a
lightning stroke, by the terrific concussion of the two shells striking
together; and had a man been foolish enough to place his hand on that
spot even five minutes afterward, he would have left the skin behind, so
intense was the heat generated by the impact.

Frobisher, however, could not know this, and he sent word to the
lieutenant in charge of the barbette to plant his shells, if possible,
on or near the guns of the enemy which were already in action, leaving
the after guns until later. And presently he had the satisfaction of
seeing one shell after another crash down on the very spot where the
_Hakodate's_ single gun protruded from her turret. When the flash of
the explosion and the yellow fumes of the bursting charge had cleared
away, there became visible a black, ragged hole where the gun-port had
been, and the gun itself, blown from its mountings, was pointing its
muzzle upward to the sky, useless for the rest of the action.

Both fleets had now broken their formation to a large extent, and the
fight had resolved itself more or less into a series of individual
actions between ship and ship. The Chinese flagship was close alongside
the _Fuji_, giving her a most unmerciful hammering with her eighty-ton
monster guns, which sent their high-explosive shells crashing through
her sides as through match-boarding, these subsequently bursting inside,
between decks, carrying death and horrible mutilation in their train.
The plucky _Chen Yuen_ and her gallant British captain, who, with
Frobisher, most distinguished himself that day, had been laid in between
the already severely punished _Yoshino_ and the celebrated _Matsushima_,
which, so far, had not received a single injury, although she had
entirely disabled and very nearly sunk the little Chinese unarmoured
_Hai-yen_. The latter, with only one boiler available, and a very low
pressure of steam in that, most of her guns disabled, her captain
killed, and all her officers wounded, could do no more; and when the
_Chen Yuen_ came up and drew the _Matsushima's_ fire upon herself, a
quartermaster, one of the few surviving petty officers, steered her
slowly and painfully, like a crippled-animal, out of the press, when,
unpursued--being too small fry to trouble about--she turned her bows in
the direction of Wei-hai-wei, and hobbled into port some twenty hours
later, the dismal forerunner of the shattered and broken remnant that
was so soon to follow her.

Frobisher, k