The Yoshino was lost while steaming slowly southward, after a night's vigil near the entrance to Port Arthur harbor. Other vessels of the blockading fleet were close by, so each ship had to advance with extreme caution. But the fog, instead of lifting, became thicker, and at a little before two o'clock in the afternoon the cruiser was rammed by the Kasuga, another vessel of the fleet. A large hole was torn in the hull of the Yoshino.
"Out with the collision mats!" cried the commander of the cruiser, and the mats were brought out without delay and placed over the side. But the hole was too great to be stopped in that manner. Then the captain called the entire crew on deck, and ordered the small boats to be lowered, five on the starboard side and one on the port. Before the boats could be gotten away, the Yoshino listed heavily to starboard and went down, smashing the five small boats under her. The other boat managed to get away, with only a handful of jackies and a couple of officers. The captain remained on the bridge and went down with his ship. As soon as possible the Kasuga put out her boats and succeeded in rescuing about ninety men, out of a total of over two hundred and fifty.
It was a great blow to Japan and the Russians were correspondingly elated. Feeling that Admiral Togo's grip on the sea was now weakened, the Russian squadron at Vladivostok sailed forth and did much damage to the shipping on the northern coast of Japan, sinking several merchantmen and taking a number of others as prizes. The Russian squadron also met the Japanese transport Kinshiu Maru, having on board the 37th regiment of Japanese infantry.
"Surrender, or we will sink you!" signaled the Russian commander. The Japanese refused, and were given exactly an hour in which to think it over. As they still refused, a torpedo was discharged against the doomed ship. As she began to sink the Japanese soldiers opened fire with their rifles, and then the Russians answered with their machine guns, mowing down the Mikado's men by the score. But the Japanese were brave to the last, and sank beneath the waves with the cry of Banzai! (hurrah!) on their lips.
It was an auxiliary cruiser of the Vladivostok squadron which had taken the Columbia and the Chinese junk as prizes of war. The captain of the cruiser was now looking for the rest of the squadron, but so far none of the warships had been sighted.
"They must have returned to Vladivostok," he reasoned, and then turned in that direction with the Pocastra, never dreaming of what the near future held in store for himself, his ship, and his crew.
[CHAPTER XV]
A SHARP NAVAL BATTLE
So far the weather had been good, but following the conversation recorded in the last chapter there came up a dense fog, and for twenty-four hours the Russian warship did nothing but creep along in the gloom.
During that time, for some unknown reason, Larry and the others were allowed greater freedom than before. Each had his hands chained behind him, but all were separate, which allowed each to roam around as he pleased.