CH.i.]       DISCOURAGING  INFORMATION         261
goes her 14, and of our lot, the Borodino gets heated excentrics even at 12 knots. As to the Orel,1 she never had time to get through her trials, so that we have no idea on what speed we can rely with her for any length of time and without complete breakdown. . . . Suvoroff, Alexander, Ossliabia — they can probably all do their 15 to 16."
" Well, and the Navarin and the Nakimoff, with their thirty-five calibre guns and their obsolete mountings? And the Donskoi—that old 'tub'? I love her, as I have gone many a mile in her . . . but how will she fare in action ? "
"But what other ships were they to take? If they could have got them ready, they would also have taken the Monomach and the Korniloff and any other old ' war-junk '! These are all ships which count in the active fleet. In the war on paper, which our strategists play at in the privacy of their offices, they all figured in accordance with the data of the Naval Pocket Books I And of course, now that real war has begun, they can't admit that they are only fit for the 'scrapheap.'"
He gave a bitter laugh.
"But the Slava, Oleg, Isumrud?—Where are  they?"
A look full of doubt.
"Of the Slava there can anyhow be no question; she'll hardly be ready in a year's time. The Oleg and Isumrud have not even begun their trials ; they are, in fact, not yet completed by the builders. They were sent to Reval, but in such a condition that the Admiral positively declined to tie such logs to his feet. They say that they are to catch us up somewhere on the way out."
" And the Chilians and Argentines?"
"That will all come to nothing," he said with a hopeless expression. '' We are only wasting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on all kinds of adventurers, who vainly promise to conclude the purchase."
We were both silent. I no longer felt the joy in my heart; my spirits sank, and my mind was troubled. I would not believe it;  and yet the pitiless reality was so
1 [Pronounced AriolJ]