Chapter IV: Part I: The Warning (3)

Thus bloodstained and very weary we finally reached our Legation quarter, and once again the energy and resolution of Dr. M---- expressed themselves. The grounds of the Su wang-fu, belonging to the Manchu prince Su, where the first Boxer we had openly seen had sought refuge a few days previously, were commandeered by him, and by evening nearly a thousand Catholic refugees were crowded into its precincts. All day people were labouring to bring in rice and food for their people, and camp-fires were soon built at which they could cook their meals. Several of the _chefs de mission_ were again much alarmed at this action of ours in openly rescuing Chinese simply because they were doubtful co-religionists. They say that this action will make us pay dearly with our own lives; that the Legations will be attacked; that we cannot possibly defend ourselves against the numbers which will be brought to bear against us; that we are fools. Perhaps we are, but still there is some comfort in discovering that this nest of diplomacy still contains a few men.

Meanwhile there is not a word of news from S----, and there are indications that our despatches to the Chinese Government, which are being sent from every Legation more and more urgently, are hardly read. The situation is becoming more and more impossible, and our servants say it is useless bringing in any news, as there is such confusion in the Palace that nobody knows anything reliable.

XI

SOME MEN AND THINGS

16th June, 1900.

* * * * *

No developments have taken place during the past few hours. So far very few men have been conspicuous; and as it is these few who have brought about the only developments, and outlined our position, and that they are to-day all terribly tired, we have absolute monotony. I have not heard what the German Minister has been doing, but it is rumoured that he is engaged in trying to re-establish communication with Tientsin and the sea by bribing the Tsung-li Yamen smaller officials to take down packets of his despatches by pony-express. It seems doubtful whether this will succeed. For all communication has absolutely ceased now, and the Customs postal carriers say that it is impossible to get through by any stratagem, as all the roads are swarming with Boxers and banditti. The Chinese Government, in its few despatches to some of the Legations, is clearly temporising and trying to save itself. There is no means of knowing what is going on inside the Palace, or of understanding what the Empress Dowager has decided. Everybody says it is all topsy-turvydom now in the capital, and that the most extraordinary reports are coming in from the provinces. Our Chinese despatch writers, our Manchu servants, and the few natives who come through our barricaded streets, all say the same thing--that it is too soon to speak, but that the dangers are enormous. Meanwhile the more timid of these people attached to the Legation area are sending word that they are sick and cannot come any more. It is a polite way of saying that they are afraid. I do not blame them, since anything now is possible. You cannot surely ask men to sacrifice themselves when they are only bound to you by the hire system. Such is the external and general situation.

Within our own quarter things are much the same, developing naturally along the line of least resistance.

Now that Prince Su's palace grounds have been openly converted into a Roman Catholic sanctuary, hundreds of converts are pouring in on us from everywhere, laden with their pots and pans, their beds, and their bundles of rice; indeed, carrying every imaginable thing. The great Northern Cathedral and Monseigneur F---- are in no danger, for the time being at least, since the cathedral and its extensive grounds are surrounded by powerful walls and the bishop has now got his fifty guards and possibly a couple of thousand young native Catholics, who can probably be armed and fight. So although it seems as if the whole Roman Catholic population of Peking is pouring in on us, we are in reality only getting a few hundred miserables who had no time to fly to their chief priest when the storm caught them; we have to prepare for the worst, as everything is developing very slowly.

