Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun Part 16

The letters from my aunt and uncle moved me profoundly; their grief for the loss of their only son, and, even more, their shattered faith in him, was pathetic in the extreme, while it was easy to see how yearningly their hearts turned to me for comfort and consolation in their bitter bereavement. They were smarting with shame at the thought that it was _their_ son, the lad of whom they had been so proud and upon whose future they had built such high hopes, who was the author of my undeserved disgrace and ruin, so far as my career in the British Navy was concerned; and they wanted me at home in order that they might have the comfort of doing what they could to make up to me for their son's treachery. And in the plenitude of my affection I was, for the moment, more than half inclined to yield to their entreaties, resign my commission in the j.a.panese navy, and go home to them forthwith. But in the course of an hour or two calm reflection came to my aid; I would certainly return to England and endeavour to secure reinstatement in the navy of my own country, but not until after the war was over, if I lived so long. I had put my hand to the plough, and I would not turn back, although, of course, I knew that there were plenty of j.a.panese officers quite as good and useful as myself, and quite ready to step into my place, should I choose to vacate it. I came to the conclusion, however, that, let the authorities at home be ever so ready to remedy what had proved to be a miscarriage of justice, I should in nowise help my case with them by forsaking the cause which I had espoused, at the moment when the decisive events of the war were beginning, as we all then believed, to loom faintly upon the horizon. No, I told myself, if I wished for reinstatement--and I wished for nothing else half so ardently--I must remain until the issues of the war were decided, when I could go back home with a good grace, taking with me a fairly creditable record with which to back up my application. Meanwhile, I sat down and wrote a letter to my aunt and uncle, excusing myself for not at once acceding to their request to forthwith return to England, explaining the reasons which had urged me to that decision, and pouring out in a long, pa.s.sionate declaration all the pent-up affection of my heart for them, and my sympathy with them in their bitter sorrow. I also wrote to Sir Robert Gordon, telling him that my aunt and uncle had expressed the desire that I should return to them forthwith, and reiterating the reasons which impelled me to decline.

On the following day my signal was made from the flags.h.i.+p; and upon proceeding on board I was informed by the Admiral that General Oku's report as to the a.s.sistance rendered by the s.h.i.+ps during the battle of Nanshan, and especially of the important services which I personally had rendered on that particular day and those which immediately preceded it, had been particularly gratifying to him, and that it had afforded him the utmost satisfaction and pleasure to forward that report to Baron Yamamoto, the Minister of the Navy, with a covering letter from himself which he hoped would be of service to me. Meanwhile, I was instructed to proceed forthwith to Port Arthur with my s.h.i.+p, to a.s.sist in the blockading of the port.

We filled our bunkers and replenished our stock of ammunition during the afternoon, and steamed out of Tashantau harbour, with all lights out, as soon as darkness fell, steaming dead slow all night, and keeping a sharp lookout for enemy s.h.i.+ps, as a rumour had reached the Admiral that the Russians were planning another raid upon the j.a.panese coast by the Vladivostock fleet, which might be expected to put to sea at any moment.

But we saw nothing, and arrived off Port Arthur at daybreak on the following morning without adventure of any kind. Here we fell in with the cruisers of the blockading fleet, to the admiral in command of which I forthwith reported myself, and delivered over the mail bags for the blockading s.h.i.+ps, with which I had been entrusted. My instructions were to remain with the blockaders during the daytime, while at night the _Kasanumi_ was to take part in the mine-laying operations in the roadstead of the beleaguered fortress, which were nightly conducted with untiring pertinacity. Shortly after my arrival, the destroyer flotilla which had been engaged in these operations during the night came steaming out, and among the approaching craft I recognised with pleasure the _Akatsuki_, still commanded by my former lieutenant and staunch friend, the enthusiastic Ito. That he had by no means forgotten me was quickly made manifest, for no sooner was he near enough to identify the _Kasanumi_ than his semaph.o.r.e started work, signalling that he wished to communicate, and upon my signalman responding, his first question was whether I was still in command. Receiving a reply in the affirmative, he forthwith invited me to go on board his s.h.i.+p to take breakfast with him, and when I moved an amendment to the effect that the process should be reversed and that, instead, he should come and breakfast with me, upon the ground that, coming fresh from the rendezvous, my larder was probably better stocked than his, he at once joyously accepted the invitation, and a quarter of an hour later I had the very great pleasure of welcoming him on my own quarter-deck. The dear chap was just as enthusiastic, just as keen, just as full of life as ever, and seemed unfeignedly glad to see me. Of course we had a tremendous lot to say to each other, and I was most eager to learn what he had been doing since we parted company; but when he learned that I was fresh from Kinchau, and had actually a.s.sisted at the battle of the Nanshan Heights, he positively refused to say a single word about himself until I had given him a full, true, and particular account of all the happenings of that terrible yet glorious day. His enthusiasm and delight, as I endeavoured to describe the final irresistible rush of the j.a.panese up those heart-breaking, shot-swept slopes, were supreme; he seemed to literally swell with pride; and when I spoke of the thrilling j.a.panese cheer as his fellow-countrymen finally carried the last line of the Russian defences and routed the defenders, he leaped to his feet and repeated the shout of "Banzai!" again and again, while his eyes shone like stars, and tears of joy and pride rolled down his cheeks.

