ad and astern. The land about Port Arthur
loomed up in the darkness like a shapeless black shadow, stretched along
the horizon to the west and north, pierced only by the long beam of the
searchlight on Golden Hill, sweeping slowly to and fro at intervals.
Watching this, for want of something better to do, we presently noticed
that, for some reason not explicable to us, the beam never travelled
farther south than a certain point, where it invariably paused for a few
seconds, and then slowly swept round toward the north again.

Wondering whether Arima also had noticed this, I rang our engines ahead
for a revolution or two, and hailed the _Fukui_ to inquire. It appeared
that he had not; and I was in the middle of a suggestion, the observance
of which would, I believed, enable us to get close in, undetected, when
our destroyers came rushing back with the information that everything
was clear ahead, and that the prospects of success looked exceedingly
promising. Whereupon Arima, hailing me, directed me to take the lead in
the _Chiyo_, steering such a course as seemed desirable, and the rest
would follow. Accordingly, we in the _Chiyo_ went ahead, the _Fukui_
falling in next astern, and the other two retaining their original
positions.

We started at a speed of six knots only, to give our stokers a chance to
get their boilers into the best possible trim and to raise a good head
of steam for the final rush, and as soon as our safety valves began to
blow off, we increased the number of our revolutions until, when we
arrived within four miles of the harbour's mouth, we were racing in, as
though for a wager. At this point the destroyers stopped their engines
and lay-to. They had done the first part of their work, and must now
wait until we had done ours.

Meanwhile, I had quite made up my mind as to the proper thing to do, and
accordingly shaped a course by which, instead of running straight in,
and so crossing the track of the searchlight beam, we edged away to the
southward and westward, traversing the arc of a circle, and so just
keeping outside the range of the beam. But of course this sort of thing
could not go on indefinitely; to enter the harbour we must, sooner or
later, get within the range of the light; and when we arrived within two
miles of the harbour's mouth further concealment became impossible. But
we had done not at all badly, for a ten minutes' rush would now see us
where we wanted to be, if in the mea