EN.

ITO'S YARN.

We arrived at our rendezvous among the Hall Islands on the afternoon of
May 3rd, and found the place practically deserted, those who were left
behind reporting that Admiral Togo and the fleet had left for Port
Arthur, the previous day, for the purpose of making a third attempt to
seal up the Russian fleet in the harbour. I was by this time making
excellent progress toward recovery, but the _Idzumi's_ surgeon
considered that I should do still better in the hospital ashore; I was
therefore landed within half an hour of the ship's coming to an anchor,
and that evening found me comfortably established in the roomy
convalescent ward, in charge of an excellent and assiduous medical and
nursing staff. The latter was composed of young Japanese women, than
whom, I think it would be impossible to find more gentle, attentive and
tender sick-room attendants. I don't know whether they were more than
usually kind to me because I happened to be a foreigner who was helping
to fight Japan's battles in her hour of need, but it appeared to me that
they were vying with each other as to who should do the most for me.
Had I been a king, they could not have done more for me than they did.

On the following morning, having been assisted to rise and dress by the
two nurses whose especial charge I was, and established by them near an
open window overlooking the roadstead, I was making play with a
particularly appetising breakfast when, glancing out of the window, I
saw a big fleet of transports arriving--there were eighty-three in all,
for I had the curiosity to count them; and while they were coming to an
anchor another fleet appeared, consisting of the warships which had been
to Port Arthur to assist in the attempt to seal up the harbour. So
interested was I in these arrivals that, in watching them, I allowed my
breakfast to go cold, and nothing would satisfy my nurses but that they
must get me another breakfast, which they did.

I had scarcely finished my belated meal and been attended to by the
surgeon, when the door of the ward was thrown open, and in rushed my
former lieutenant, Ito, now captain of the destroyer _Akatsuki_. He had
volunteered for service on the 2nd, it appeared, and upon his return had
encountered the _Idzumi's_ Number 1, who had related to Ito my adventure
aboard the junk, and the good fellow had straightway come to the
hospital to see me "and pay his respects." Also, I shrewdly suspected,
to s