It was some time before I could turn his mind away from the events of that strenuous day; and when at length I succeeded in doing so, and could get him to talk about himself, it appeared that, stirring though the events seemed to be which were nightly happening before Port Arthur, they were all flat, stale, and unprofitable, compared with such an event as the storming of the Nanshan Heights. And so, as a matter of fact, they were, as I soon discovered for myself; for the duty of our destroyer flotilla consisted simply in steaming insh.o.r.e every night industriously laying mines in the roadstead and at the harbour's mouth, which the Russians as industriously strove to remove next day. True, the sameness of this work was occasionally relieved by a more or less exciting episode, as when, for instance, the Russians would suddenly turn their searchlights upon us and all their batteries would open fire.

Then we simply had to scuttle for our lives, for, of course, the sh.o.r.e batteries mounted very much heavier and longer range guns than any that a destroyer could carry; and there was no sense in attempting, as a general rule, to oppose our 12-pounders and 6-pounders to their 6-inch and 11-inch guns.

Yet we by no means allowed the Russians to invariably have it all their own way. There were times when, under cover of the darkness, one or two of us would creep right into the harbour entrance and, getting so close under the cliff that it became impossible for the Russians to depress their heavy guns sufficiently to reach us, would boldly engage the forts with our quick-firers, and even with rifle-fire, picking off any gunners that were foolhardy enough to expose themselves, and not unfrequently dismounting or otherwise putting out of action a few of their lighter guns. It was the good fortune of the _Kasanumi_, on one occasion, very shortly after our return, to strike one of the Russian 11-inch Canets, mounted in the fort between Golden Hill and the inner harbour, fair and square upon the muzzle and blow it clean off, with a sh.e.l.l from our 12-pounder; but such successes as these were of course very rare. These engagements between our destroyers and the Russian forts were immensely exciting, and afforded a most agreeable and welcome change from the monotony of mine-laying, for when we undertook such an adventure we never knew whether or not we should emerge from it scatheless. The operation of getting in close under the cliffs, undetected, was of course hazardous enough to make the attempt irresistibly fascinating; but it was the getting away again after the alarm had been given and all the enemy's searchlights had been turned upon us, when the excitement reached its height; for, of course, the moment that we were far enough away from the shelter of the beetling cliffs to enable the Russians to train their big guns upon us, they would open fire upon us for all that they were worth, and then it became a case of dodging the sh.e.l.ls. It was then that our ingenuity was taxed to the very utmost, twisting and turning hither and thither as we ran at full speed into the offing, always endeavouring to make a turn in the most unexpected direction possible at the precise moment when we antic.i.p.ated that the guns were being brought to bear upon us. And that, on the whole, we were fairly successful was pretty conclusively evidenced by the small amount of damage which we sustained. Indeed, our most serious mishap about this time in those waters arose from a totally different cause. One of our officers, a certain Commander Oda, had invented a particularly deadly kind of mine, which the j.a.panese Government adopted, and which they named after the inventor. A few days after my return to the waters of Port Arthur, Oda himself was engaged upon the task of laying some of his mines in the outer roadstead, when one of them somehow exploded, killing the captain of the s.h.i.+p and eighteen men, and wounding Oda himself and seven others. Strangely enough, however, the s.h.i.+p herself was only very slightly damaged. Less fortunate were the Russians; for, only a day or two later, two of their gunboats, while engaged in the attempt to remove some of our mines, came in contact with them, and both craft immediately went to the bottom, taking most of their men with them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE FLOATING MINE.

