Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/252

 An enormous cloud of smoke and debris shot toward the sky and at the same time enveloped the spot where the vessel had lain. A moment later there began a veritable shower of splintered wood, torn and twisted railing, books, clothes, rope, utensils and a hundred other belongings of the ship. The cloud of smoke expanded in the upper air and blotted out the sun like an eclipse. The startled gulls flew hither and thither, as if dazed by this unheard-of phenomenon, and men instinctively raised their hands to protect themselves from the falling debris, pieces of which were drifted by the upper currents of air for a distance of three miles landward, where they fell by the hundreds in people's yards.

When the smoke was dissipated, it was discovered that the Koryets had sunk, only her funnel and some torn rigging appearing above the surface, if we except her forward steel deck, which the force of the explosion had bent up from the prow so that the point of it, like the share of a huge plough, stood several feet out of water. The surface of the bay all about the spot was covered thickly with smoking debris, and several of the ship's boats were floating about intact upon the water.

The Variak was left to sink where she lay. The forty-one dead on board were placed together in a cabin and went down with her. She burned on till evening and then, inclining more and more to port, her funnels finally touched the water, and with a surging, choking groan, as of some great animal in pain, she sank. As the water reached the fires a cloud of steam went up which, illuminated by the last flash of the fire, formed her signal of farewell.

It was arranged that the British and the French boats should carry the Russians to a neutral port and guarantee their parole until the end of the war.

This wholly unexpected annihilation of the Russian boats naturally caused consternation among the Russians of Chemulpo and Seoul. The Russian Consulate was surrounded by the