question. About two
minutes of silence succeeded to the sudden cessation of the Russians'
voices on deck, and then the muffled crack of a pistol-shot rang out
from the _Kinshiu's_ interior, instantly followed by a shout of "Banzai
Nippon!" and the crack of several rifles; there arose a sudden outburst
of yells and execrations in Russian, a stampede of many feet along the
deck, the sounds of a scuffling hand-to-hand fight, a volley of orders
from the Russian officer in command of the boarding party, a hoarse hail
from one of the warships, and then the rattle and splash of oars hastily
thrown out. Evidently, the Japanese soldiers had given the intruders a
warm reception.

The hurried departure of the boarding party was quickly followed by a
rolling volley of rifle-fire from the _Kinshiu_, apparently directed
upon the retreating boats, for I heard cries and groans which seemed to
proc