"Well—I'm—blowed!" he ejaculated, shaking hands so vigorously that Yamaguchi at length laughingly protested. "How in the world do you come here?"
"You don't bear me a grudge, then? I was very sorry; but I had to leave you with those Cossacks, you know."
"Don't mention it; I'm only too glad you got away safely—though, in truth, your dastardly desertion of me has landed me in a pretty pickle of fish. But I'll forgive you; I'd forgive anybody to-day. Isn't this glorious, old fellow? Did you see the fight?"
"I had a little part in it. We've been working in the lower reaches of the river. General Kuroki deluded the Russians into the belief that our main crossing was to be effected there. Sassulitch swallowed it whole. I had to land some men yesterday on a small island above Yongampo. We were stormed by the enemy. I withdrew the survivors in boats, and unluckily my boat sank and I was knocked over by a splinter from a Russian shell. They picked me up and carried me off to Antung, and then towards Feng-huang-cheng, but our cavalry came up and released me, and here I am."
"Got a bad knock?" asked Bob, noticing that his left arm was bound up.
"Oh no! a bit of the muscle torn away, that's all. But come, I'm sure you've more to tell than I have. I want to know what you've been about since you deserted the Kasumi."
Bob's story necessarily occupied a long time in the telling, but Yamaguchi listened with growing excitement, never interrupting until Bob came to the point where Kobo had rescued him from the tower.
"Ah!" said the Japanese. "You came across Kobo? I put you off the scent, didn't I? Of course it was he I was in communication with on those night expeditions from the Kasumi. But go on; your story's quite a romance."
Bob proceeded with his narrative. When he told how Kobo had been captured almost within sight of safety, Yamaguchi looked distressed.
"That's a national loss," he said. "We can't spare a man like Kobo San. That monster Chang-Wo will torture him—to wrench information out of him if he can—of course he can't—in sheer devilry at any rate. And the worst of it is nothing can be done for him—nothing."