l
Ijichi met Major-General Reiss at Plum Tree Cottage, a miserable little
hovel situated in the village of Swishiying, and the negotiations were
opened which resulted in Port Arthur passing into the possession of the
Japanese on the evening of that day, although the Russian evacuation did
not take place until the 5th of January.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

THE BATTLE OF TSUSHIMA.

Meanwhile, what had become of the Japanese navy, after the battle of the
Yellow Sea?

So far as the _Yakumo_ was concerned, we were in the very thick of the
fight when it was at its hottest, and when at length the battle came to
an end with the flight of the _Retvisan_ and _Pobieda_, we were one of
the ships which had been so severely mauled that extensive repairs were
necessary before we could undertake further service. Accordingly, we
were ordered to proceed forthwith to Sasebo to refit; and since we were
by no means alone in our plight, we had to await our turn. Hence it was
the middle of January 1905 before the _Yakumo_ was again ready for sea;
and in the meantime I had ample opportunity to cement my friendship with
the members of the Boyd family, who had acted the part of Good Samaritan
to me when I first made acquaintance with Sasebo.

The day before the _Yakumo_ left Sasebo for our rendezvous at the Elliot
Islands, news arrived that the long talked-of Baltic Fleet had reached
Madagascar and was at anchor in Passandava Bay, refitting, provisioning,
and generally enjoying the hospitality of the French nation. This, of
course, was not the first news that we had received of it; we had been
duly apprised of its departure from Libau on 15th October and had also
heard--with surprise on the part of the Japanese, and with bitter
mortification and shame on my own part--of its subsequent unprovoked and
unpunished attack upon the Gamecock fleet of British trawlers; but
nobody was in the least disturbed by the news that this formidable fleet
was at last actually at sea, for as a matter of fact we in Japan
regarded its departure as nothing more than a move on the part of the
Russian Government intended to encourage the garrison of Port Arthur to
continue its resistance. For, to speak the plain truth, nobody
seriously believed that the voyage would ever be continued far beyond
the western extremity of the English Channel, for we could not see how
it was going to be done. But _now_, when it was apparent that France
was openly ignoring and outragin