From Vladivostock, where he was safely landed on the following day, the red-haired gentleman proceeded by rail to Harbin Junction, and then southward to Port Arthur, now nearly cut off by Nogi's troops. Trains, however, were still running regularly between the beleaguered port and Moukden. Strangely enough, the hair of the mysterious gentleman was now rapidly turning dark. By the time he reached Port Arthur, it was quite black. A stubbly beard and moustache, too, began to show themselves on his sallow face. The man spoke Russian brokenly, and used English when he could. Never a Spanish word came from his lips, and the Barcelona estates proved veritable castles in Spain, fading from his memory. As the man passed up the street of Port Arthur, under escort of a corporal's guard, he laid his hand triumphantly on his breast. In an inner pocket, beneath it, reposed a sheet of rice paper, on one side of which were scrawled a few lines, in a girlish handwriting. On the other were drawings of moats, counterscarps, and a medley of fortifications, followed by vertical lines of delicate Japanese characters. "Take me at once to General Stoessel's headquarters," said the sallow-faced man. "I have important information for him. Here is my pass from the War Office at St. Petersburg." CHAPTER XIV. THE ATTACK OF THE "OCTOPUS". Since the Stone Age, when long-haired men, half brutes, fought with battle-clubs made by lashing a rudely shaped lump of stone in the cleft end of a club, and with arrows and javelins tipped with hammered flint, through all the successive generations of fighters, human ingenuity has been exercised to its utmost to devise new implements of warfare, and new defences to protect against them. A long stride was taken when the first elaborately carved, bell-mouthed cannon roared at Cressy and Poictiers; another when iron balls were substituted for stone, and still a third when the idea flashed upon some belligerent inventor to make his iron shot hollow and transform them into explosive shells and death-dealing shrapnel. From shells to torpedoes was an easy transition, and the torpedo-boat became necessary, duly followed by the torpedo-boat destroyer. At the same time the armour of the largest fighting ships was increased in thickness from two or three inches to a foot, over the vital parts of the battle-ship and cruiser, the primary batteries of which now included huge rifled guns throwing a steel projectile of well-nigh half a ton's weight.