atch
(half-past eleven o'clock) when a great bank of fog, for which those
seas are notorious, came driving in from the south-west, and in a moment
we were enveloped in a cloud so thick that, standing upon the bridge, I
could scarcely distinguish our aftermost funnel, and could not see our
taffrail at all. We were then about three miles from the shore, with
the indentation of Takhe Bay straight ahead of us, and near enough the
anchorage for a man on our signal yard to make out--before the fog
enveloped us, of course--that there were two ships at anchor in the
roadstead, one, a five-funnelled craft which I knew could only be the
_Askold_, while the other, showing four funnels, I gathered from his
description must be the armoured cruiser _Bayan_. The searchlight had
of course been in action ever since we had made the land, and as its
beam swept slowly over the ships it had revealed enough of their details
to enable us to easily identify them.

It was most exasperating that the fog should have swept down upon us
just when it did. Had it come an hour, or even half an hour, later, I
would have welcomed it, for we should then have had time to get up
within striking distance of the ships and, under cover of the fog, could
have approached them closely enough to have made sure of both, while
now! Well, it was useless to cry over what could not be helped; the
only thing to do was to make the best of things as they were, and to
hope that the fog might yet prove a friend in disguise, after all.

Fortunately, as the fog came sweeping up to us, I had the presence of
mind to hail the man on the yard--who was at that moment describing the
ships he saw riding at anchor in the roads--asking him to tell me
exactly how they bore from us. His reply was:

"They are square abeam, honourable Captain."

I immediately put my head in through the window of the wheelhouse and
demanded of the helmsman how we were at that moment heading. He
answered that we were then steering north forty degrees west, by
compass.

"Then," said I, "alter the course at once to west forty degrees south.
That," I added, addressing young Hiraoka, who was standing beside me,
"ought to take us to them, or near enough to enable us to sight them.
Kindly go aft, Mr Hiraoka, and hail the _Akatsuki_, telling her of our
shift of helm."

The youngster ran aft to do my bidding, the fog at that moment being so
thick that it was impossible to see one's hand before one's f