Then, suddenly, there occurred a frightful explosion, the _Kinshiu Maru_ was hove up on a mountain of foaming water which belched forth fire and smoke, the air became suddenly full of flying splinters and wreckage, a heavy fragment of which smote me full upon the forehead and knocked me back into the junk's hold, and as my senses left me I was dimly conscious of a wailing cry, pealing out across the water, of "Sayonara!" (Farewell for ever). It was the last good-bye to Emperor, country, and all who were nearest and dearest to them of that heroic little band of Japanese infantry-men who preferred to die fighting gloriously, rather than win inglorious safety by surrender. The Russians had made an end of the affair by torpedoing the transport, and she must have sunk within a very few minutes. When I recovered my senses it was broad daylight. For a few moments I knew not where I was, or what had happened to me, but I was conscious of the most splitting headache from which I had ever suffered in my life. The next thing that dawned upon me was that I was lying in the bottom of a small craft of some sort, which was rolling and plunging most atrociously on a short, choppy sea, that I was chilled to the very marrow, and that water was washing about and over me with every motion of the boat. I was wet to the skin and, although shivering with cold, my blood scorched my veins as though it were liquid fire. I sat up, staring vaguely about me, and then became aware of a curious stiff feeling in the skin of my face. Putting my hands to my head, to still the throbbing smart of it, I found that my hair was all clogged with some sticky kind of liquid which, upon looking at my hands, I found to be blood, evidently my own. This at once explained the curious stiff feeling of my face; it was probably caused by dry caked blood. But, to make sure, I sprang open the case of my watch--the polished surface serving well enough for a mirror--and gravely studied my reflected image. I must have presented a ghastly sight, for my whole face was a mask of blood, out of which my eyes glared feverishly. Then, as I continued to stare at the interior of my watch-case, wondering what it all meant, my memory of the events of the preceding night--I knew it must be the preceding night, because my watch was still going--all came back to me, and I understood where I was.