alone on the ocean, with no help for the one and no avenging justice for the other.  The Wolf was secure from all interference—­nothing could avert the final tragedy.  The many witnesses who would have helped the victim were powerless; we could but stand and watch with impotent fury and great sorrow and pity the inevitable fate to which the Hitachi was doomed, and of which the captors and captives on the Wolf were the only witnesses.  But one man among us refused to look on—­the Japanese Captain refused to be a spectator of the wilful destruction of his ship, which had so long been his home.  Her sinking meant for him the utter destruction of his hopes and an absolute end to his career.  The struggle was a long one—­it was pathetic beyond words to watch it, and there was a choky feeling in many a throat on the Wolf—­for some time it even seemed as if the Hitachi were going to snatch one more victory from the sea; she seemed to be defying the efforts of the waves to devour her, as, gently rolling, she shook herself free from the gradually encroaching water; but she was slowly getting lower in the water, and just before two o’clock there were signs that she was settling fast.  Her well deck forward was awash; we could see the waves breaking on it; exactly at two o’clock her bows went under, and soon her funnel was surrounded with swirling water; it disappeared, and with her propellers high in the air she dived slowly and slantingly down to her great grave, and at one minute past two the sea closed over her.  Twenty-five minutes had elapsed since the explosion of the last bomb.  The Germans said she and her cargo were worth a million sterling when she went down.

[Illustration:  NIPPON YUSEN KAISHA S.S. HITACHI MARU.]

There was great turmoil on the sea for some time after the ship disappeared; the ammunition house on the poop floated away, a fair amount of wreckage also came away, an oar shot up high into the air from one of the hatches, the sodium lights attached to one of the lifebuoys ignited and ran along the water, and then the Wolf, exactly like a murderer making sure that the struggles of his victim had finally ceased, moved away from the scene of her latest crime.  Never shall we forget the tragedy of that last half-hour in the life of the Hitachi Maru.

Thus came to an end the second of the Nippon Yushen Kaisha fleet bearing the name of Hitachi Maru.  The original ship of that name had been sunk by the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War.  Our ill-fated vessel had taken her place.  It will savour of tempting Providence if another ship ever bears her unfortunate name, and no sailor could be blamed for refusing to sail in her.

CHAPTER V

LIFE ON THE “WOLF”