“Ho! the destroyer ahoy! Why are you lying athwart my hawse? Do you wish me to run you down?”
There were two officers on the destroyer’s bridge, one of whom sprang to the engine-room telegraph and thrust it over to “Full speed ahead,” while the other seized a megaphone and hailed back:
“Stop your engines instantly, sir! Did you not understand my signal that I wished to speak you? Starboard your helm, you confounded fool; hard a-starboard, or you’ll be over us.”
“Then get out of my way,” retorted Kusumoto. “Starboard a little,” (to the quartermaster), “and just shave his stern. I’ll teach him to lay his tin kettle athwart a Japanese ship’s bows.”
The destroyer leaped from under our bows like a frightened thing, though not so quickly but that we caught her quarter with the rounding of our bows and gave her a pretty severe shaking up. Her skipper shook his fist at us and stamped on the bridge with fury. Then he raised his megaphone again and hailed:
“You infernal scoundrel, I’ll make you suffer for that outrage! Heave-to at once, or I’ll fire into you.”
The boat was sweeping round on a starboard helm, and was now running practically parallel to us, at a distance of about a hundred feet.
“You will fire into me, if I don’t stop, you say? Is Russia at war with my country, then?” hailed Kusumoto.
There was silence for a minute or two aboard the destroyer, during which the two officers on her bridge consulted eagerly together. We could see that her engine-room telegraph stood at “Full speed,” yet, strange to say, she was only just holding her own with us. Then the commander of her again raised his megaphone.
“My instructions are that I am to examine the papers of all foreign vessels passing down the Red Sea,” he shouted; “and I must insist that you heave-to and let me board you.”