It is a true saying, that "the pitcher which goes too often to the well gets broken at last;" and thus it came about with me, or rather with the _Kasanumi_.

As the days pa.s.sed, we became aware of greatly increased activity on the part of the garrison of Port Arthur. Cruising in the offing during the daytime, well beyond the range of the Russian's biggest guns, yet near enough at hand to make sure that our blockade of the port was effective, the sound of violent explosions came floating off to us all day long, telling us in unmistakable language that strenuous efforts were being made to clear the channel of the sunken steamers wherewith we had blocked it, at such heavy cost to ourselves. There could be but one reason for such tremendous activity: it was doubtless that the enemy had it in contemplation to send his fleet to sea, probably with the object of finding a more secure shelter in the port of Vladivostock, a surmise which was confirmed by our spies in Port Arthur.

If still further confirmation of this intention were needed, it was to be found in the increased efforts which the Russians put forth to hamper our mine-laying operations in the roadstead; for about this time it became the practice of the enemy to send out a s.h.i.+p, sometimes two, or even three, to lie at anchor in the roads all night. The s.h.i.+p, or s.h.i.+ps, always anch.o.r.ed well under the cover of the heaviest guns of the fortress, yet so far out that her, or their, own heavy guns completely commanded the waters of the roadstead, thus tremendously increasing the difficulty of sowing those waters with mines.

Naturally, the presence of these s.h.i.+ps in the roadstead offered an almost irresistible temptation to our destroyers to essay the task of sinking them, or at least putting them out of action; and this desire on our part was smiled upon by Togo, to put the case mildly, for information was now continually reaching us to the effect that the formidable Baltic fleet was being rapidly prepared for sea, and that its departure on its long voyage to the Far East was imminent; while Togo was naturally anxious that the Port Arthur fleet--and the Vladivostock fleet also, if possible--should be effectually disposed of before the arrival of so powerful a reinforcement in j.a.panese waters. Therefore, great as was the risk attending the attack of a powerfully armed s.h.i.+p at anchor under the cover of several formidable forts, and careful as our Admiral was, both of his s.h.i.+ps and of his men, no attempt was made to discourage us of the torpedo flotilla when our desire to attack was made known; on the contrary, the desire was smiled upon, as I have said, and nothing more than a word of caution was given against the incurring of unnecessary risks.

Perhaps I ought to explain precisely what I mean by saying that the desire of the commander of the torpedo flotilla to attack these s.h.i.+ps was "smiled upon" by the Admiral. He had not only "smiled upon" but had given imperative orders that the torpedo fleet was to be employed upon every possible occasion for the hara.s.sing and discomfiture of the enemy; but hitherto the tactics employed had been for the destroyers and torpedo-boats to attack in numbers, a division or even two or three divisions being sent in at a time. It was due to my initiative that these tactics were now to be altered, and that attacks were now to be permitted by as few as two boats only. Up to now it had been our regular practice for a large number of craft to creep in toward the roadstead at a low speed until discovered by the enemy's searchlights, and then dash in upon the foe at our utmost speed, through a hail of sh.e.l.ls, discharge our torpedoes as we circled round our quarry, and then dash out again, trusting to our speed to carry us back into the zone of safety. Of course this plan had its advantages, inasmuch as that the more there were of us, the greater--in theory--the chance that some of us would score a hit. But against this there was the fact that during the final rush of the torpedo craft upon the enemy, the necessity to maintain our highest speed throughout the entire period of the attack involved forced draught, and consequently flaming funnels, which latter of course immediately attracted the attention of the enemy and nullified all our efforts to take him by surprise.

