I believe our engines were the first to move, but the _Asama_ was now nearly a mile to the eastward of us, we standing higher out of the water than she, and therefore drifting to leeward faster, consequently she really had the best of the start. But I wasn't going to let her get into action before me, if I could help it, and I called down the voice-tube to Carmichael, our Engineer Commander, explaining the state of affairs, and begging him to do his best. Unfortunately for us, however, the _Asama's_ "chief" was Scotch, too; it therefore at once became a race between the two ships, all the keener because of the friendly rivalry between the two Scotchmen. It was generally conceded that _Asama_ had the advantage of _Yakumo_ by about half a knot; but when at length, shortly before four bells in the first dog watch, we rejoined the line, the two craft were running neck and neck. The battle recommenced about a quarter of an hour before we were able to resume our former position in the fighting line, the _Poltava_ opening fire with her 12-inch guns upon the _Mikasa_, against which ship, it appeared, the Russians had concentrated their efforts during the earlier phase of the fight. The _Poltava_ was the sternmost ship in the Russian battle-line; and as though her shots had been a signal, the fire instantly ran right along the Russian line from rear to van. The din was frightful, for our ships at once returned the Russian fire, and in a moment, as it seemed, the sea all round about the _Mikasa_ on our side, and the _Tsarevich, Peresviet_, and _Retvisan_ on the side of the Russians, was lashed into innumerable great fountains of leaping spray which shone magnificently, like great showers of vari-coloured jewels, in the orange light of the declining sun. And presently, as the gunners got the range, there were added to the deafening explosions of the guns the sounds of the projectiles smiting like Titan hammers upon the armoured sides and other protected parts of the ships, and the crash of bursting shells. Great clouds of powder smoke whirled about the ships, hiding them for a second or two and then driving away to leeward upon the wings of the increasing gale. Splinters of wood and iron, and fragments of burst shells swept over the ships like hail, and prostrate forms here and there about the decks, weltering in their blood, proclaimed the growing deadly accuracy of the fire on either side. The pandemonium of sound was such that the human voice could no longer make itself heard, and the officers on the bridges were obliged to give their orders in dumb show. Even the shrieks of the wounded went unheard in that hellish babel of sound. As the distance between the contending ships decreased one began to realise the terrific character of the forces employed by man for the destruction of his fellow-man, for now it could be seen that the _Tsarevich_, ponderous as was her bulk, literally