Finally the Chinamen held a lengthened consultation amongst themselves, at the end of which I was told that I would be taken forthwith before the higher authorities on the other side of the port. I hinted to the secretary that I had had nothing to eat that day and felt decidedly hungry. I was accordingly served before my departure with a meal of fish and boiled bread, with a cup of rice wine, a decoction which tasted like thin, sour claret. This done, I was placed in charge of my former escort, who struck across country from the rear of the Man-tse-ying, passed two or three other forts and numerous entrenchments and redoubts, and finally reached the water on the inner side of the long arm of land enclosing the West Port. Here, close by a torpedo store, I was put on board a sampan, a long, narrow boat, sharp at both extremities, with an awning. In this I was conveyed to the East Port and taken through the dockyards to the military head-quarters near the great drill and parade ground at the entrance to the town. It was late in the evening when we arrived there, and I was not brought up for examination until the next day. Here, to my great satisfaction, I found I had to deal with somebody who knew English well--a military aide-de-camp, who spoke the language with both fluency and correctness. To him I told my story plainly and straightforwardly, and by the testimony of my former landlord, Sen, and an official at the bank where I had changed my money, established my identity as the person who had passed two days in the town with Wong, and accompanied him on board the despatch-boat. This was sufficient to procure my release. Everything I said was very carefully noted down. My interrogation was conducted before a couple of mandarins. The Taotai I believe to have been absent from the place at this time. He is alleged to have deserted his position and to have been ordered back again. This may or may not be so, but it is undoubtedly the fact that he fled from Port Arthur the night before the Japanese attacked it. He does not appear to have been open to the accusation of heroism.
I was informed by the aide-de-camp that the port had been visited only a day or two before by the British warship _Crescent_, the officers of which had landed for a short while. Fate seemed resolved that I should have no chance of leaving the place without seeing in it something worth remembering, as I had no sooner returned to Sen's inn, which I did on my release, than I was seized with a kind of aguish fever, the effect, no doubt, of the exposure I had recently undergone. It was nothing serious, but caused a feeling of great lassitude and depression, and confined me indoors for some ten or twelve days. I had the place almost to myself, as the approach of the Japanese armies had not been favourable to custom, and the usual course of travel to and from the north had been suspended. Sen was anxious to learn from me whether I considered it advisable for residents and townspeople to leave the port. I replied, as I sincerely thought, that the Japanese, if they succeeded in taking the place, would do no harm to non-combatants. I was, however, fatally mistaken.