d completely round and got it
headed direct for a cluster of three Japanese cruisers. Then he struck
out for the _Chih' Yuen_, and was hauled aboard just as the cruiser was
beginning to forge ahead once more. The torpedo, unnoticed, plugged
into the side of the unsuspecting _Soya_, and a huge column of white
water, upon which the ship appeared to rise bodily, announced the fact
that it had done its deadly work effectively. And so it had, for before
another five minutes had elapsed that unit of the Japanese Navy had also
capsized and disappeared!

But while the _Chih' Yuen_ had been piling up successes for herself, and
earning laurels for her brave young skipper's brow--laurels with which
the Chinese Government was afterwards only too proud to crown him--and
while the gallant Englishman who captained the battleship _Chen Yuen_
had been engaging no fewer than five Japanese ships at one and the same
time, ay, and beating them off, too, matters had been going badly for
the rest of the Chinese fleet. It is no exaggeration to say that if all
the Chinese captains had fought as stubbornly as did the Englishmen, and
if the ammunition had not proved, as it did in so many instances, to be
faulty, the Chinese fleet would undoubtedly, in spite of the superior
numbers of the enemy, have utterly destroyed the latter, and obtained
full command of the sea. Japan would have been put back twenty-five
years, there could have been no Russo-Japanese war, and China, instead
of being, as she now is, a third-rate Power, might have held the premier
position in Asia, as Japan so splendidly and skilfully does now. But,
as so often happens, greed and dishonesty, self-seeking and cowardice on
the part of high officials, nullified the efforts of the brave seamen
who unavailingly gave their lives for their beloved country.

When Frobisher, intending to ram the _Yoshino_, came to look about him,
his heart sank as he saw the havoc that had been wrought among the rest
of the Chinese squadron. But, alas! worse by far was yet to come.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note. The term "echelon" means, literally, "steps", or a zig-zag
formation of columns, such as is shown in sketch Number 2, where the
Japanese formation has been altered from "line ahead", as in sketch
Number 1, to "echelon."

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

CAUGHT AT LAST.

The _Yen-fu_ and the _Tung-yen_ were mere motionless hulks, lying inert