As we passed through the fleet, which was now anchored in the outer harbour, the officers told me how annoyed they had been on a previous trip by the searchlights of the battle-ships which almost blinded them, and, on this night, a searchlight shone on us until we dipped below the horizon. Wrapped in my great-coat I watched the receding fleet, until the lights on the mast-head of the Angora had disappeared, and then, being almost paralysed by the intense cold, which instantly froze the spray that fell at our feet, I went down to my cabin or rather tc the captain's cabin, which had been kindly placed at my disposal, and got into bed.
At Chefoo next day I found that my mission was vain, owing to the impossible terms asked by the shipowners there. Not only did they expect me to pay exorbitant charter-money, but they insisted that if the captain saw on the horizon any of the rival fleets, or even specks which he took to be battle-ships, he was at liberty to return at full speed to Chefoo. This being the case I went back to Port Arthur the same evening by the Columbia. Arriving in the outer harbour on the morning of the 8th, I was delighted to see that the fleet was still there and that no naval action had taken place in my absence.
CHAPTER IV
Before I had left Port Arthur on board the Columbia I had ascertained that the quarantine on vessels coming from Chefoo had been raised, so that my disappointment was great when, on my return, I found that we had to go into quarantine for the space of twenty-four hours. To be thus compelled to remain inactive on board a wretched little steamer in sight of Port Arthur, where great events were likely to take place at any moment, almost drove me mad. We had been told to anchor in the outer roads, nearly opposite the entrance to the inner harbour and within a stone's throw of the Novik, so that with the ship's telescope I could distinctly see the people passing to and fro in the town, and the "izvoshcheeks" driving about at their usual speed. I suffered the tortures of Tantalus, for though I could see Port Arthur I could not get any news of what was going on there. Noticing my agitation, the Russian soldier who had been placed on board as a guard, watched me carefully; but I managed to elude him for a moment, and to throw a letter into a Government launch of some kind that was passing very close to us on its way from some of the battle-ships to the shore. This letter I had addressed in Russian to an intimate friend of mine who was at the head of the quarantine service, and who would at once have brought about my release if he had known that I was on board. But the only result of this attempt was that the launch stopped for a moment at our gangway and that a soldier brought me back my letter, unopened, and then remained on board. Thus we had now two guards patrolling the deck with rifles and fixed bayonets. We made frantic attempts to get the Chinese " sampan " men, who were paddling around, to come close enough to take letters to another British steamer which was lying a short way off, also in quarantine; but our guards pointed their rifles at these Chinamen and refused to allow them to approach. Captain Anderson was determined, however, to communicate with his brother captain, so he got the Chinese " boys " on board the vessel to coax the two Russians below, on the shallow pretence of giving them breakfast — "shallow," I say, for breakfast time had long passed — whereupon he managed to throw a letter and a few coins, contained in an empty cigar-box, to an enterprising ' ' sampan " man, who at once conveyed the message to its destination, and afterwards brought back a note saying that there was nothing new except that the Japanese Consul at Chefoo was at that moment in Port Arthur, his mission being to take away all the Japanese residents of that port in a British merchant steamer which he had chartered for that purpose at Chefoo. This news made me feel still more discontented at my detention, for it plainly indicated that, although nothing seemed to have changed, things must really have taken a serious turn. As a matter of history, they had taken a serious turn, for on the previous evening Togo had left the Korean coast with a fleet of fifty ships, and sailed towards the Elliott Islands.
I remember that on this day the weather was particularly fine, the sun shining brightly, and the air being sufficiently warm to admit of my strolling at intervals along the deck without an overcoat. Sometimes I went inside and worked in a leisurely manner at a newspaper article, in which I clearly demonstrated that, even if war did come, the Japanese would never dare to attack Port Arthur. This article I need not, I suppose, reproduce here.