Does he go around with a brass band?"
The officer, unable to answer in kind this excellent reasoning, took
a mean advantage of his position by placing both John and Lynch under
arrest, and at the head of each bed a Japanese policeman to guard
their slumbers. The next morning Prior arrived with the pass, and
from the decks of the first out-bound English steamer Fox hurled
through the captain's brass speaking-trumpet our farewells to the
Japanese, as represented by the gun-boats in the harbor. Their
officers, probably thinking his remarks referred to floating mines,
ran eagerly to the side. But our ship's captain tumbled from the
bridge, rescued his trumpet, and begged Fox, until we were under the
guns of a British man-of-war, to issue no more farewell addresses.
The next evening we passed into the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, and saw above
Port Arthur the great guns flashing in the night, and the next day we
anchored in the snug harbor of Chefoo.
I went at once to the cable station to cable Collier's I was
returning, and asked the Chinaman in charge if my name was on his
list of those correspondents who could send copy collect. He said it
was; and as I started to write, he added with grave politeness, "I
congratulate you."
For a moment I did not lift my eyes. I felt a chill creeping down my
spine. I knew what sort of a blow was coming, and I was afraid of
it.
"Why?" I asked.
The Chinaman bowed and smiled.
"Because you are the first," he said. "You are the only
correspondent to arrive who has seen the battle of Liao-Yang."
The chill turned to a sort of nausea. I knew then what disaster had
fallen, but I cheated myself by pretending the man was misinformed.
"There was no battle," I protested. "The Japanese told me themselves
they had entered Liao-Yang without firing a shot." The cable
operator was a gentleman. He saw my distress, saw what it meant and
delivered the blow with the distaste of a physician who must tell a
patient he cannot recover. Gently, reluctantly, with real sympathy
he said, "They have been fighting for six days."
I went over to a bench, and sat down; and when Lynch and Fox came in
and took one look at me, they guessed what had happened. When the
Chinaman told them of what we had been cheated, they, in their turn,
came to the bench, and collapsed. No one said anything. No one even
swore. Six months we had waited only to miss by three days the
greatest battle since Gettysburg and Sedan.
