While the artillery duel was in progress the Japanese were launching a bolt more deadly than the shells of their mountain guns. I have spoken of a weak point in the Russian position. That weakness was on the right, where the hills appeared to afford a natural defence. But hills are dangerous things unless well guarded, and the Russians had not learned the lesson of turning movements. Soon after daybreak there came from the rear of our position at the Eastern end of the valley a regiment of brave and determined men. They had before them a long and difficult march, and at the end of the journey a desperate task to perform. Their leader was a soldier who had learned some useful lessons in South Africa, for Colonel Hiraoka did not believe that military science began and ended with the Franco-German War. He led his regiment into the mountains and vanished from our view. Meanwhile, the men in the cornfields waited long and anxiously. Already they had observed symptoms of uneasiness on the part of the Russians, and feared that they might escape before the web was spun round them. At one o’clock in the afternoon some men left the trenches and did not return. Another hour crept by and the Russian guns were withdrawn. It was obvious that the enemy suspected some deep laid scheme and was making ready to depart. General Inouye watched anxiously from the gun position in the valley, and his glance was fixed on the hills to his left. Moments went by, and half an hour seemed an age. At last the signal! from the Russian trenches on the right came volley after volley hurtling over the plain. The leaden hail swept across the fields, and the corn stalks snapped under the hurricane like the cracking of a myriad whips. This sudden storm was directed against the defile beyond the plain where the head of Colonel Hiraoka’s regiment appeared--appeared and vanished again to hurl itself on the right flank of the Russians. In seven hours they had marched across nineteen miles of trackless mountains, and climbed three steep ranges under a blazing sun. Their arrival was well timed; had they been half-an-hour later they would have failed in their mission. Two companies from the force near Lien-cheng-kwan had hurried forward to meet them, and were fortunate in effecting a junction. For a second or two they stood out against the sky--a dark extended line advancing rapidly under a heavy fire. On they swept with a cheer! The mountain batteries in the valley--no longer having to face the superior range and weight of the Russian guns--moved forward to their aid and hurled shrapnel into the position. For nearly an hour the fight went on with fury; but not for a moment did the regiment waver or loosen its grip on the enemy. Their losses were heavy, and their leader fell mortally wounded, yet they held fast, and the victory was theirs. With a shout that rang like a trumpet among the echoing hills up sprang the fighting line from the cornfields; each maize stalk became an armed man.