and the Japanese varied the day’s drill and gun exercise by shelling them into Wei-hai-wei.  They ran ignominiously and never made the least show of fight.  Had the Itsuku been a faster vessel, she would undoubtedly have captured or destroyed one of them.  Her maximum speed was under sixteen knots.  On another occasion, off the western coast of the Liaotung, we came upon a fleet of junks, craft engaged in coast trade, I presume.  Their crews ran them ashore and escaped, whilst the Japanese fired the stranded junks with shells, the officers amusing themselves by sighting the guns and betting on the shots.  When a satisfactory bonfire had been created we steamed away.

This sort of thing, I have said, went on for more than a month.  The gunboat’s cruising-ground was chiefly about the mouth of the Pechili Gulf, now under the frowning forts of Wei-hai-wei, and now opposite Port Arthur on the other side.  There did not seem to be any regular blockade of the Gulf, though Japanese warships were constantly hovering about.  The Chinese fleet, I believe, confined itself to the modest seclusion of Wei-hai-wei harbour, and was not to be tempted outside.  Once I asked Hishidi when they meant to assail Wei-hai-wei and Port Arthur?

“Oh,” said he, “we are waiting our time; it has not come yet.”

British war-vessels were frequently in sight, but to my requests to be put on board one of them, or at least to be brought before a Japanese admiral, the commander of the Itsuku—­I have completely forgotten his name—­turned a deaf ear.  October wore away, and any termination of my captivity seemed as distant as ever.  I was obliged to put an end to it on my own initiative.  One evening—­the fourth or fifth of November it would be—­we were outside Port Arthur.  At dusk the gunboat anchored, and a boat was despatched on some errand of reconnaissance.  A point of the coast was less than a mile distant, and as I leant over the bulwark in the fore-part of the vessel, it struck me that I might easily swim off to it, if I could get into the water unobserved.  Under Webster’s tuition I had become an excellent swimmer.  I looked round; I was apparently not under notice, and there was no light near where I was.  My mind was made up at once.  I stole as far forward as I could, and watching my opportunity, and steadying myself by the cathead, I made a leap for the cable, intending to climb down it to the water.  A leap in the dark is proverbially a dangerous thing; the vessel perversely veered away as I sprang, and instead of catching the cable I soused into the water with a loud splash.  The sentry on the gangway heard it, ran forward, and emptied the magazine of his rifle at me as I swam away, but by diving and swimming under water out of the direct line of advance, I managed to evade the bullets.  A boat was soon down and in hot pursuit, but I had had a good start, and they were at a loss for my true direction at first.  I struck out vigorously and made good headway, but