Now, I had by this time gained a considerable amount of experience of torpedo warfare, and I had not failed to observe that in the majority of cases where our attacks had failed, the failure had been due to the above cause, combined with the fact that ten or a dozen craft ran a much greater risk of being picked up by the enemy's searchlights than would one or two. It had therefore seemed to me that, taking everything into consideration, the prospects of successful attack by two craft--one to support and a.s.sist the other in case of need--were as good as those of a dozen craft, while the risk would be very much less, provided that the attack were made coolly and circ.u.mspectly in accordance with a plan which I had worked out. This plan was, in brief, to run for the harbour at normal speed until we were practically within effective range, and then, instead of das.h.i.+ng in at full speed, to stop our engines--the throb of which was loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance on a quiet night--and head directly for our quarry, discharging our torpedoes when the momentum or "way" of the boat had carried her as far as she would go, trusting to the subsequent confusion to enable us to escape unscathed. I had fully explained this view of mine to the Admiral, and had obtained his sanction to put my plan to the test.

Accordingly, on a certain night toward the middle of June, after the Russians had been let severely alone for some forty-eight hours, the _Kasanumi_, accompanied by the _Akaisuki_, my friend Ito's s.h.i.+p, left the rest of the blockaders, with the object of putting my theory into practice.

It was a splendid night for our purpose; there was a breathless calm, the water was smooth as oil, and although there was certainly a moon, she was in her last quarter, and did not rise until close upon one o'clock in the morning. Moreover, the sky was overcast by a great sheet of dappled cloud through which only a solitary star here and there peeped faintly; it was consequently dark enough to afford us a reasonable chance of getting within striking distance of our quarry undetected.

When the Russians sent their s.h.i.+ps out of harbour to lie all night in the roadstead, as they did pretty frequently now, it was their custom to get them out early in the afternoon, after their destroyers had carefully swept the anchorage in search of mines; and it was my hope that--we having left them alone for the preceding two days--they would by this time be getting suspicious of such unwonted inactivity on our part, and consequently would send out one, or perhaps even two s.h.i.+ps, to guard against a possible _coup_ on our part.

Our mine-laying craft very rarely got to work before one or two o'clock in the morning, that being the hour when human vigilance is popularly supposed to be least active; I therefore planned to arrive in the roadstead about midnight, hoping that I should then catch the enemy off his guard, s.n.a.t.c.hing a rest in preparation for the moment when our activities usually began.

Now, the thing which we had most to fear was a long-distance searchlight established in a station on Golden Hill, at a height of some two hundred feet above the sea-level. This searchlight was generally turned on at dusk, and was kept unceasingly playing upon the anchorage and its adjacent waters all through the night. It commanded the entire roadstead, from a point three miles east of the harbour's mouth, right round to the south and west as far as the Pinnacle Rock; and the difficulty was how to avoid being picked up by it before we had delivered our attack. But by this time I knew the seaward surroundings of Port Arthur almost by heart. I knew, for instance--and this was most important--that the searchlight station was placed so far back from the edge of the crumbling cliff that the water immediately at the foot of the latter, and for a distance of perhaps a hundred yards to seaward, could not be reached by the beam of the light, and was therefore enveloped in darkness, rendered all the deeper and more opaque by the dazzling brilliance of the light; and I also knew that along the outer edge of this patch of darkness there was a sufficient depth of water to float a destroyer, even at dead low water. My plan, therefore, was to make a wide sweep to seaward upon leaving the blockading squadron, gradually turning east and north, and thus eventually to get into Takhe Bay, some five miles east of Port Arthur anchorage, and from thence creep along the sh.o.r.e to the westward, keeping as close in as the depth of water would permit. There was only one difficulty about this, which was that at a certain point not far from where the searchlight station stood, there was a gap in the line of cliff where the ground sloped steeply down to the water's edge for a short distance, and here of course the beam of the light had uninterrupted play right up to the beach; but I believed I could overcome this difficulty by simply watching my opportunity and slipping past the gap when the searchlight was not playing upon it.