Even in this matter of Chinese refugees the attitude of our foolish Legations is rather inexplicable. Actually up to within a few days ago some of the Ministers were still resolutely refusing to entertain the idea that native Christians--men who have been estranged from their own countrymen and marked as pariahs because they have listened to the white man's gospel--could be brought within the Legation area. In consequence of this hardly any Chinese Protestants have as yet come in. Of course circumstance, the force of example, and a timidity in the face of the growing irritation, have at length broken down this weak-kneed attitude, but people have not yet finished discussing it. For instance, there is a remarkable story about the well-known S----, who wrote that celebrated book, "Chinese Characteristics." He turned up at the British Legation late one evening, long before the Boxers entered the Tartar city, and brought positive proof that unless S---- was hurried in we would all be murdered by a conspiracy headed by the most powerful men. S---- was kept waiting for an hour, and then told that no time could be spared to see him as everybody was busy writing despatches! This is indeed our whole situation expressed in a trivial incident; all the plenipotentiaries are trying to save their positions and their careers by violent despatch-writing at the eleventh hour. They know perfectly well that it is they alone who are responsible for the present _impasse_, and that even if they come out alive they are all hopelessly compromised. Young O---- told me that in their Legation they were actually antedating their despatches so as to be on the safe side! This shows how absolutely inexcusable has been the whole policy for three entire weeks.

We do not know what is going on around us; we do not know of what the Peking Court is thinking; we do not know by whom S---- has been stopped. We know nothing now excepting that we are gradually but surely getting so dirty that our tempers cannot but be vile. One never realises how great a part soap and water play in one's scheme of things until times like these. With upturned Peking carts blocking the ingresses to our quarter; with everything disgruntled and out of order; with native Christians crowding in on us, sensible heathen servants bolting as hard as they can, ice running short, we, the eleven Legations of Peking, await with some fear and trepidation and an ever-increasing discomfort our various fates under the shadow of the gloomy Tartar Wall. What is to be the next thing? I could possibly imagine and write something about this were I not so tired.

XII

HELL HOUNDS

Night, 17th June 1900.

* * * * *

It is past twelve o'clock at night, but in spite of the late hour and my fatigue--I have been dead tired for a week now--I am writing this with the greatest ease, my pen gliding, as it were, over a surface of ice-like slippiness, although my fingers are all blistered from manual work. Why, you will ask? Well, simply because my imagination is afire, and taking complete control of such minor things as the nerves and muscles of my right arm, my eyes and my general person, it speeds me along with astonishing celerity. Let your imagination be aflame and you can do anything....

It began last night. No sooner had the gates which pierce the Tartar Wall been closed by the Imperial guards, who still remain openly faithful to their duties, than there arose such a shouting and roaring as I have never heard before and never thought possible. It was the Boxers. The first time the Boxers had rushed in on us, it was through the Ha-ta Gate to the east of the Legations. Last night, after having for three days toured the Tartar city pillaging, looting, burning and slaying, with their progress quite unchecked except for those few hundred rifle shots of our own, the major part of the Boxer fraternity, to whom had joined themselves all the many rapscallions of Peking, found themselves in the Chinese or outer city after dark, and consequently debarred from coming near their legitimate prey. (The gates are still always closed as before.) Somebody must have told them that they could do as they liked with Christians and Europeans; for, mad with rage, they began shouting and roaring in chorus two single words, "_Sha-shao,"_ kill and burn, in an ever-increasing crescendo. I have heard a very big mass of Russian soldiery give a roar of welcome to the Czar some years ago, a roar which rose in a very extraordinary manner to the empyrean; but never have I heard such a blood-curdling volume of sound, such a vast bellowing as began then and there, and went on persistently, hour after hour, without ever a break, in a maddening sort of way which filled one with evil thoughts. Sometimes for a few moments the sound sank imperceptibly lower and lower and seemed making ready to stop. Then reinforced by fresh thousands of throats, doubtless wetted by copious drafts of _samshu_, it grew again suddenly, rising stronger and stronger, hoarser and hoarser, more insane and more possessed, until the tympanums of our ears were so tortured that they seemed fit to burst. Could walls and gates have fallen by mere will and throat power, ours of Peking would have clattered down Jericho-like. Our womenfolk were frozen with horror--the very sailors and marines muttered that this was not to be war, but an Inferno of Dante with fresh horrors. You could feel instinctively that if these men got in they would tear us from the scabbards of our limbs. It was pitch dark, too, and in the gloom the towers and battlements of the Tartar Wall loomed up so menacingly that they, too, seemed ready to fall in and crush us.

