the middle of the night, having read the warning letter before retiring, I thought:--'Suppose one of these nasty things goes off and blows the flagship up at this moment. How pleasant! What cowardly things these are; no fair fight, up you go, unshriven. I have heard that a man who is hanged is likely to go to heaven; I wonder if the same chance would be given to him blown up by a torpedo?' These sort of feelings came over me. However, said I, 'Let us see if we can prevent their being realised;' so I went to work to try to do so. As a sportsman I calculated that to fire at a dark object in the night, especially when that object had a background of high hills such as we had at Batoum, was most difficult, so the first order I gave was no lights, not even a cigarette light; utter darkness under severe penalties. Next, considering that Batoum is a very small port, with an entrance difficult to find even in broad daylight, almost impossible in the night without the lighthouse as a guide, I ordered that the lighthouse should not be lighted. Then I arranged with the shore authorities that no lights should be seen in the town; this was more difficult, as there were many Russian friendlies in Batoum. However, the application of somewhat severe discipline made Batoum like a city of the dead after dark. In addition to these precautions I put a barrier of booms ahead of the ships lying in the port, placed guard-boats to watch it at the entrance of the harbour, and having done all this, I bided my time. For some nights, rather sleepless to me, though to my disgust I heard my officers snoring all round me, nothing happened (though, as I heard afterwards, a good deal had been going on outside the harbour), when, at about three o'clock in the morning of the third or fourth night after I had received the warning, I heard a row going on in the direction of the guard-boats and an explosion near to one of the outlying ships. I had hardly time to think, when something struck the chain of my flagship and seemed to spin past, like a fish in the water. Then dead silence. I immediately sent orders to the two fast cruisers, which were lying with steam up, to go to sea and reconnoitre.