battle-line round in a sweep from
North-East to South-West, and then to south for a distance of some eight
miles, during which we sighted and shelled the enemy's cruiser squadron
and some of his auxiliary ships heading to the south-west. At this
point Togo decided to turn northward again, but before doing so he
detached the six armoured cruisers--of which the _Yakumo_ was one--under
Admiral Kamimura, with orders to pursue and destroy the ships of which
we had just lost sight.

This was about four o'clock in the afternoon. By this time the wind had
dwindled away to a mere nothing, and the sea had so far gone down that
our torpedo craft could keep pace with the larger craft without being
swept by seas from stem to stern; still, the weather continued to be
very dismal and dreary, the sky still lowering and overcast, not a
solitary gleam of sunshine, and the fog gathering so thickly that it was
difficult to see anything beyond a two-mile radius. The heavy
gun-firing had by this time died down to nothing; but a pretty lively
cannonade of lighter weapons down in the south-western quarter told us
that the engagement between our cruisers and those of the enemy was
still proceeding briskly although nothing could be seen. Accordingly,
the _Idzumo_ led her five armoured sisters in that direction, at a speed
of fifteen knots.

Suddenly, as we pushed along, guided on our course by the sounds of the
firing, the thunder of heavy guns, easily distinguishable from the
sharper report of the lighter weapons, burst forth ahead, to our
amazement, for we fully believed that the whole of the enemy's
battleships had fled northward. Clearly, however, we were mistaken in
so believing, and Kamimura at once recognised that capricious fortune
was unexpectedly holding out to him the opportunity to wipe off some of
the utterly undeserved opprobrium that had attached to him earlier in
the war, because of his failure to bring the Vladivostock squadron to
book, and which his later success had by no means effaced; accordingly,
he signalled the squadron to increase speed to eighteen knots, which was
supposed to be the maximum attainable by the _Asama_ and ourselves,
although the others were capable of an extra knot. This inferiority of
speed on our part had always been rather a sore point with me, and I had
had many a talk with Carmichael, the _Yakumo's_ Engineer Commander,
about it, who had felt the reproach as keenly as I did, and had assured
m