--that I had every reason to be proud; for here was I, a
lad not yet quite nineteen years of age, captain of one of the finest
and most formidable cruisers in the Japanese navy. And I had attained
to that position--I may say it now, I think, without laying myself open
to the charge of being unduly vain--solely by my own exertions and
without a particle of favour shown me, excepting that, when my own
country contemptuously dispensed with my services, the aliens whom I was
now serving received me with the utmost courtesy and kindness. Ah,
well! thank God, that bitter period in my life is past now, and I can
bear to look back upon it with equanimity, but the memory of it often
swept down upon me like a black cloud in the days of which I am now
writing.

But there was no thought of my unmerited disgrace and ruined career in
my own country to interfere with my happiness or humble my pride upon
that glorious morning; I enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing that my
innocence had been made clear, that the stain of guilt had been removed
from my name, and I was as happy just then as I suppose it is ever
possible for mortal to be.

And indeed, quite apart from matters of a purely personal nature, it
would have been very difficult for any normal-minded individual to have
been otherwise than buoyant upon that particular morning, for everything
conspired to make one so. The weather was glorious; the sky, a clear,
rich sapphire blue, was, for a wonder, without a cloud, the air was so
still that until we got under way and made a wind for ourselves the
signal flags drooped in motionless folds, and their interpretation was
largely a matter of guesswork. Then there was all the pomp and
circumstance of modern war, the ships already cleared for action, and
each of them decorated with at least two enormous battle-flags--wrought
by the dainty fingers of Japan's fairest daughters--flaunting defiantly
from her mast-heads. It must have been a magnificent sight to behold
that proud fleet steaming out to sea, ship after ship falling into line
with machine-like precision and keeping distance perfectly, first the
squadron of cruisers, led by the _Yakumo_; then the other five armoured
cruisers, with the _Asama_ in the van; then the four battleships--
accompanied by the _Nisshin_ and _Kasuga_, which were powerful enough to
take their place in the line of battle--and, finally, the swarm of
heterogeneous craft composed of the older and less importa