For possibly three or four hours this insane demonstration proceeded apace. The Manchu guards listened gloomily and curiously from the inside of the gates, but made no attempt to open them, but they equally refused sullenly to parley with a strong body of sailors and volunteers we sent with instructions to shoot any one attempting to unlock the barriers. Yet it was evident that the guards had received special instructions, and that the gates would not be handed over to the mob.

A few minutes before midnight the sounds became more sullen, and beneath the general uproar another note, one of those in distress, began, as it were, like an undercurrent to this pandemonium. The cause we had not long to seek, for presently flames began to shoot up, a sight we were by now well accustomed to, though not in this purely trading quarter of the city. The fire, started with savage disregard in the very centre of the most densely populated street of the Chinese city, spread with terrible rapidity. Soon both sides of Ch'ien Men great street, just on the other side of the Tartar Wall, were enveloped in raging flames, and a lurid light, growing ever brighter and brighter, turned the dark night into an unnatural day.

Between the incendiaries and ourselves the great Tartar Wall stood firm, but though this ancient defence against other barbarians was an effective protection for us, it could not long remain immune itself. The _lou_, or square pagoda-like tower facing the Chinese city side, caught some of the thousands and tens of thousands of sparks flying skywards, and it was not long before the vast pile was burning as fiercely as the rest. The great rafters of Burmese teak, brought by Mongol Khans six centuries before to Peking, were as dry as tinder with the dryness of ages; and thus almost before we had noted that the bottom of the tower was well alight the flames were shooting through the roof and out through the hundreds of little square windows which in olden days were lined by archers. Higher and higher the flames leaped, until the top of the longest tongues of fire, pouring out through a funnel of brick, was hundreds of feet above the ground level. Only Vereschagin could have done justice to this holocaust; I have never seen anything so barbarically splendid.

Meanwhile below this in the Chinese city all had become quiet, except for the increasing and growing roar of the all-devouring flames. The Boxers, as if appalled by their own handiwork and the mournful sight of the capital in flames, had retreated into their haunts and had left the unfortunate townfolk to battle with this disaster as they could. From the top of the wall, which I hastily climbed as soon as I obtained permission to leave my post, thousands and tens of thousands of figures could be seen moving hurriedly about laden with merchandise, which they were attempting to save. Busy as ants, these wonderful Chinese traders were rescuing as much of their invested capital from the very embrace of the flames as they could at a moment when the Boxer patriots, menacing and killing them with sword and spears as _san mao-tzu,_ or third-class barbarians who sold the cursed foreigners' stuffs and products, had hardly disappeared.

Yet it seemed vain, indeed, to talk of salvage with half the city in flames, for other fires now began mysteriously in other places, which "lighted" the horizon. "_Tout Pekin brule_," muttered a French sailor to me as I passed back to my post, and his careless remark made me think that this was the Commune and Sansculottism intermixed--the ends of two centuries tumbled together--because we foreigners had upset the equilibrium of the Far East with our importunities and our covetousness of the Yellow Man's possessions....

And what of S----, what of the Peking Government--what is everybody in the outside world doing--the distant world of which we have so suddenly lost all trace, while we are passing through such times? We do not know; we have no idea; we have almost forgotten to think about it. S---- was heard of twice some days ago from Langfang, a station only forty miles from Peking, but why he does not advance, why there is this intolerable delay, we do not know. The Peking Government is still decreeing and counter-decreeing night and day according to the Government Gazettes. The Ministers of our eleven Legations are meeting one another almost hourly, and are eternally discussing, but are doing nothing else. We have blocked our roads with barricades and provided our servants and dependents with passes written in English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Chinese--so that everyone can understand. We are now sick of such a multitude of languages and wish all the world spoken Volapuk.

