The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-04-24
SIGNAL GUNS THAT
PROCLAIMED WAR ON
Continued From First PAGE.

officers came aboard of us, evidently
very excited. and enc of them tried
to talk to me in French. but as he al
ways relapsed in his experiment into
his mother tongue I could not make
head or tail of what he said. He got
so muddled up that he simply danced
around the deck in pure madness"
There was no light in the cabin, but
the reflection from the searchlights
showed me that the officers face was
covered with perspiration. He seemed
to be very excited. 1 asked him if he
could speak German, and he said he
could, and thrn went on to speak to
me in Russia.
His words were: His excellency,
the vicerOy, has issued a decree order
ing that no commercial ships leave or
enter the harbor Of Port Arthur"
He repeated this twice, and then,
apOlogizing for disturbing me, he
turned abruptly and disappeared.
1t was long after the day had
dawned before the Russian vessels
ceased using their searchlights, and
by that time the practiced eye of one
Of the officers of the Columbia had
detected something unnatural in the
position Of the two war ships lying at
the harbOr mouth. He was not very
long in coming to a conclusion.
They've had a collision or met with
some accident, he said, there can be
no doubt about that. See the list that
big one has got. Why, her name is
nearly touching the water. And the
other has a list aft. Besides they're
both aground. There cannot be more
than seventeen feet of water there.
BY gosh! one of these Chinese boys
told me just now two piece ship
strike together in night time and you
see he's perfectly right after all. There
must have been collision. But how
the deuce did he know it? And what
do they all mean, 1 wonder, by flying
their flags at the masthead?"
1t took US some considerable time to
realize that two Of Russia's best and
biggest battleships lay helpless almost
within a stones throw of us. Then
we all exclaimed simultaneously:
what will the Japanese do when they
hear this?" and the answer each of
us gave was that Japan would declare
war at once if she heard it. By and
by somebody suggested that perhaps
the vessels had been torpedoed or had
run on submarine mines, but that view
was considered too far fetched, and
the general opinion was that there had
been a collision.
When the light became stronger we
could see that the forts had been
manned during the night, rather a
strange thing, we thought. In some
places where there were galleries long
lines of men were visible and the heads
Of others peeping above the breast
works showed that all the fortress ar
tillerymen must have turned out.
I am not pro-Japanese, but I must
confess that the audacity of this first
terrific strike fairly took away my
breath. 1 turned to have another look
at the tOrpedOed vessels and noticed
how the men were gathered together
with white scarced faces on the deck.
There seemed to be no captain no
officers and no order. The men were
no longer important parts of a fornid-
able fighting machine; they were a mob
"a silent, scared mob-looking with
terror toward the abyss from which
the monsters Of the night had emerged
Some of them, it is true, still seemed
to go about their various duties in a
mechanical manner, and I particularly
remember seeing the cook of one of
the big torpedoed battleships throwing
Stops over the side. l do not think that
l or any of my friends on board the
Columbia felt glad at the terrific blow
the Russian navy had received. There
was something so pathetic in the help
Iessness and in the unnatural position
of these tremendous engines of war
which had been so suddenly disabled
that we all remained looking on in ST.
lence.
Togo's Plan DivuIged.
Then we began to notice that a big
cruiser on our left had also a susnicious
list and an awkward appearance. and
soon a man who passed US in a launch
told US that she, too, had been tor
pedoed. The same man caused us
some perturbation of mind by remark
ing that the whole Japanese fleet were
coming up and that if we did not
move out at once we would find our
selves right in the line of fire
AS we had already been told not to
leave the port and as any attempt to
move at all might draw on us the fire
of the forts, we felt in a difficult DO
sitiOn.
Meanwhile the Japanese cruisers.
having made a very long, leisurely
survey Of the Russians, went away
slowly, and the whole Russian fleet got
up steam, weighed anchor and started
in pursuit.
The Japanese cruisers withdrew and
japanese cruisers soon withdrew and
the Russians at once followed them.
This was at about 8 o'clock Admiral
Togo probably wanted to lure the Rus
slams outside and to fight them in the
open. He did not succeed
Then Capt. Anderson gave orders to