We now had leisure to attend to the other two craft, which were by this time some three miles astern, having apparently stopped their engines to await at a safe distance the course of events. Swinging round, we headed for them at full speed, with all guns loaded, and a torpedo in each tube, ready to open fire as soon as we got within effective range. As we drew nearer, however, it became evident that there was something very seriously wrong with the destroyer which we had first fired upon, and which had dropped astern, disabled, for there were boats in the water about her, seemingly passing between her and the other craft, boats going to her with only two or three hands in them, and leaving her loaded. By the time that we had arrived within a mile of her we could see that the destroyer was in a sinking condition; and a minute later we lost sight of her altogether: she had gone down. The boats were still in the water alongside the surviving craft, and men were climbing up her side from them as we arrived within some thirty fathoms of her and hailed, demanding her surrender. A reply instantly came from her to the effect that she surrendered; whereupon I dispatched Hiraoka on board, in charge of an armed boat's crew; and some ten minutes later the youngster hailed, informing me that our prize was named the _Vashka_, of seventeen hundred and sixty tons register, originally a cargo steamer, but now adapted for mine-laying; and that she was from Dalny, bound for Kinchau Bay for the purpose of sowing the bay with mines, in anticipation of the probability that some of our ships would be sent to participate in the attack upon the isthmus. He added the information that the vessel, hoping to escape the notice of Japan's warships by taking a roundabout route, had been escorted by two destroyers only, the _Beztraschni_ and the _Storozhevoi_, the latter of which we had seen go down a few minutes before as a result of injuries inflicted upon her by our 12-pounder, the shell from which had not only blown a great rent in her bottom, as it burst, but the fragments of which had pierced two of her boilers. It was evident that we had made a capture of considerable importance, I therefore proceeded on board the prize, with an armed reinforcement, and after going carefully into the matter with Hiraoka, arranged with him to take the _Vashka_ to the Elliots, in charge of a prize crew, there to act according to the Admiral's orders.