At intervals came the sound of the heavy siege mortars, two miles away, firing over their heads into Port Arthur. These huge eleven-inch guns were affectionately dubbed "Osaka Babies," because they were built at the Osaka arsenal in Japan. There were eighteen of them distributed about Port Arthur. Each gun was emplaced on a concrete foundation eight feet deep, which required three weeks to build. The shells used weighed a quarter of a ton and each discharge cost Japan $400. The expense of a six-hour bombardment was something over three hundred thousand dollars. "The 'babies' are crying," observed Oshima drily, as he paused a moment in his instructions. "To-morrow night--who of us will hear them?" "To-morrow night," exclaimed a young lieutenant with enthusiasm, "they will cry no more, unless it be for joy. The fortress will be ours!" Oshima glanced at his junior officer from beneath his dark eyebrows, but said nothing. The night passed, and the morning of the Mikado's birthday dawned upon the beleaguered city, upon the fair hill-tops and the rippling sea, upon the stern, bearded faces of the defenders and the eager brown hordes crouching in the trenches outside the fort. Slowly the hours dragged past, the siege-guns dropping their shells into the sand-slopes and tearing open great craters. Then shrapnel was hurled at the parapets, a hundred shots a minute. Not a fort replied. As silently as the Continental troops at Bunker Hill, the Russians awaited the approach of their foe. At last the signal was given. The little brown men swarmed out of their trenches and up the fatal slope. Then at last the answer came, in a blinding flash and stunning roar from the embrasures. When the smoke cleared away not a living man was left in sight, save a few whose wounds were not immediately fatal, and who lay in the hot sun helplessly awaiting death. Another onrush of the diminutive assailants, another crashing discharge of artillery and rifle fire. A few survived, this time, and sheltered themselves in the gaps made by bursting shells. Again a host of assailants springing upward over the bodies of the fallen. Among them were the men commanded by Oshima. The young lieutenant, escaping the first fire and forgetting all caution, sprang ahead of the line, waving his sword and shouting "_Banzai!_" He reached the ramparts and for an instant stood erect upon them, a brave young figure against the blue sky. Then he toppled over into the fort and was never seen again by his comrades. Once more those who had not fallen burrowed in the sand-holes until the final charge was ordered. An Osaka shell had made a breach in the ramparts through which the Russian rifles barked viciously. Oshima's company sprang toward the opening, only to find it guarded by a bristling hedge of bayonets over which the rear ranks were firing as regularly as on parade. "Forward!" ordered Oshima, pointing to the breach with his sword.