eed from them. Then, from the _Rossia_ came the sudden, snapping
bark of her quick-firers and machine-guns, and a storm of missiles
crashed through the transport's thin bulwarks or flew whining overhead,
intermingled with shrieks, groans, and excited shouts from the Japanese
soldiers, who had evidently resolved to die fighting, rather than
surrender. The sounds awakened the fighting instinct within me; I felt
that, let happen what would, I must be among those gallant fellows,
doing my share of the work; and I nipped out from under the junk's short
deck, intent upon climbing aboard the _Kinshiu_ again. And then I found
that during the short period of my seclusion, the junk had parted
company, and was now a good twenty feet distant from the transport.
True, I might jump overboard and swim the intervening space, and I was
actually poising myself for the dive when the question flashed into my
brain: How was I to get aboard, how climb the vessel's smooth iron side.
There were no ropes hanging overboard, save the severed towing hawser,
and I had cut through that so high up that even when the steamer's stern
dipped, the end did not reach within a couple of feet of the water. I
recognised that whether I would or not, I must now stay where I was, for
return to the steamer was impossible. And while I stood there on the
junk's short fore deck, watching the scene with fascinated eyes, that
awful, unequal duel went on between the Japanese rifles and the
_Rossia's_ machine-guns; the soldiers frenziedly yelling "Banzai
Nippon!" between each volley, while the Russian gunners plied their
pieces in grim silence. The _Kinshiu's_ deck, I knew, must be by this
time a veritable shambles, for the Russian cruiser lay close aboard, and
her machine-guns could sweep the transport's decks from stem to stern;
moreover, the rapid and ominous slackening of the rifle-fire testified
eloquently to the frightful carnage that was proceeding. The cries of
"Banzai Nippon!" were no longer thundered forth in a defiant roar, but
were raised by a few voices only, which were almost drowned by the
dreadful shrieks and moans of the wounded and dying.

Then, suddenly, there occurred a frightful explosion, the _Kinshiu Maru_
was hove up on a mountain of foaming water which belched forth fire and
smoke, the air became suddenly full of flying splinters and wreckage, a
heavy fragment of which smote me full upon the forehead and knocked me
back into the junk's hol