I looked round to see if I could see anything of her, and presently the shifting of the searchlight beam from the _Yahiko_ revealed her coming along in fine style, and heading straight for her appointed berth. Hitherto, the Russian batteries had been too busy, attending to us others, to take much notice of her, and she appeared to be all ataunto and quite uninjured. I felt curious to see what was going to happen to her, and gave my crew the order to "Easy all, and lay on your oars!" As I did so, a Russian destroyer--I could not tell whether it was the craft that had torpedoed the _Fukui_, or another--emerged from the darkness, heading straight for the _Yahiko_, as though to run her down! Would they dare? I wondered. Surely not. But if they did not, there was no reason why the _Yahiko_ should not; she was a stout-built, merchant steamer, and, old as she was, would shear through the destroyer's thin plating as though it were brown paper. If I had been in charge of the _Yahiko_, I would not have hesitated an instant, indeed I would have jumped at the chance, and in my excitement I leaped to my feet and, making a funnel of my hands, yelled frantically: "_Yahiko_ ahoy! Give her the stem, man; give her the stem!" But at that precise moment the Russian guns opened again, this time directing their fire upon the _Yahiko_, and my hail was effectually drowned by the crash of the explosions. I am of opinion that, a moment later, the commander of the _Yahiko_ saw his chance, just too late to fully avail himself of it, at all events the bows of the steamer suddenly swept round, and although the destroyer instantly shifted her helm, she was too late to entirely avoid a collision; the rounding of the _Yahiko's_ bow struck her and roughly shouldered her aside, both craft reeling under the impact; and at that instant the destroyer let fly every gun that would bear, the fire from them actually scorching the Japanese crew, who were at that moment preparing to lower their boat. The _Yahiko_ passed on, and so did the destroyer, the latter vanishing in the darkness to seaward, while the _Yahiko_, the centre of a very galaxy of bursting shells, staggered on in a sinking condition, and went down at the very moment when, with astounding skill and coolness, her skipper had brought her to the exact spot for which she was intended. Then it was seen that, either through some miscalculation or, more probably, because the Russians had widened the channel, there still remained an unfilled gap, wide enough for a single ship to pass through! It was a most vexatious thing, after all the trouble that we had taken and the ordeal which we had passed through; but it could not be helped; it was the fortune of war.