In the pause that succeeded that first shot, I felt, like the weight of Atlas, the awed, tense silence of the world. The child of the nations had drawn his tiny sword on the mighty behemoth of Muskovy! David had challenged Goliath, and, if he failed, his punishment would be such as to make the nations white with terror. If he did not fail, the consequences would be more terrific still. They would be the fall of the House of Romanoff.
No more proposals, counter-proposals, amendments to counter-proposals, mutual engagements, notes ver- Safes, reciprocal recognitions, bases of understanding! No more delays, due to Count Lamsdorf being "very much occupied," to the Tsar being "absent at military manoeuvres," to the Empress being sick, to the necessity of transferring the negotiations to Tokio, or to " the lack of a suitable formula! "
Admiral Togo has found the formula which he considers suitable, and, a thousand feet overhead, it now goes wailing and shrieking towards the doomed fortress!
Some seconds after, the shell, which was, I should say, a 12-inch one, burst with a terrific roar in the small space of sea intervening between the torpedoed battle-ships and a group of frightened-looking torpedoboat destroyers.
The report of this gun was like the report of a pistol fired into a powder magazine, for the reply which it provoked was terrific. The Russian batteries thundered like gods hurling a tremendous anathema at some sacrilegious intruder. Golden Hill Fort howled in gigantic remonstrance. The electric battery bellowed forth thunder. On the middle batteries there was a deafening, interminable chorus of cannon. The guns on Wieyuen Fort and Tiger's Tail erupted like active volcanoes. Spouts of smoke poured from Liao-taushan, where smokeless powder did not seem to be used; and at intervals White Wolf Hill joined with a crash of artillery in this prodigious litany. That noise
POSITION OF RUSSIAN WARSHIPS IN OUTER HARBOUR AT P ESE ATTACK
1. The Rasboinik; 2. the Gilyak; 3. the Columbia; 4. the Novik; 5. the Boyarin; 6. the Petropavlovsk (admiral's flagship); 7. the Poltava; 8. the Sevastopol; 9. the Cesar evich; 10. the Peresvet (vice-admiral's flagship); 11. the Retvizan; 12. the Pobieda; 13. the Bayan; 14. the Pallada; 15. the Diana; 16. the Askold; 17. the Angara (the volunteer fleet steamer which was converted into a cruiser).
seemed too great to be terrestrial; it pertained to the solar system. It was as if the seven thunders had uttered their voices. It was as if the five thousand isles of Japan were hurling themselves on us bodily. It was as if the earth had come into collision with Mars. With the voices and thunders and lightnings, it was like Armageddon.
It is difficult to measure things that pass all limit of measurement. It is difficult for a great writer, and impossible for a minor journalist, to give in writing an idea of what far transcends the ordinary. Nobody can get from books an accurate conception of the ocean, the Pyramids, the Himalaya mountains, the Grand Canon of the Colorado. He must go and see them for himself. And nobody that has not heard a great cannonade can understand from books what it is. It towers above ordinary noises, as Fujiyama towers above the hovels of Hakone. What peculiarly struck me about it was its quality of stupendous and overwhelming vastness. But the supreme limit of noise had not been reached, for whenever the 63-ton guns at the entrance to the harbour went off all together with a vast shout like the crack of doom, all the lesser thunders were drowned; and through the air ran a giant, rending sound and a violent vibration, almost strong enough to knock me off my feet as I stood on the deck of the Columbia. On such occasions my knees smote one against another, and I felt inclined to throw myself prostrate on my face, as if I had heard the voice of Jehovah.
The first shell had evidently been intended for the torpedoed battle-ships, and it went so near its mark that it must have splashed them with spray from the big liquid column that shot from the sea at the point where the projectile touched the water. Near this point of contact there happened to be a Chinese boat, which must have been injured, for we saw the entire crew jump into the sea.
The Japanese did not pause to contemplate the effect of their first shell. All their vessels now opened fire, running south-west in a stately line. The air was filled with the whizz of high-velocity projectiles, hundreds of which seemed to pass over our heads every minute; the surface of the sea in our neighbourhood was dotted with columns of water, as the surface of a pond is dotted during a heavy rain-storm; and the din was intensified tenfold.
The Columbia was now moving, but, of course, I expected she would soon anchor again.