Thus with our rescued native Christians, our few butchered Boxers, our score and more of fires lighting the whole of the horizon, here in the middle of the night of the 16th of June we are no further forward in our political situation than we were two and a half weeks ago, when our Legation Guards arrived, and we esteemed ourselves so secure. Two and a half weeks ago! It seems at least two and a half months; but that is merely the direct fault of having to live nearly twice the proper number of hours in twenty-four.

XIII

A FEW CRUMBS

18th June, 1900.

* * * * *

It has just transpired that Hsu Tung, an infamous Manchu high official, who has been the Emperor's tutor, and whose house is actually on Legation Street some fifty yards inside the lines of the Italian Legation, has been allowed to pass out of our barricaded quarter, going quite openly in his blue and red official chair. This is a terrible mistake which we may pay for dearly.

Hsu Tung is a scoundrel who is at least thorough in his convictions as far as we are concerned. It is he who has long been boasting--and all Peking has been repeating his boast--that in the near future he is going to line his sedan chair with the hides of foreign devils and fill his harem with their women; and it is he, above all other men, who should have been seized by us, held as hostage, and shot out of hand the very moment the Chinese Government gives its open official sanction to this insane Boxer policy. Had we acted in this way and taken charge of a number of other high officials who live just around us, we might have shown the trembling government that a day of retribution is certain to come. And yet listen what happened. Either on the 15th or 16th Hsu Tung sent the majordomo of his household cringing to the French Legation for a _passepartout_. He had already tried once to escape by way of the Italian barricades, but had been sternly ordered back, and his house placed under watch. Somehow, through the foolishness of an interpreter of the French Legation, he got his safe-conduct pass, and started out bold as brass in the morning, seated in his official chair and accompanied by his official outriders. He passed a first French barricade and reached an outer second barrier manned by volunteers, who challenged him roughly and then refused to let him pass.

The outriders then tried to ride our men down, and it needed a rifle-shot to bring them to their senses. Fortunately nobody was hurt, and presently the youthful volunteers had Hsu Tung himself out of the chair, and kept him seated on the ground while they debated whether they should respect the French pass or strap the great man up and send him to their own quarters as a prisoner of war.

In the end, however, one of the secretaries came up and inquired what it all meant, and then, of course, weak counsels prevailed, and Hsu Tung was allowed to sneak off unmolested down a side lane.

This incident is typical as showing the stamp of men who have commanding voices in our beleagued quarter.

God help us if any considerable force is sent against us, for we can never help ourselves. Every proper-minded young man is a natural soldier methinks, even in Anno Domini 1900, but every elderly person in the same year of grace is quite valueless--that is what we have already discovered.

And yet even to-day all the senior people in our Legation area--those who are our guides and mentors--though they be secretly much alarmed, are comforting themselves with a great deal of garrulous talk because a letter has arrived from Tientsin--in fact, several letters have arrived. This is the first reliable news we have had for many days, and everybody seems now to imagine that we are safe. The chief item in these fateful missives seems to be that the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Tientsin has also been burned; that this was accompanied by massacres of native converts; and that the riverine port is swarming with Boxers. And there is no news of S----, no news of anything good. What has become of him we cannot imagine. Yet Ministers, secretaries, and elderly nondescripts are somewhat relieved, and go about nervously smiling in a very ridiculous way. No one can quite make out why they are relieved, excepting perhaps, that they are delighted to find that the visible world still exists elsewhere, and goes on revolving on its own axis in spite of our dilemma. Why should the obvious be so often discovered?

