d, and as my senses left me I was dimly
conscious of a wailing cry, pealing out across the water, of "Sayonara!"
(Farewell for ever). It was the last good-bye to Emperor, country, and
all who were nearest and dearest to them of that heroic little band of
Japanese infantry-men who preferred to die fighting gloriously, rather
than win inglorious safety by surrender. The Russians had made an end
of the affair by torpedoing the transport, and she must have sunk within
a very few minutes.

When I recovered my senses it was broad daylight. For a few moments I
knew not where I was, or what had happened to me, but I was conscious of
the most splitting headache from which I had ever suffered in my life.
The next thing that dawned upon me was that I was lying in the bottom of
a small craft of some sort, which was rolling and plunging most
atrociously on a short, choppy sea, that I was chilled to the very
marrow, and that water was washing about and over me with every motion
of the boat. I was wet to the skin and, although shivering with cold,
my blood scorched my veins as though it were liquid fire.

I sat up, staring vaguely about me, and then became aware of a curious
stiff feeling in the skin of my face. Putting my hands to my head, to
still the throbbing smart of it, I found that my hair was all clogged
with some sticky kind of liquid which, upon looking at my hands, I found
to be blood, evidently my own. This at once explained the curious stiff
feeling of my face; it was probably caused by dry caked blood. But, to
make sure, I sprang open the case of my watch--the polished surface
serving well enough for a mirror--and gravely studied my reflected
image. I must have presented a ghastly sight, for my whole face was a
mask of blood, out of which my eyes glared feverishly. Then, as I
continued to stare at the interior of my watch-case, wondering what it
all meant, my memory of the events of the preceding night--I knew it
must be the preceding night, because my watch was still going--all came
back to me, and I understood where I was.

Scrambling giddily to my feet, I looked about me and saw a bucket
rolling to and fro on the junk's bottom-boards. The sight suggested an
idea to me and, taking the bucket and the end of a small line which I
bent on to the handle, I somehow managed to hoist myself up on to the
small foredeck and, lying prone--for I dared not as yet trust myself to
stand--I lowered the bucket, and drew it