apt up from her
interior; and, seeming to break in two, the dismembered hull rapidly
disappeared, the bow and stern portions rearing themselves out of water
for a few seconds ere they plunged to the bottom, leaving nothing to
show where the boat had been, save a great cloud of acrid smoke and
steam, a few fragments of wreckage, and some half a dozen men struggling
in the water.

Of course we instantly stopped our engines and launched a boat; but we
only found and saved three men out of the boat's total complement of
forty-seven. We learned that the name of the lost destroyer was the
_Beztraschni_, and that all of her officers had perished with her.

We now had leisure to attend to the other two craft, which were by this
time some three miles astern, having apparently stopped their engines to
await at a safe distance the course of events. Swinging round, we
headed for them at full speed, with all guns loaded, and a torpedo in
each tube, ready to open fire as soon as we got within effective range.
As we drew nearer, however, it became evident that there was something
very seriously wrong with the destroyer which we had first fired upon,
and which had dropped astern, disabled, for there were boats in the
water about her, seemingly passing between her and the other craft,
boats going to her with only two or three hands in them, and leaving her
loaded. By the time that we had arrived within a mile of her we could
see that the destroyer was in a sinking condition; and a minute later we
lost sight of her altogether: she had gone down.

The boats were still in the water alongside the surviving craft, and men
were climbing up her side from them as we arrived within some thirty
fathoms of her and hailed, demanding her surrender. A reply instantly
came from her to the effect that she surrendered; whereupon I dispatched
Hiraoka on board, in charge of an armed boat's crew; and some ten
minutes later the youngster hailed, informing me that our prize was
named the _Vashka_, of seventeen hundred and sixty tons register,
originally a cargo steamer, but now adapted for mine-laying; and that
she was from Dalny, bound for Kinchau Bay for the purpose of sowing the
bay with mines, in anticipation of the probability that some of our
ships would be sent to participate in the attack upon the isthmus. He
added the information that the vessel, hoping to escape the notice of
Japan's warships by taking a roundabout route, had been escorted b