Part 40

Here was their final chance. Had they followed the lake southerly they might still have reached a place of safety. But ill fortune brought them upon it at a point where it seemed easiest to round it on the north, and they passed on, hoping soon to reach its western shores. But the Bëa, the impassable torrent that flows from the lake, forced them again many miles northward in search of a ford, and into a locality from which their chance of escape was greatly reduced.

More than two months had passed since they left the mines, and the poor wanderers were still in the vast Siberian prison, from which, if they had known the country, they might now have been far away. The region they had reached was thinly inhabited by Kalmuck Tartars, and they finally entered a village of this people, with whose inhabitants they unluckily got into a broil, ending in a battle, in which several Kalmucks were killed and the village burned.

To this event was due the terrifying news that reached Barnaoul, the alarm being carried to a Cossack fort whose commandant was drunk at the time and sent out a series of exaggerated reports. As for the fugitives, they had in effect signed their death-warrant by their conflict with the Kalmucks. The news spread from tribe to tribe, and when the real number of the fugitives was learned the tribesmen entered savagely into pursuit, determined to obtain revenge for their slain kinsmen. The Circassians were wandering in an unknown country. The Kalmucks knew every inch of the ground. Scouts followed the fugitives, and after them came well-mounted hunters, who rapidly closed upon the trail, being on the evening of the third day but three miles away.

The Circassians had crossed the Bëa and turned to the south, but here they found themselves in an almost impassable group of snow-clad mountains. On they pushed, deeper and deeper into the chain, still closely pursued, the Kalmucks so managing the pursuit as to drive them into a pathless region of the hills. This accomplished, they came on leisurely, knowing that they had their prey safe.

At length the hungry and weary warriors were driven into a mountain pass, where the pursuers, who had hitherto saved their bullets, began a savage attack, rifle-balls dropping fast into the glen. The fugitives sought shelter behind some fallen rocks, and returned the fire with effect. But they were at a serious disadvantage, the hunters, who far outnumbered them, and knew every crag in the ravines, picking them off in safety from behind places of shelter. From point to point the Circassians fell back, defending their successive stations desperately, answering every call to surrender with shouts of defiance, and holding each spot until the fall of their comrades warned them that the place was no longer tenable.

Night fell during the struggle, and under its cover the remaining fifteen of the brave fugitives made their way on foot deeper into the mountains, abandoning their horses to the merciless foe. At daybreak they resumed their march, scaling the rocky heights in front. Here, scanning the country in search of their pursuers, not one of whom was to be seen, they turned to the west, a range of snow-clad peaks closing the way in front. A forest of cedars before them seemed to present their only chance of escape, and they hurried towards it, but when within two hundred yards of the wood a puff of white smoke rose from a thicket, and one of the fugitives fell. The hunters had ambushed them on this spot, and as they rushed for the shelter of some rocks near by five more fell before the bullets of their foes.

The fire was returned with some effect, and then a last desperate rush was made for the forest shelter. Only four of the poor fellows reached it, and of these some were wounded. The thick underwood now screened them from the volley that whistled after them, and they were soon safe from the effects of rifle-shots in the tangled forest depths.

Meanwhile the clouds had been gathering black and dense, and soon rain and sleet began to fall, accompanied by a fierce gale. Two small parties of Kalmucks were sent in pursuit, while the others began to prepare an encampment under the cedars. The storm rapidly grew into a hurricane, snow falling thick and whirling into eddies, while the pursuers were soon forced to return without having seen the small remnant of the gallant band. For three days the storm continued, and then was followed by a sharp frost. The winter had set in.

No further pursuit was attempted. It was not needed. Nothing more was ever seen of the four Circassians, nor any trace of them found. They undoubtedly found their last resting-place under the snows of that mountain storm.

THE SEA FIGHT IN THE WATERS OF JAPAN.

On the memorable Saturday of May 27, 1905, in far eastern waters in which the guns of war-ships had rarely thundered before, took place an event that opened the eyes of the world as if a new planet had swept into its ken or a great comet had suddenly blazed out in the eastern skies. It was that of one of the most stupendous naval victories in history, won by a people who fifty years before had just begun to emerge from the dim twilight of mediæval barbarism.

