ay. Were they enemies
or friends? If the former, it was eminently undesirable that they
should be permitted to arrive, and it was for me to look into the
matter.

"How's her head?" I demanded of the helmsman.

"East, three degrees south," he replied.

"Shift your helm to east, twenty-five degrees south," I ordered; and the
bows of the destroyer swung round until she was heading for a point at
which we could intercept the strangers. Then: "Mr Uchida," I said,
"pass the word to prepare to make the private night signal."

The signal was presently hoisted to the yard-arm and displayed for fully
five minutes without evoking a response; and then I knew that the
strangers were enemies. We accordingly hauled down the signal again and
cleared for action, loading both torpedo tubes as well. This done, we
quickened up our pace to full speed; for if we were going to have a
fight, I wanted it to be out there in the open, so far away from the
shore that the sounds of firing would not reach the Russians about
Kinchau, and so apprise them of the presence of an enemy in the adjacent
waters.

As we rapidly neared the enemy I made them out to be two destroyers,
evidently escorting the third craft, which was a single-funnelled
steamer of apparently about eighteen hundred tons. She sat deep in the
water, as though loaded to her full capacity, but she was much too small
for a transport, and for the life of me I could not imagine what her
character might be. But there could be no doubt whatever concerning the
destroyers; they were self-evident Russians, for they were
four-funnelled, the funnels arranged in pairs, which was distinctly
characteristic of a certain class of Russian destroyer.

Neither side wasted any time upon useless preliminaries; but it was the
Russians who opened the ball by both craft firing, almost
simultaneously, every gun they could bring to bear upon us. But their
aim was nothing to boast of, for although we heard the shells screaming
all about us, we remained untouched. Twice they fired upon us before I
would give the word to our gun-layers, and both times ineffectively;
then I gave the order to commence firing; and no sooner had the words
passed my lips than our 12-pounder spoke, and a moment later there
occurred two distinct explosions aboard the nearest Russian boat, which
instantly became enveloped in a great cloud of steam. Apparently that
first shot of ours had struck and exploded one of her boil