They are a curious mixture of opposites, these Japanese--one day facing machine-guns like fiends incarnate, or giving their bodies to be used as a human ladder in attempt to escalade a fort, the next day sucking sweetmeats like little boys. You come upon some groups by a creek: they are laughing and playing practical jokes as they sharpen up their bayonets with busy, innocent faces, making ready for the great assault at dawn to-morrow. A few yards further on you find them in all states of undress, their underwear fluttering to the breeze, some of them sitting on the stones and tubbing with real soap. You ask them, Why so busy this afternoon? They smile and nod their heads towards Port Arthur, and one who speaks English explains that they had been taught at school this proverb: “Japanese fight like gentlemen, and if they are found dead on the field, they will be found like gentlemen, clean and comely.” There were so many forms of death in this siege--_plurima mortis imago_, as Virgil says--from the speedy bullet to the common shell, shrapnel, and pom-pom. But besides these common inventions there were mines that exploded under their feet as they walked, hand-grenades thrown in their faces as they approached the forts; there were pits filled with petroleum ready to be lit by an electric wire, and poisonous gases to be flung from wide-mouthed mortars. But the one which spread terror even amongst the bravest was what they called “the unknown death.” It was said that during the early attacks in August, one whole line of infantry which was rushing to the assault had fallen dead side by side, and that no wounds had been found on them. At last it was discovered the Russian chief electrician had ordered a “live” wire to be placed among the ordinary wire entanglements, furnished with a current strong enough to kill anyone who touched it. Of course, it was liable to be destroyed by shell or cannon fire, but in many cases it proved fatal, and always made the attackers nervous. The Russians had such steel-wire entanglements placed at the foot of all their positions, and where success depended on the dash and speed of the infantry, they succeeded in stopping them and exposing them to a heavy fire. As a rule, volunteers went out at night with strong wire-nippers and cut the strands, or they set fire to the wooden posts and let them come to the ground together. Sometimes in a fierce charge the sappers used to lie down beneath the wires, pretending to be dead, and choose a moment for using their nippers; some even, in their desperate efforts to get through, would seize the wire between their teeth and try and bite it through.