midday
There is nothing that the Japanese admire more than courage ; and such a deliberate act of devoted self-sacrifice for the honour of one 's country and flag as they had just beheld , called forth merely a low-spoken murmur of intense , almost envious praise . We arrived at our destination without further adventure , and dropped anchor in the roadstead just as the sun rose above the horizon , flooding the rocky shores of the Elliots with gold , and were heartily greeted by the few craft which we found lying at anchor there . Looking back upon our adventure with the Russian submarine , I could not help regarding it as almost providential that we had encountered her ; for I think there can be very little doubt that when we fell in with her she must have been on her way to the Elliot archipelago , where , had she arrived safely , she might have found more than one spot in which she could have lain _ perdu _ , to emerge at a favourable moment and destroy at least one , if not more , of our most precious battleships . Giving orders for the immediate discharge of the materials for the boom , at a spot which I selected immediately after we had come to an anchor , I turned in and slept soundly until past midday , resting again all the afternoon ; so that when evening came I had quite recovered from the fatigue of the previous night , and was pronounced by the doctor in charge of the hospital ashore to be progressing toward complete recovery quite as rapidly as could be reasonably expected , while my wound was healing in fine style . About four o'clock that afternoon , word was brought to me that the whole of the materials intended for the construction of the boom had been landed ; and I went ashore to inspect them . They consisted for the most part of enormous balks of timber and massive cables ; but there were also immense quantities of chain to serve as lashings , stout staples , iron bars , innumerable bundles of long , massive , pointed spikes , and thousands of empty casks , stoutly hooped , without bung-holes , and coated with pitch to ensure permanent watertight-ness . Commander Tsuchiya , whom I had placed in charge of the discharging operations , had done his work well , stacking the various items each by itself , and keeping a careful account of the quantities of each .