Caught at Last.
The Yen-fu and the Tung-yen were mere motionless hulks, lying inert upon the bosom of the sunlit, shot-torn sea, the one with her rudder and propeller blown away by a torpedo that had all but sent her to the bottom, the other with her engines badly broken down, the result of Chinese officials having stolen and disposed of many parts, which had had to be roughly replaced at the last moment. They were both fighting fiercely, however, like tough old wolves at bay, and, although hemmed in by several Japanese cruisers, were as yet giving back almost as good as they got. The game was up for them, though, as they were quite unable to manoeuvre, and only the thickness of their armour and the light calibre of the guns of the ships opposed to them had prevented them from going down long before. Frequently, too, Frobisher noticed, there were long pauses between the discharges of the Yen-fu’s and the Tung-yen’s great guns, as well as those of others of the Chinese ships; and he made a shrewd guess that these were the occasions when the faulty, charcoal-filled cartridges failed to explode. The Shan-si, with Captain James in command, was practically the only entirely undamaged ship still possessed by the Chinese—not because she had not been in the thickest of the fight, for she had, but just through one of those curious chances of warfare which are constantly occurring. She was doing sovereign service, rushing here, there, and everywhere, planting her shells coolly and accurately, and sweeping the Japanese decks with rifle and machine-gun fire; and many were the attempts made by the enemy’s destroyers to torpedo her and put her safely out of harm’s way. But, thanks to her captain’s skill and his personal care of everything pertaining to his ship, neither was she badly hit, nor did her machinery break down at a critical moment; and she went her relentless way, dealing death and destruction about her unchecked.
The Yung-chau and Kau-ling were being engaged by the Hiroshima, Naniwa (a ship afterwards celebrated in the Russo-Japanese war), and the Okinoshima—each of which was much larger than either of the Chinese ships—and were getting a terrible punishing. Although still moving, and more or less under control, they were leaking steam and smoke from every crevice and opening, and ominous spirals of smoke were filtering up through the Yung-chau’s decks. She had been set on fire close to her bunkers by a Japanese shell, and, almost in less time than it takes to write it, was a mass of roaring, spouting flame, for she was old, and blazed like a volcano. Her men—such of them as could reach the decks—jumped overboard, and were hauled by ropes up the sides of whichever ships happened to be nearest; for the Japanese, like their opponents, had discarded all their boats and pontoons before going into action.
The Chen Yuen and Ting Yuen were busily engaged in hammering away at the biggest of the enemy, the Yoshino, the Shikishima, Fuji, and Niitaka, and it was to relieve the two battleships, which were being somewhat severely handled, that Frobisher determined to charge the Yoshino with his ship.
Signalling once more for full steam, and firing as he went, according to his former tactics, he drove the Chih’ Yuen at her utmost speed toward the Japanese flagship, which by this time had lost one of her military masts and her forward funnel, from whose torn base smoke and flame were pouring voluminously, wrapping the conning-tower round as though with a black mantle, and utterly preventing her skipper from seeing what was going on. He, poor man, was obliged to rely entirely upon the discretion of the gunnery-lieutenant in her forward turret; and that this individual was doing his duty well was proved by the frequency with which his guns boomed out, sending shell and solid shot spattering against the heavily-armoured sides of the Chinese battleships, where they splintered and burst, cracking and starring the thick steel, but very seldom penetrating to their vitals, close though the range was.
As the Chih’ Yuen clove her way through the water, one of the Japanese destroyers discharged a torpedo at her, which missed her by inches only. It was not wasted, however, for it struck the disabled Yen-fu, which heeled over as though pressed by some gigantic hand, and a few minutes later went down, taking her crew with her.
The Hiroshima also tried to ram in her turn, leaving the stricken Kau-ling for that purpose; but she also was too late. The Naniwa and the Shikishima saw the Chih’ Yuen approaching, like the messenger of death she was, and backed away from their opponents; the Fuji turned her guns on the approaching vessel; but the Yoshino’s captain, blinded by smoke from the wrecked funnel, did not see what was coming until it was too late, and a moment later the Chinese ship crashed into his stern, unfortunately striking a glancing blow instead of a direct one, as Frobisher had intended.
It was severe enough, however, to make the Yoshino shiver from stem to stern, from truck to keelson; and as the Chih’ Yuen drove past, Frobisher saw that he had sliced a great gash in her port quarter nearly down to the water-line, and dismounted both the guns in her after turret. The attempt had not entirely succeeded, but it had done a great deal of damage, and with that he had to be content.
Then, as Frobisher circled his ship round to come into action again, he saw something that made him gasp with astonishment and apprehension. There was a fight of some sort going on upon the deck of the Chinese flagship herself! What on earth could it mean? She had not been close enough to any of the enemy’s ships to enable them to board her, and, moreover, they were Chinese sailors, not Japanese, who were fighting. What could possibly have happened? The seamen on board were entirely devoted to their admiral, and if any mutiny had arisen it must be through the machinations of some other person, some traitor who had seized this opportunity to—
By Jove, he had it! All his old suspicions came thronging into his mind in an instant, and in that same instant he believed he could make a very good guess at what had occurred. Of course it was that scoundrel, Prince Hsi, who was at the bottom of the mischief; Frobisher seemed to know it instinctively. He also recollected the numerous occasions on which his Highness had acted in an extremely suspicious manner, to say the least; and it did not take him long to guess that he was now beholding the consummation of a plot up to which Hsi had been leading for some considerable time past. But what had happened to Admiral Ting, he wondered, that Prince Hsi should have matters all in his own hands? Frobisher knew that so long as the gallant admiral was alive, or conscious, he would never permit his command to be taken from him thus; and his heart fell, for he feared that the traitor, to attain his detestable ends, must first have killed the brave old man.