red her;
for I think there can be very little doubt that when we fell in with her
she must have been on her way to the Elliot archipelago, where, had she
arrived safely, she might have found more than one spot in which she
could have lain _perdu_, to emerge at a favourable moment and destroy at
least one, if not more, of our most precious battleships.

Giving orders for the immediate discharge of the materials for the boom,
at a spot which I selected immediately after we had come to an anchor, I
turned in and slept soundly until past midday, resting again all the
afternoon; so that when evening came I had quite recovered from the
fatigue of the previous night, and was pronounced by the doctor in
charge of the hospital ashore to be progressing toward complete recovery
quite as rapidly as could be reasonably expected, while my wound was
healing in fine style. About four o'clock that afternoon, word was
brought to me that the whole of the materials intended for the
construction of the boom had been landed; and I went ashore to inspect
them. They consisted for the most part of enormous balks of timber and
massive cables; but there were also immense quantities of chain to serve
as lashings, stout staples, iron bars, innumerable bundles of long,
massive, pointed spikes, and thousands of empty casks, stoutly hooped,
without bung-holes, and coated with pitch to ensure permanent
watertight-ness. Commander Tsuchiya, whom I had placed in charge of the
discharging operations, had done his work well, stacking the various
items each by itself, and keeping a careful account of the quantities of
each. He handed me a copy of his list, and after I had inspected the
whole of the material, I returned to my ship and sat down to plan out
the details of the construction of the boom, which, with the list of the
quantities before me, was a comparatively easy task.

Dawn of the following day found us all ready to make a start, and with
Tsuchiya again as my principal _aide_, we quickly got to work, pressing
every available hand into the service. Many hands make light and quick
work, especially where those hands are willing, but I was astonished at
the ardour and zest which those handy little Japanese seamen manifested;
they toiled untiringly all through that long, hot day, with the result
that, when we knocked off at nightfall, we had considerably more than
half a mile of that boom put together and secured in position by
ponderous anchors a