s for showing it on all occasions, in season and out, the
Celestials had their flag flaunting on a staff in the stern. The
Japanese on the gunboat perceived it, for without troubling to hail
she opened on us with the machine-guns in her tops. A storm of balls
swept the deck, and half of those upon it fell dead or wounded. One of
the bullets cut off the peak of my cap with mechanical neatness,
leaving the rest of the article on my head, though turned quite
round, back to front. Before anything could be done to increase our
speed, a quick-firing gun plumped several heavy shot through us. The
machinery was damaged, we swung round helplessly, and were evidently
fast sinking. We had two boats of no great size; one of them was
knocked to splinters by the shot; the other we lowered as fast as we
could. As many as it would hold got into it, the others jumped into
the water, and within half a minute afterwards our vessel went down,
and the woe-begone survivors of the sudden catastrophe found
themselves prisoners on the deck of her destroyer.

She was the _Itsuku_ gunboat of about five hundred tons, on a cruise
of observation in the Gulf, along with two or three consorts, whom she
had lost in the fog. There was not a soul on board who could speak a
word of English, but by a few Chinese was sufficiently understood, and
a gunnery officer could speak tolerable French, a knowledge of which
tongue I shall probably be recollected to have mentioned as being the
major portion of the inadequate exchange for my eighty thousand
pounds. They informed us that they had taken us for a torpedo boat,
and seeing the Chinese flag had no hesitation in opening fire on so
dangerous a neighbour, as they deemed us. They seemed very scantily
pleased when told our real character, and learnt that their
precipitancy had perhaps lost them a little promotion, or at least
honourable mention, as capturers of important despatches, as I
understand them to have been.

I remained on board this vessel for more than a month. The Chinese, of
course, were prisoners of war, but there was no ground for detaining
me as such. I related how I had been left behind by the _Columbia_ at
Port Arthur, without, of course, giving any hint that she had been
engaged in supplying China with war material. I thought this would
satisfy my captors, but I was not long in finding out that they
entertained their own ideas as to my character, for one day I was
plainly asked whether I was n