Japan, the Nemesis of the East, had won her maiden spurs on the field of warfare in her brief conflict with China in 1894, but that was looked upon as a fight between a young game-cock and a decrepit barn-yard fowl, and the Western world looked with a half-pitying indulgence upon the spectacle of the long-slumbering Orient serving its apprenticeship in modern war. Yet the rapid and complete triumph of the island empire over the leviathan of the Asiatic continent was much of a revelation of the latent power that dwelt in that newly-aroused archipelago, and when in 1903 Japan began to speak in tones of menace to a second leviathan, that of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, the world's interest was deeply stirred again.

Would little Japan dare attack a European power and one so great and populous as Russia, with half Asia already in its clasp, with strong fortresses and fleets within striking distance, and with a continental railway over which it could pour thousands of armed battalions? The idea seemed preposterous, many looked upon the attitude of Japan as the madness of temerity, and when on February 6, 1904, the echo of the guns at Port Arthur was heard the world gave a gasp of astonishment and alarm.

Were there any among us then who believed it possible for little Japan to triumph over the colossus it had so daringly attacked? If any, they were very few. It is doubtful if there was a man in Russia itself who dreamed of anything but eventual victory, with probably the adding of the islands of Japan to its chaplet of orient pearls. True, the success of the attack on their fleet was a painful surprise, and when they saw their great iron-clads locked up in Port Arthur harbor it was cause for annoyance. But if the fleet had been taken by surprise, the fortress was claimed to be impregnable, the army was powerful and accustomed to victory over its foes in Asia, and it was with an amused contempt of their half-barbarian foes and confidence in rapid and brilliant triumph that the Muscovite cohorts streamed across Asia with arms in hand and hope in heart.

We do not propose to tell here what followed. The world knows it. Men read with an interest they had rarely taken in foreign affairs of the rapid and stupendous successes of the little soldiers of Nippon, the indomitable valor of the troops, the striking skill of their leaders, the breadth and completeness of their tactics, the training and discipline of the men, the rare hygienic condition of the camps, their impetuosity in attack, their persistence in pursuit; in short, the sudden advent of an army with all the requisites of a victorious career, as pitted against the ill-handled myriads of Russia, not wanting in brute courage, but sadly lacking in efficient leadership and strategical skill in their commanders.

Back went the Russian hosts, mile by mile, league by league, steadily pressed northward by the unrelenting persistence of the island warriors; while on the Liao-tung peninsula the besieging forces crept on foot by foot, caring apparently nothing for wounds or death, caring only for the possession of the fortress which they had been sent to win.

We should like to record some victories for the Russians, but the annals of the war tell us of none. Outgeneralled and driven back from their strong position on the Yalu River; decisively beaten in the great battle of Liao-yang; checked in their offensive movement on the Shakhe River, with immense loss; and finally utterly defeated in the desperate two weeks' struggle around Mukden; the field warfare ended in the two great armies facing each other at Harbin, with months of manoeuvring before them.

Meanwhile the campaign in the peninsula had gone on with like desperate efforts and final success of the Japanese, Port Arthur surrendering to its irresistible besiegers on the opening day of 1905. With it fell the Russian fleet which had been cooped up in its harbor for nearly a year; defeated and driven back in its every attempt to escape; its flag-ship, the "Petropavlovsk," sunk by a mine on April 13, 1904, carrying down Admiral Makaroff and nearly all its crew; the remnant of the fleet being finally sunk or otherwise disabled to save them from capture on the surrender of Port Arthur to the besieging forces.

Such, in very brief epitome, were the leading features of the conflict on land and its earlier events on the sea. We must now return to the great naval battle spoken of above, which calls for detailed description alike from its being the closing struggle of the contest and from its extraordinary character as a phenomenal event in maritime war.

