d best
way, therefore, under ordinary circumstances, would have been to creep
down the coast close inshore. But this would have involved our passing
Dalny on the way, and there were the Russian destroyers, which were said
to patrol as far as that place every night, to be reckoned with. We did
not desire to encounter them on the way, and so afford them a chance to
slip back to Port Arthur and give the alarm; our object was to get in
between them and Port Arthur, and so cut off their retreat. Also, we
had decided to approach Port Arthur from the south-west, so as to give
the idea that we were the Russian boats returning after a scouting
excursion in the offing; we therefore headed due south at the start, our
speed being fifteen knots, which was later increased to twenty-two, as
the course which we had decided upon took us far out of our way and
nearly doubled the distance to be run.

The sun disappeared beneath the horizon in a heavy squall of rain, the
wind breezed up fiercely, and it was piercingly cold. The night shut
down upon us dark as a wolf's mouth, the only relief to the intense
blackness being the phosphorescence of the bow wave as it swept, roaring
and scintillating away to port and starboard, and the faint gleam of a
shrouded lamp which each vessel bore at her taffrail as a guide to the
craft next astern of her. Well, so much the better; the darker the
night, the better for our purpose; only I fervently wished that the
water had not been so brilliantly phosphorescent, for in the intense
darkness the gleam of it was visible for quite a considerable distance,
and I feared that, if the Russians were keeping a sharp lookout, it
would prematurely reveal our approach. We had cleared for action before
getting under way, and each boat carried two torpedoes in her tubes, her
guns loaded, and ammunition ready to pass up on deck at a moment's
notice.

Hour after hour we steamed on, describing the arc of a big semi-circle
as we altered our course from time to time, until at length we were
heading west-nor'-west for Port Arthur; and during the whole time we had
not sighted a craft of any description.

At length, about half-past ten, the darkness ahead seemed to grow
blacker than ever, and turning to Ito, who stood beside me on the
bridge, I said:

"Do you see that darkness ahead, Ito? Surely that is the loom of land."

"Yes," answered Ito, who spoke English excellently. "Without a doubt
that is the high land