,
if you could only get ashore, the matter could very soon be adjusted.
But how are you going to get ashore; and--still more difficult--how are
you going to get off again? From what I know of this bay, I am prepared
to say that there is a surf breaking on the beach at this moment which
no boat of ours could pass through and live. Listen to the wind, how it
howls through our rigging!"

True! that was a point which had entirely escaped me, in my eagerness.
How was I to get ashore? Or rather, how was I to get off again? I was
pretty confident of my ability to get ashore, for surf-swimming was a
favourite pastime of mine; but as to getting off again--well, I doubted
whether even my strength was equal to the task of struggling out through
the long lines of surf which I knew must now be thundering in upon
Kinchau beach.

The difficulty was finally overcome by the Admiral consenting to my
attempting to get ashore, upon condition that I would not attempt to
swim off again unless I felt absolutely convinced of my ability to
accomplish the feat. If I could not, I was to remain ashore with Oku,
helping him in any manner that might suggest itself, but especially by
signalling off to the fleet, from time to time, the numbers of the
several positions which they would be required to shell.

This matter settled, I made my way back to the _Kasanumi_, and there
prepared for my somewhat hazardous adventure by carefully tying up a
marked and figured copy of the map of Kinchau and its surroundings in a
piece of thin sheet rubber, to protect it from the wet. Next, I
divested myself of all clothing except a pair of swimming drawers and a
pair of thin canvas running shoes. Then, tying the map, in its rubber
case, round my neck, I signalled our smallest torpedo-boat to look out
for me and haul me aboard--for by this time the sea was running so
heavily that it was impossible to launch a boat; when, having received a
reply to my signal, I simply dived overboard and swam down to leeward to
where the torpedo-boat lay. Her crew were, of course, keenly on the
alert, and as I came driving down toward them, only visible in
consequence of the phosphorescence of the water, they flung me a
lifebuoy bent on to the end of a line, and so hauled me aboard.

We were anchored at a distance of about four miles from the shore, which
was, of course, much too great a distance for me to attempt to swim in
the sea that was now running, especially as I sho