Part of the fleet proceeded via Suez, and part went round the Cape of Good Hope--to them a name of mockery. The ships moved leisurely, their commanders not doubting that Stoessel would be able to hold his ground; but scarcely had they reached a rendezvous which, by the favour of France, they had fixed in the waters adjacent to Madagascar, when they heard of the fall of Port Arthur. Of the annihilation of the fleet attached to the fortress, and of the destruction of a squadron coming to the rescue from the north they had previously learned. With what dismay did they [Page 191] now hear that the key of the ocean was lost. Almost at the same moment the last of Job's messengers arrived with the heavier tidings that Mukden, the key of the province, had been abandoned by a defeated army--stunning intelligence for a forlorn hope! Should they turn back or push ahead? Anxious question this for Admiral Rozhesvenski and his officers. Too late for Port Arthur, might they not reënforce Vladivostok and save it from a like fate? The signal to "steam ahead" was displayed on the flagship. Slowly and painfully, its propellers clogged by seaweed, its keels overgrown with barnacles, the grand armada crossed the Indian Ocean and headed northward for the China Sea. On May 27, steering for the Korean channel, it fell into a snare which a blind man ought to have been able to foresee. Togo's fleet had the freedom of the seas. Where could it be, if not in that very channel? Yet on the Russians went: "Unmindful of the whirlwind's sway That hushed in grim repose Expects his evening prey." The struggle was short and decisive--finished, it is said, in less than one hour. While Togo's battleships, fresh and in good condition, poured shot and shell into the wayworn strangers, his torpedo-boats, greatly increased in number, glided almost unobservedly among the enemy and launched their thunderbolts with fatal effect. Battleships and cruisers went down with all on board. The Russian flagship was disabled, and the admiral, severely wounded, was transferred [Page 192] to the hold of a destroyer. Without signals from their commander the vessels of the whole fleet fought or fled or perished separately; of 18,000 men, 1,000 escaped and 3,000 were made prisoners. What of the other 14,000? "Ask of the winds that far around With fragments strewed the sea." The much vaunted armada was a thing of the past; and Tsushima or, as Togo officially named it, the Battle of the Sea of Japan, has taken its place along with Trafalgar and Salamis.