The first to make for the shore was a force of marines, two battalions of whom waded through the shallows and occupied the rising ground above the shore. Within an hour the advance guard of the army itself had been disembarked, and the rest of General Oku's troops quickly followed; the whole process being carried out with the smoothness and dispatch which characterized all the operations of this kind on the Japanese side. On the 6th, a flying column was sent to the northwards to seize the small port of Pitszewo, and more important still, another column moved across the neck of the peninsula with great rapidity and, occupying Pulantien, broke up the railway and cut off all communication between General Kuropatkin and Port Arthur. But before this was done one notable train load of passengers managed to escape from the beleaguered fortress. Chief among them were the Viceroy of the Far East, Admiral Alexeieff himself, and the Grand Duke Boris. They left only just in time. The gallant Admiral of the inventive pen had at last discovered that the repulse of the Japanese naval attack on which he had prided himself in his grandiloquent dispatch to the authorities at St. Petersburg was in reality no repulse at all; that as a matter of fact the Japanese had done just what they wanted to do; and that they were now able to proceed, in their methodical way, to land troops on the peninsula and invest Port Arthur. That the Viceroy should be shut up in the fortress, too, was not to be thought of--though probably it would have been better for the success of General Kuropatkin's strategy if his troublesome colleague had been safely removed out of the way for the rest of the campaign--and so by a desperate effort the gallant Admiral burst through the gradually tightening cordon. [Sidenote: Port Arthur Isolated] After the first interruption of communications the Japanese force temporarily withdrew, and the success of the Russians in relaying the line and in running a train loaded with ammunition through to Port Arthur revived the drooping spirits of the official classes in St. Petersburg. The act was one of extreme gallantry, and reflected the highest credit on Colonel Spiridonoff, the officer in command, but beyond giving the garrison some greatly needed supplies it did not materially alter the situation. The line was again broken up, the Japanese occupied the neck of land in force, and in a few days Port Arthur was completely cut off from the outer world. CHAPTER VIII.