Our poor Legation Guards and their commanding officers, with whom we were so pleased a fortnight ago, are quite as crushed as everyone else now--perhaps even more. You see the rank and file are merely a crowd of uneducated sailors, who have not yet made head or tail of what all this Peking _bouleversement_ means. They were suddenly entrained and rushed up to Peking many days ago; they arrived in the dark; they were crammed into their respective Legations as quickly as possible; they have done a little patrol and picquet work on the streets, and have stood expectantly behind barricades which they were told to erect; but otherwise they are as completely at sea again as if they were back to their ships.... In all the clouds of dust and smoke around them, how can they understand? It is true I have rather a grudge against some persons of the Legation defenders as yet unknown, and think of them perhaps a little angrily, for, like all soldiery, they loot. They have already taken my field-glasses, an excellent revolver, and several other things during the confusion of the nights. Of course this is the fortune of war, as all old campaigners will tell you, but a more decent interval should have been allowed to elapse before beginning the inevitable stripping process....

As for the detachment officers, some of them are very good fellows and some of them are not; but already they have each of them instinctively adopted the old attitude of the Legations towards one another. They are mutually suspicious. The detachment officers are also considerably tired and in very bad tempers, for the night has been turned into day with a regularity which cannot leave anybody very happy. Then dirt is accumulating, too, sad truth; and in the East you cannot feel dirty in the summer and be happy. That is quite impossible....

Thus we are all in a very grunting frame of mind. The British Legation appears to be at length hopelessly crowded with perspiring missionaries of all denominations and creeds, who have suddenly come in from beyond the barricades. Life must be quite impossible there. The novelty of this experience has been worn off, and I for one would welcome any change, either for better or worse. So long as it is only a change....

XIV

THE ULTIMATUM

19th June, 1900.

* * * * *

How foolish we can be! Only last night I was bewailing the dulness and the dirt of it all, and the general absurdity and discomfort, and now without one qualm I confess I would willingly exchange yesterday's uncertainty for to-day's certainty--that we are all going to be made into mincemeat. But I do not even feel serious or desperate now; it has got beyond that.

I do not know at what hour the ultimatum came to-day; it may have been eleven in the morning or one in the afternoon; but one thing I do know is, that here, at four in the afternoon, the great majority of one thousand Europeans are shaking, absolutely distraught. It is evident therefrom that there is something impressive and demoralising to most people in the idea of finality, and that on the threshold of the twentieth century, courage, since it is seldom dealt in, is hardly a great living force. It makes one realise, too, that with all their faults, the aristocrats of France, who, a hundred years ago, were condemned to the shameful death of the guillotine and went in their tumbrils through streets filled with cursing crowds of sansculottes, with scorn and contempt written on their features, were rather exceptional people. Things have changed since then, and the so-called Americanisation of the world has not conduced to gallantry. Fortunate are we that there is no white man's audience to watch us impassively, and to witness the effects of this bombshell of an ultimatum which has come to-day. There is nothing so humiliating as abject fear. Curiously enough, the women bear it much better than the elder men, who are openly distraught; and when I say women, I mean all the women, both those belonging to the Legations and the dozens of missionary women who have crowded in. Nearly everyone of them is better than the elderly men; at least, they try and say nothing so as not to add to the terrible confusion....

