ace, even
the beam of the distant searchlight being so effectually obscured that
it might have been extinguished for all that we knew to the contrary. I
had rung down for our engines to stop, so that we might not run away
from the _Akatsuki_, after shifting our helm, without informing her of
the alteration in our course, and everything was now so still that I had
no difficulty in distinguishing young Hiraoka's hail, and the reply from
the other destroyer, breaking through the soft swish and lap of water
under our bows. It was the _Akatsuki's_ lieutenant who was answering
our hail, and he had just acknowledged the intimation of our altered
course, and was ordering his own helmsman to make a like change, when,
without the slightest warning, I experienced a terrific shock which felt
exactly as though the ship had been smitten a savage blow from below by
a giant hammer. So violent was it that I was flung high in the air and
over the rail of the bridge on to the steel turtle-back deck beneath,
upon which I landed head-first with such violence that I immediately
lost consciousness. But before that happened I was sensible of two
things; one of them being a blinding flash of flame, coincident with the
shock, in which our bows, for a length of some ten or twelve feet,
seemed to crumple up and fly to pieces, while the other was that, as I
was tossed high in the air, I sustained a violent blow on the chest from
some heavy object which seemed to sear my flesh like white-hot iron.
Then down I came upon my head, and knew no more.

My first sensation, upon coming to myself, was that of a violent aching
all over my body, as though every bone in it had been broken. But the
aching of my head was even worse than that of my body, while as for my
chest, it smarted and throbbed as though the blade of a burning knife
rested upon it. I next became aware that I was in bed; and finally,
opening my eyes, I saw that I was the occupant of one of many beds in a
large, airy room which somehow seemed familiar to me, and which I
presently identified as the ward which I had once before occupied in the
hospital at our base among the Elliot Islands.

It was broad daylight, and the sun was shining brilliantly into the room
through the widely opened windows, which admitted a gentle, refreshing
breeze, pleasantly charged with ozone. Two dainty little women nurses
were doing something at a table at the far end of the room, which
happened to come withi