All went well with us until about seven bells in the first watch (half-past eleven o'clock) when a great bank of fog, for which those seas are notorious, came driving in from the south-west, and in a moment we were enveloped in a cloud so thick that, standing upon the bridge, I could scarcely distinguish our aftermost funnel, and could not see our taffrail at all. We were then about three miles from the sh.o.r.e, with the indentation of Takhe Bay straight ahead of us, and near enough the anchorage for a man on our signal yard to make out--before the fog enveloped us, of course--that there were two s.h.i.+ps at anchor in the roadstead, one, a five-funnelled craft which I knew could only be the _Askold_, while the other, showing four funnels, I gathered from his description must be the armoured cruiser _Bayan_. The searchlight had of course been in action ever since we had made the land, and as its beam swept slowly over the s.h.i.+ps it had revealed enough of their details to enable us to easily identify them.

It was most exasperating that the fog should have swept down upon us just when it did. Had it come an hour, or even half an hour, later, I would have welcomed it, for we should then have had time to get up within striking distance of the s.h.i.+ps and, under cover of the fog, could have approached them closely enough to have made sure of both, while now! Well, it was useless to cry over what could not be helped; the only thing to do was to make the best of things as they were, and to hope that the fog might yet prove a friend in disguise, after all.

Fortunately, as the fog came sweeping up to us, I had the presence of mind to hail the man on the yard--who was at that moment describing the s.h.i.+ps he saw riding at anchor in the roads--asking him to tell me exactly how they bore from us. His reply was:

"They are square abeam, honourable Captain."

I immediately put my head in through the window of the wheelhouse and demanded of the helmsman how we were at that moment heading. He answered that we were then steering north forty degrees west, by compa.s.s.

"Then," said I, "alter the course at once to west forty degrees south.

That," I added, addressing young Hiraoka, who was standing beside me, "ought to take us to them, or near enough to enable us to sight them.

Kindly go aft, Mr Hiraoka, and hail the _Akatsuki_, telling her of our s.h.i.+ft of helm."

The youngster ran aft to do my bidding, the fog at that moment being so thick that it was impossible to see one's hand before one's face, 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 s.h.i.+fting our helm, without informing her of the alteration in our course, and everything was now so still that I had no difficulty in distinguis.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ning brilliantly into the room through the widely opened windows, which admitted a gentle, refres.h.i.+ng 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 within the range of my vision, and presently I heard the gentle splash of water in that direction, which immediately brought home to me the consciousness that my mouth and throat were parched. I opened my mouth to call to the nurses that I was thirsty, but it was only the very faintest of whispers that escaped my smarting lips. It was enough, however, to immediately produce a gentle rustle on the other side of my bed, and the next moment a pretty face was bending over me and a pair of soft, dark, almond-shaped eyes were gazing sympathetically into mine.

"Ah!" exclaimed the owner of those eyes, "at last the ill.u.s.trious Captain is himself again. Are you suffering very acutely, n.o.ble sir?"

"Suffering?" I whispered. "_Rather_! I ache as if I had been beaten to a jelly, and I am as thirsty as a--as a limekiln. Can you by any chance get me something to drink? A bucketful will do to start with."

"A bucketful!" she murmured, looking anxiously down at me as she laid her long, slender, pointed fingers upon the pulse of my left hand where it rested outside the coverlet. "But no," she continued, evidently speaking to herself, "his pulse is almost normal, and there is no trace of fever. A bucketful! Oh, these Englis.h.!.+"

She shook her head, as though giving up some problem that she found too difficult for solution, and shuffled off, with the curious gait peculiar to j.a.panese women, without saying another word to me. She approached the other two nurses, at the far end of the ward, and said something which caused them both to turn and stare in my direction. Then the senior of the party, accompanied by the girl whom I had so tremendously astonished, came up to my bedside, looked at me, felt my pulse, and shuffled away again, presently returning with one of those cups with a spout, from which one can drink while in a rec.u.mbent position. She placed the point of the spout between my lips, and the next moment I was aware that I was imbibing some delicious broth. But the cup! It was only about the size of an ordinary breakfast cup, and its contents were gone before I could well taste them. I asked for more, and got a second cupful; and then, as I was asking for still more, the Medical Staff of the hospital entered the ward, and the whole crowd turned with one accord and grouped itself around my bed.

The Chief, a keen, clever-looking little fellow, whose age it was impossible to guess at since he was clean shaven, turned to the nurse who was feeding me, and sharply demanded what it was that she was administering. She explained, adding in all seriousness the information that I had demanded a bucketful, whereupon he turned and regarded me with upraised eyebrows, and laid his fingers upon my wrist.

