The six Japanese infantry officers, noting the stoppage of our engines, came rushing up on deck to learn what was the matter; and upon hearing that the strange ships which had stopped us were Russian warships, hurried away below again, presumably, I thought, to give orders of some sort to the troops under their command.
The Rossia, with the way she had on her, had by this time closed to within about twenty-five fathoms of us; and at this juncture an officer on her bridge hailed, ordering our skipper to send a boat.
“Good!” ejaculated Yagi. “We will do so. But we will not go aboard the Rossia. Oh, no. We will slip away in the darkness and make for the land. And you will honourably accompany us, will you not, Captain? A Russian prison has no attractions for you, eh?”
“You are right, my friend, it has not,” I answered; “for which reason I must decline to accompany you. Because you will never get away, Yagi. How can you, with those searchlights turned full upon us, and those destroyers where they are?”
“Nevertheless, I shall try,” answered the skipper; and he turned away to bellow an order to the crew to clear away and lower the port lifeboat, the port side being shielded from the glare of the searchlights. Then I heard him order the chief officer to superintend the lowering of the boat, and at the same time to smuggle an extra breaker of water and a bag or two of biscuits into her.
Then he turned again to me. “If you will not come with us, what will you honourably do, my friend?” he demanded.
“Oh,” said I, “I shall join the infantry officers below, and see what they are going to do.” And without further parley, I ran down the ladder and made my way below to the saloon, where I found the six officers sitting at the table, looking very pale and grave.
“Well, gentlemen,” I cried, “here we are, in a nice little Russian trap. What do you propose to do?”
“We thought at first of performing hari-kari,” said one of them. “But Captain Nagai, with whom you were discussing the subject of hari-kari, only the night before last, appears to have come round to your way of thinking that it is better to live for the Emperor than to die for him. He argues—as you did—that a dead man can do nothing for his Emperor, whereas a living man may be able to do many things; in which statement there is truth. Therefore we propose to surrender to the Russians, in the honourable hope that we may be able to effect our escape, sooner or later, and return to fight for Nippon. What do you honourably propose to do, Captain?”
“Oh,” said I, “to surrender seems the most sensible thing to do, and doubtless I shall do it—eventually. Meanwhile, however, I think I will toddle up on deck again, and see how Yagi and the ship’s crew are getting on. They are going to try to slip away in the ship’s lifeboat, you know?”