At this moment a cry from my "Number 1" distracted my attention from the interesting little drama which I was eagerly watching, and, turning toward the harbour's mouth, in response to his pointing finger, I saw a big, four-funnelled, two-masted cruiser, which I instantly recognised as the _Bayan_, coming foaming out of harbour, evidently intent upon driving off our destroyers, which were now busily launching their boats to save the crew of the destroyer, which had by this time foundered. I was in the very act of issuing an order for one of our Hotchkisses to be fired, to warn the destroyers, when the _Bayan_ opened fire upon them with her light guns, and they were obliged to retreat, double-quick. Of course the _Bayan_ was no match for them in the matter of speed, so after covering the retreat of the second destroyer, which was creeping along close inshore, and pausing to pick up the survivors of the sunken destroyer, the cruiser turned her attention--and her guns--upon us. But we were out of range of her light guns, and for some unknown reason she did not open fire upon us with her heavy weapons, we therefore quickened up to about her own speed, or a trifle less, hoping we might be able to entice her out to where we knew our own cruiser squadron was waiting to cover our retreat. Unfortunately for the success of my scheme, Admiral Dewa, who commanded the squadron, no sooner heard the firing than he put on speed and rushed to our rescue, emerging from the mist and becoming visible while still some three miles away. The instant that they were clear of the fog bank, and could see what was happening, the squadron opened fire upon the _Bayan_ with their heavy guns, when that ship was in turn compelled to up helm and beat a hurried retreat, to my intense disgust; for I felt confident that if our cruisers had only lain doggo in the fog bank, I could have cajoled the Russian ship into following me so far out to sea that her retreat could have been cut off, and we should have nabbed her. As it was, the _Diana_ and _Novik_ came rushing out to her rescue; whereupon Dewa, who by this time recognised the mistake he had made, turned and retired, apparently in a panic, for great clouds of smoke were presently seen to be pouring from the funnels of all his ships. But before ten minutes were over it became perfectly evident that the Admiral was "playing foxy," for despite the clouds of smoke, his ships were barely holding their own, if indeed they were doing as much as that. Naturally, we in the _Koryu_ at once took our cue from the Admiral, and stoked up for all we were worth, using as much small coal as we could scrape together, in order to increase the volume of smoke pouring from our funnel, while we allowed the _Novik_ to gain upon us a trifle from time to time, and then, by an apparently desperate effort, drew away from her again. And this time it really looked as though our ruse was going to prove successful, for the three Russian