"So you are suffering from extreme thirst, Captain, eh?" he demanded.

I nodded emphatically.

"Ah!" he said, "yes; that was only to be expected. Well--" He turned to the head nurse and gave her certain instructions in so low a tone of voice that I could not catch what he said. Then, drawing a notebook from his pocket, he very carefully and with much consideration wrote what I imagined to be a prescription, tore out the leaf, and handed it to the nurse, with instructions to have it made up. Then, turning again to me, he inquired how I felt. I described my symptoms as well as I could, wondering all the while how it was that I was only able to speak in the merest whisper.

The members of the staff, including the Head himself, could not have listened with more rapt attention, had I been communicating to them some item of intelligence of the most tremendous import; and when I had finished, the Head drew away from my bed to the far end of the room, where for some minutes he appeared to be delivering a lecture to the members of his staff, who had followed him. Then, the lecture being finished, they all came back to the side of my bed, and one of the nurses having carefully folded back the covering as low as my waist, the Head proceeded to deftly loosen the fastenings of an enormous bandage which I now discovered enveloped my chest. This done, I was very tenderly raised to a sitting posture--an operation which gave me excruciating pain, by the way--and the endless turns of the bandage were deftly unwound, one of the nurses seating herself upon the bed and supporting me meanwhile. When at length the bandage was removed, several broad strips of dressing were disclosed, which, upon removal, revealed a ghastly great jagged wound stretching right across my chest, the edges of which had been very neatly drawn together by a number of st.i.tches. Then, for the first time, I remembered the violent blow on the chest which I had received when the bows of the _Kasanumi_ were destroyed. The wound was intently examined by the entire staff, p.r.o.nounced to be healing most satisfactorily, and then, after being thoroughly sponged with warm water, was re-dressed, and a fresh bandage applied. Meanwhile, I had made the discovery that my head also was enveloped in bandages, and when I asked why, was informed that I had received a scalp wound, which, however, was of no serious consequence.

When this also had been re-dressed, the entire operation occupying the best part of half an hour, I felt considerably easier, although much exhausted. While the wound in my chest was being dressed, I had seized the opportunity to look round the ward, and saw that several of the beds were occupied, one of the patients, who appeared to be suffering from a broken arm, being a man whom I appeared to know. As I sat staring at him he turned his head and our eyes met, whereupon, to my amazement, up went his uninjured hand to the salute.

"Who is that man?" I demanded. "I seem to recognise his face."

"You do?" remarked the Chief. "Ah! no wonder. He is one of the survivors of the disaster by which you so nearly lost your honourable life. He was one of the crew of the _Kasanumi_."

"One of the crew of the _Kasanumi_!" I repeated. "Of course; I remember now. How come he and I to be here?"

"You were both, with the rest of the crew of your s.h.i.+p, rescued by the _Akatsuki_, which s.h.i.+p was happily at hand when the disaster occurred,"

replied the Chief.

"Ah, yes, the disaster!" I remarked. "Yes, I am beginning to remember all about it now. What was the nature of the disaster, doctor? Was that ever ascertained?"

"According to your friend, Captain Ito, who brought you here, there is no doubt that your s.h.i.+p struck a mine," was the reply. "Of course she went down, though not so quickly but that the entire crew were saved, together with most of their personal effects. There was time, indeed, to save most, if not all, of your belongings, Captain, and they are now here, awaiting your convalescence."

"Thank you," I said. "And, pray, when did the disaster occur?"

"Just a week ago, last night," was the reply.

"A week ago!" I exclaimed in consternation. "Then, have I lain here all that time, unconscious?"

"You certainly have," replied the Chief. "Now, however, that you are happily conscious once more, we must do our utmost to keep you so, and to a.s.sist your recovery. Therefore, no more conversation, if you please, until I give you permission. What you now have to do is to remain perfectly quiet and free from all excitement, pleasurable or otherwise. Rest, sleep, take such food and such medicines as I shall order for you, and recover strength as rapidly as possible. Then, when you are sufficiently well to receive visitors, I will permit a few of the many who are now eager to see you, to do so. No, not another word!"