Starting at the _Fukui's_ mainmast, we dropped the sinker of the
fishing-line over the stern and paid out until it reached her deck.
Then, giving way with the oars, we felt our way along her deck to her
taffrail, lifted the sinker, and dropped it again, clear of the wreck,
until it touched bottom. Then, noting the depth as so many knots and
fractions of a knot, I jotted the result in my notebook while, the
oarsmen keeping the boat in position, another cast was made at the bow
end of the boat. Proceeding in this manner, and taking the utmost care
to obtain accurate results, we accomplished our task in about half an
hour, under a heavy fire from the Russians on the heights, which,
strange to say, injured none of us.

This done, we pulled out to sea, and were soon afterward sighted and
joined by the _Tsubame_ and _Aotaka_, Japanese torpedo-boats, which took
us aboard, and exultingly informed us that, a quarter of an hour or so
earlier, they had engaged and driven ashore a Russian destroyer, which
afterward proved to be the _Silny_, the craft which had torpedoed the
_Fukui_, and had narrowly escaped being run down and sunk by the
_Yahiko_.

The torpedo-boats' crews made much of us and, I believe, would have
given us everything they had, if we would have taken it; but I contented
myself with a pannikin of _saki_, to counteract the cold of my drenched
clothing, and then asked them to run me off alongside my own ship, the
_Kasanumi_, which was hove-to about a mile further out. My crew
received me back with literally open arms and loud shouts of "Banzai
Nippon!" when I allowed it to be known that we had succeeded in doing
all that we had been ordered to do. Young Hiraoka was disposed to
regard me as a hero, and to treat me as such, commencing a long
complimentary speech of homage and congratulation; but I cut him short
by remarking that I was perishing of cold, and dived below to give
myself a good rough towelling and to change into dry kit.

When I went on deck again, the dawn was just brightening the eastern
sky, and I then noticed that we seemed to have more than our proper
complement of men aboard. Inquiring the reason, I learned that the
_Kasanumi_ had picked up the crew of the _Fukui Maru_, poor Hirose's
ship; and they furnished me with the particulars of the gallant fellow's
heroic death. I also learned that while we had been engaged in the
endeavour to block the harbour, our destroyers had been busily employ