What communications passed in that office cannot be known with certainty. Oto, however, received from his countryman several despatches, and entrusted to him a return message of utmost importance. On the following day the nine Japanese met at the wharves by appointment. A boat was awaiting them, manned by a crew of the same nationality. In the offing the boat was taken up by a small, rakish-looking black steamer which some observers declared to be a torpedo-boat, others a "trawler," as the ships of the fishing-fleet were called. Whatever its nature, the craft had heels, for, with black smoke pouring from her short funnel, she soon disappeared to the northward. There were those who averred that they had plainly seen the English ensign flying over her taffrail. Not to make a further mystery of this odd little vessel, it may be stated at once that she was no other than the _Kiku_, or "Chrysanthemum"; the same small war-ship which had hailed the _Osprey_ in mid-ocean in her outward voyage, and had received and restored by a piece of incomparable naval dexterity the cabin steward of the gunboat. The _Kiku_ was a combination of torpedo-boat and destroyer; that is she was a small, swift steamer, fitted with both torpedo-tubes and three-inch rifled guns. Her efficiency in attack would depend largely on her speed, which was not less than twenty-six knots an hour, under forced pressure. For this reason, too, she was used as a despatch-boat. During the first six months of the war she was coaled and provisioned at obscure ports, often making long runs to escape observation. In the weeks that followed Oto's embarkation, the _Kiku's_ appearance was changed in several important particulars. She now might easily have passed for one of the trawling fleet that were familiar to every sailor in the North Sea. Her torpedo-tubes were concealed by canvas shields, painted black and so arranged that they could be easily drawn aside in action. Her guns were rigged out of sight, and port-holes closed so cleverly that only a trained eye would discover them, and that in broad daylight. At night the _Kiku_ was an innocent fishing steamer, pursuing her honest avocation under the protection of Great Britain.