The loss of the naval strength of Russia in eastern waters led to a desperate effort to retrieve the disaster, by sending from the Baltic every war-ship that could be got ready, with the hope that a strong fleet on the open waters of the east would enable Russia to regain its prestige as a naval power and deal a deadly blow at its foe, by closing the waters upon the possession of which the islanders depended for the support of their armies in Manchuria.

This supplementary fleet, under Admiral Rojestvensky, set sail from the port of Libau on October 16, 1904, beginning its career inauspiciously by firing impulsively on some English fishing-boats on the 21st, with the impression that these were Japanese scouts. This hasty act threatened to embroil Russia with another foe, the ally of Japan, but it passed off with no serious results.

Entering the Mediterranean and passing through the Suez Canal, the fine fleet under Rojestvensky, nearly sixty vessels strong, loitered on its way with wearisome deliberation, dallying for a protracted interval in the waters of the Indian Ocean and not passing Singapore on its journey north till April 12. It looked almost as if its commander feared the task before him, six months having now passed since it left the Baltic on its very deliberate cruise.

The second Russian squadron, under Admiral Nebogatoff, did not pass Singapore until May 5, it being the 13th before the two squadrons met and combined. On the 22d they were seen in the waters of the Philippines heading northward. The news of this, flashed by cable from the far east to the far west, put Europe and America on the qui vive, in eager anticipation of startling events quickly to follow.

Meanwhile where was Admiral Togo and his fleet? For months he had been engaged in the work of bottling up the Russian squadron at Port Arthur. Since the fall of the latter place and the destruction of the war-ships in its harbor he had been lying in wait for the slow-coming Baltic fleet, doubtless making every preparation for the desperate struggle before him, but doing this in so silent and secret a method that the world outside knew next to nothing of what was going on. The astute authorities of Japan had no fancy for heralding their work to the world, and not a hint of the movements or whereabouts of the fleet reached men's ears.

As the days passed on and the Russian ships steamed still northward, the anxious curiosity as to the location of the Japanese fleet grew painfully intense. The expected intention to waylay Rojestvensky in the southern straits had not been realized, and as the Russians left the Philippines in their rear, the question, Where is Togo? grew more insistent still. With extraordinary skill he had lain long in ambush, not a whisper as to the location of his fleet being permitted to make its way to the western world; and when Rojestvensky ventured into the yawning jaws of the Korean Strait he was in utter ignorance of the lurking-place of his grimly waiting foes.

Before Rojestvensky lay two routes to choose between, the more direct one to Vladivostok through the narrow Korean Strait, or the longer one eastward of the great island of Honshu. Which he would take was in doubt and in which Togo awaited him no one knew. The skilled admiral of Japan kept his counsel well, doubtless satisfied in his own mind that the Russians would follow the more direct route, and quietly but watchfully awaiting their approach.

It was on May 22, as we have said, that the Russian fleet appeared off the Philippines, the greatest naval force that the mighty Muscovite empire had ever sent to sea, the utmost it could muster after its terrible losses at Port Arthur. Five days afterwards, on the morning of Saturday, May 27, this proud array of men-of-war steamed into the open throat of the Straits of Korea, steering for victory and Vladivostok. On the morning of Monday, the 29th, a few battered fragments of this grand fleet were fleeing for life from their swift pursuers. The remainder lay, with their drowned crews, on the sea-bottom, or were being taken into the ports of victorious Japan. In those two days had been fought to a finish the greatest naval battle of recent times, and Japan had won the position of one of the leading naval powers of the world.

On that Saturday morning no dream of such a destiny troubled the souls of those in the Russian fleet. They were passing into the throat of the channel between Japan and Korea, but as yet no sign of a foeman had appeared, and it may be that numbers on board the fleet were disappointed, for doubtless the hope of battle and victory filled many ardent souls on the Russian ships. The sun rose on the new day and sent its level beams across the seas, on which as yet no hostile ship had appeared. The billowing waters spread broad and open before them and it began to look as if those who hoped for a fight would be disappointed, those who desired a clear sea and an open passage would be gratified.