shouted us clear, and we bore down upon one of the darker patches. We hoped that it was the Mikasa, and that we were destined to spend the night on the flagship. But the commander put our mind to rest on that point with the simple information that he was about to tie up for the night at the torpedo transport.

It has not been given to every one to witness the victorious Japanese fleet lying at anchor in its rendezvous. It was a sight once seen not easily to be forgotten. The four squadrons lay at anchor in four lines. Just clear of them lay the transports, colliers, torpedo transports, and the dockyard vessels. At the entrance to the bay lay the guardship and the destroyers. Three destroyers and one cruiser were on the mud to facilitate the attentions of the dockyard hands. Two of the battleships had colliers alongside, and another of the colliers was filling the bunkers of two torpedo boats. Across the entrance to the

bay one could just make out the faint line of a boom. Since we had heard so much of the damage which the Russian guns had wrought upon the Japanese fleet we looked anxiously for evidence of it. As the morning light strengthened we scrutinised each battleship in turn. There were six of them, great gaunt leviathans stripped for the fray. Though the friendly glass made each rail and stanchion clear, yet we could discover no serious trace of this ill-usage of which we had heard. Then for the first-class cruisers, they at least had been knocked to pieces. Here they were, four of them, anchored line ahead. There was nothing that the non-professional eye could detect amiss with their lean symmetry. The picture was in a manner oppressive: there was nothing within view that was not connected with scientific butchery and destruction in its most ruthless and horrible form. The ships themselves, stripped of everything that was wooden or super

fluous, gave a morbid impression of merciless majesty and might. The nakedness of their dressing accentuated the ferocity of the gaping guns. One thought of the shambles on the main deck of the Variag and the fate of the Petropavlovsk, and shuddered. But in all, if not exhilarating, it was a magnificent picture. And one

bowed in tribute to the diabolical and misapplied genius of man.

At three o'clock came the crowning scene. A signal fluttered up from the bridge of the flag-ship. As if by one movement the little torpedo craft slipped away towards the entrance, while the whole air hummed with the rattle of chain-cables. Signal after signal from the flag-ship, and then majestically Admiral Togo took his fleet out of the rendezvous to do battle with his country's enemy. This was a

79

IX.

THE PATH IN THE EAST IS STRANGE.

YINKOW, September.

THE Foreigner was unutterably bored. Only those who, buttoned up to the neck in an absurd tunic, have to attend similar functions in artificially heated saloons, can realise the boredom bred of a succession of diplomatic soirées. The Foreigner was bored. He had nodded to the men he knew from his Embassy, had bowed himself low in answer to the courteous salutations of other foreign mocking-birds like unto himself, had kissed the tips of the fingers of perhaps two smiling dames, and was now settled with his arm on the balustrade waiting until the season might be seemly for him to slip down. the grand stairway into the cool outside.

more.

The chatter of feminine voices, the flashing of dazzling jewellery, the nodding aigrettes, the electro-plated magnificence of waist-laced cavaliers, interested him no The panoply of peace! He gazed at the stream of grinning faces as they moved past him. There was not one that interested him. He fell musing to himself. Was it a diplomatic reception, was it a carnival, or was it a corroboree-the modern development of those orgies the description of which had fascinated him in perusal when a boy?

There was a temporary dissolution of the crowd. An archduke or a princess was passing, and the ushers fought to make a passage through the throng of gilded guests. As the way opened the Foreigner caught sight of a face on the far side of the salon which seemed to reflect the very thoughts uppermost in his own mind. A little swarthy face. A face which, in spite of the low forehead, beady black eyes, and