rees, to guide us into the channel!

"Of course the Russians fired upon them, and shot away first one mast
and then the other. Then they were called upon to surrender, some of
the Russians actually launching boats to take them off the floating
wreckage; but the cadets were imbued with the true Samurai spirit, they
preferred death to surrender, and they defended themselves with their
revolvers from all who approached them, until every Japanese was slain.

"Then came the turn of the _Totomi Maru_, we being the third ship to
arrive. Well, I have not much to say about what we did, or what
happened to us; it would be merely a repetition of what I have already
described. Like our predecessors, we went in at full speed, struck some
floating object two terrific blows just as we entered the channel, swept
on, amid a hurricane of shells and bullets shrieking and whining about
our ears, until we came to the wreck of the _Mikawa_, and there Honda--
who is about as cool a chap under fire as you are--stopped and reversed
his engines, swung the ship athwart the channel, with our bows as close
as we could guess to the _Mikawa's_ taffrail, let go two anchors, one
ahead and one aft, and calmly sank the craft.

"The Russians kept their searchlight upon us, and peppered us well with
rifle-fire, until the _Totomi_ went down; and then they had other fish
to honourably fry, as you English say; for the _Aikoku Maru_ was now
racing in toward the harbour's mouth, and it was high time for them to
attend to her. They turned the searchlight upon her, opened fire upon
her with every weapon that would hurl a shot, and presently, when she
was within about a thousand yards of the entrance, they fired an
observation mine as she passed over it, and down she went, taking her
engine-room and stoke-hold crew with her.

"Then there ensued a `spell'--as you, my dear Swinburne, honourably call
it--an interlude; possibly it was the end, for there were no more ships
in sight; the firing died down, the searchlight beam stared steadily out
to seaward, and we who had survived that saturnalia of slaughter had an
opportunity to slip out and rejoin the torpedo-boats which were lurking
close in under the shadow of the cliffs, waiting to pick us up.

"Honda commanded the leading boat in which our party were making their
escape, and I the other. We were both creeping along as close as
possible to the foot of the cliffs under Golden Hill, in order to elude
the no