“America can have all the relics Japan has--her bronzes, gilts, ivories, lacquers, silks, her temples, everything but the land and the people--for gold. We want American gold.” “Couldn’t America buy Japan?” asked Mrs. Wood, playfully. The old man mused a while. Finally he said: “I have no doubt that America has the enterprise to build a ship large enough to float our island to the Golden Gate and anchor it there, but if you do that I bid America beware that we do not annex her!” Chapter Sixteen THE COST OF TAKING PORT ARTHUR Port Arthur stood formidable and haughty on the night of February 8th, when Togo first saluted it with his turret six-inchers. That salute of the shell was lengthy and costly. For ten months it kept up from nearly seven hundred guns, approximately two hundred and forty in the navy and three hundred and fifty in the army. Each gun fired its weight in metal twenty times over. About two thousand tons of bursting shell went into that proud and mighty citadel, cordoned with its cunningly hung and ingeniously intrenched forts. Each firing cost an average of twenty-four gold dollars. Thus the moneyed treasure hurled against the fortress exceeded thirty millions. And men--but of the human later. What bait lured and what force repelled that money and blood? To comprehend we must review briefly Port Arthur, its fortification, and its siege. Nature there was the greatest ally the Russians ever had. Topographically, Port Arthur was fitted with a defense that taught tricks to the most skillful engineers. Two ranges of hills, almost concentric, surrounded the harbor. The crests of these were broken by a series of successive conical elevations. Here was a suggestion that the mightiest engineer--an Archimedes or a Michelangelo--would have seized. The Italians who helped the Russians in laying out their defenses, taking these concentric ranges for the primary grand scheme, ran completely about the city two concentric lines of fortifications. Massive masonry forts were built on the shoulders of the high summits, and were connected by continuous defensive works. Hugging the city close, distant from one thousand yards to a mile and a half, lay the inner line of permanent defense, whose backbone was an old Chinese wall, broadened, deepened, and loopholed. Beyond, and filling the interstices between these forts, were semi-permanent works. The forts were so related to each other that they gave mutual support. Each one was dominated by fire from neighboring heights, and it often happened that the Japanese seized positions, which, though untenable for the Russians, they were unable to hold themselves. The slopes of the hills were steep. Also, they were smooth and free from cover. To rush the works charges had to be made over a broad glacis, swept by the shrapnel, machine gun, and rifle fire of the defenders. Should the assault survive the scientific deathtraps of this danger zone, the valiant few were confronted by massive