ort to break through the
Russian lines. Thirty engineers of the victorious 4th Division were now
detailed to cut a path through the wire entanglements that still
protected the Russian trenches; _and they did it_, lying flat upon the
ground without attempting to raise their heads. Twenty-two out of the
thirty were killed in the accomplishment of the task, but a way was
made, and through it poured Ogawa's gallant brigade, the 8th Regiment
taking the lead, and the next moment they were in the Russian trenches,
fighting desperately, hand to hand, the Japanese determined to drive out
the Russians, and the Russians equally determined to hold their ground
at all costs.

And now the stormers of the 1st and 3rd Divisions, seeing the success of
their comrades, were stung into the making of a further effort, and,
hurling themselves bodily upon the entanglements, actually broke them
down by sheer physical force, although hundreds were horribly mangled in
the process, and despite the awful fire from rifles and machine-guns
that mowed through them, up they swept irresistibly until, with
deafening yells of "Banzai!" they joined their victorious comrades on
the crest and planted the banner of Japan upon the topmost height of
Nanshan. For a few brief, breathless minutes the members of the staff,
watching from below, beheld the glint and ruddy flash of bayonets in the
light of the setting sun as the Russians made a last desperate effort to
hold their ground; but the Japanese infantry, intoxicated with their
success in the face of stupendous difficulties, would take no denial:
they had conquered wire entanglements, braved machine-gun-fire, and now
mere flesh and blood was as powerless to stop them as a thread is to
stop a battleship. The Russians simply had to fly or die; and they
chose the former alternative, retreating in disorder upon Nankwang-ling,
while the Japanese, whose turn it was now to take revenge for the losses
so pitilessly inflicted upon them all through the hours of that terrible
day, rained shot and shell without mercy upon the flying foe.

The weather had been improving ever since morning, and now, as the
firing gradually died down, the sun sank into the waters of the Gulf of
Liaotung in a blaze of purple and golden splendour. As the palpitant
edge of his glowing upper rim vanished beneath the long level line of
the western horizon, the firing on both sides suddenly ceased
altogether, and a great, solemn hush fell