The Russian bowed his head gravely. "I am ready," he said.
"Ready, men! Aim! Fire!"
As the smoke drifted away, the Russian looked upward an instant, with a smile on his bronzed face; then, murmuring "At—the—Czar's—command!" he fell, dead.
Day by day, through the fierce summer heats of June and July, the Japanese strengthened their hold upon lower Manchuria, and tightened the cordon about Port Arthur.
Nanshan Hill and Motien Pass on the east were carried with the bayonet. Kinchow had already fallen, the fire of the Japanese fleet annihilating the Russian batteries in a two-days battle.
When the great Corliss wheel was set up and the massive machinery "assembled" at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, the maker refused to start his engine for a trial before the Exposition was officially opened.
"It will run," he said, "and run smoothly and perfectly. Every part is exact; figures cannot lie."
It was a great risk to take, but the event proved that the manufacturer was right. When the electric signal announced the formal opening of the Fair, steam was let on. The huge piston of the Corliss engine started; the enormous wheel—the largest ever made, up to that time—began to revolve, and in a moment every polished rod and valve and wheel in the great engine was doing its part, running the entire machinery of the hall and performing its work without jar or noise, as smoothly as a child's water-wheel in a wayside brook.
So operated the wondrous, complex machine of the Japanese military system, from the first mobilisation in Tokio, through the hurry and risk of transportation across the inner sea, and in movement after movement, battle after battle, in a country far removed from home. Field telephones kept the commanders in touch with advanced forces; the commissary department fulfilled its duties like clock-work; Kuroki, Oyama, Nodzu, Nogi, moved regiments and divisions to and fro like pieces upon a gigantic chess-board.