But the ultimatum--what is it, and against whom is it so summarily directed? Briefly the ultimatum is a neat-looking document written on striped Chinese despatch-paper, and comes from the Tsung-li Yamen, or office charged with the overseeing of "the outside nations' affairs"--which are the affairs of Europe. After very briefly referring to a demand made by the allied admirals for a surrender of the Taku forts off the muddy bar of the Tientsin River--about which we know nothing--it goes on to say that as China can no longer protect the Legations, the Legations will have to protect themselves by leaving Peking within twenty-four hours, dating from to-day at four o'clock. That is all. Not another word. Yet in other words this document means this: that the demand of the admirals must have been refused; that they would not have made it unless something disastrous had happened to S---- and to Tientsin; that acts of war have already been committed, and that it will be no longer a Boxer affair, but a government affair. This makes our position desperate enough in all truth. There is to be war.... The ultimatum was conveyed to the eleven Legations and the Inspectorate-General of Foreign Customs in twelve neat red envelopes by trembling _t'ing ch'ai_ of the Chinese Government, and in spite of some attempt at first to hide its contents was soon known by everyone. The twelve copies, indeed, were exactly alike, twelve bombshells, which, bursting in twelve different parts of our barricaded quarter, finally united their fumes until we were all fairly suffocated. For we have either got to flee now or be butchered. Mechanically all eyes were turned at once to the chiefs of the eleven missions to China, who have brought things to such a pass, and everybody demanded frantically that something should be done. People lost control themselves and behaved insanely. It was not long before the whole diplomatic body met--in a terrible gloom--at the Legation of the Spanish Minister, who is the _doyen_ of the Corps, and soon a tremendous discussion was raging. There were mutual recriminations, and proposal after proposal was taken up and rejected as being too dangerous. Nobody had for a moment dreamed that such a menace would come so swiftly. Expectant crowds soon gathered round the gates of the Spanish Legation, and attempted to find out what was being decided, but the only thing I could learn was that brave Von K---- proposed at once that the Ministers should go in a body to the Yamen and force the Chinese Government to agree to an armistice. This was vetoed by all, of course, and one gentleman openly wept at the idea. In the end, at seven o'clock, when it was nearly dark, a joint Note was prepared, saying that the Ministers could only accept the demand made on them and prepare to leave Peking at once, but that twenty-four hours was too short a notice in which to pack their trunks, and that, besides, they must have some guarantees as to the ninety miles road to Tientsin, which were so swarming with bandits that communication had been completely interrupted. That is to say, the Ministers were prepared to accept....

No sooner had this weak reply been despatched than a fresh wave of consternation passed over the whole Legation quarter, for we now number nearly a thousand white people in all, and we could never march that distance to Tientsin unbroken. But beneath that wave of consternation a fiercer note steadily rose--the note of revolt against the decrees of eleven men. I cannot describe to you what an intensity of passion was suddenly revealed. Muttering first, this revolt became quite open and almost unanimous. All of us would have a fair fight behind barricades and entrenchments, but no massacre of a long, unending convoy. For picture to yourself what this convoy would be crawling out of giant Peking in carts, on ponies and afoot, if it were forced to go; we would be a thousand white people with a vast trail of native Christians following us, and calling on us not to abandon them and their children. Do you think we could run ahead, while a cowardly massacre by Boxers and savage soldiery was hourly thinning out the stragglers and defenceless people in the rear? Never!

Hardly anybody thought of eating all that long evening. Most of us were trying to find out whether some sensible understanding could not be arrived at; whether we could not prepare before it was too late. But it was quite in vain to plan anything or attempt to think of anything. Everything was so topsy-turvy, everybody so panic-stricken.

But as the night grew later and later, some people began busying themselves packing boxes, still deluding themselves that they were going to leave comfortably on the morrow as if nothing had happened. Yet the world is really upside down as far as we are concerned, and it is quite absolutely impossible that the situation should end so normally as to find us quietly retreating down the Tientsin road. Others kept sending out servants to discover at what price carts would undertake to drive the whole way down to the sea, or at least to Tientsin. Forty, fifty, and even one hundred taels were demanded for three days' work; and then, although the carters said they would come if the government sends proper escorts of soldiers as has been promised, Heaven only knows if they will ever dare to move near our stricken quarter. Still in some Legations they ordered fifty carts at any price, with the most lavish promises of reward for those that could manage to secure them. All the official servants soon came back trembling, saying that they had found a few carts, but that it was _pu yi t'ing_--not at all sure whether the carters would dare to move when daylight came. For the whole city is already in a fresh uproar; people are flying in every direction in the night. Stories come in of officials who have been pulled out of their chairs and forced to _K'et'ou_ to Boxers to show their respect to the new power. Prince Tuan has been appointed President of the Tsung-li Yamen, high Manchus have been placed in charge of the Boxer commands, and rice is being issued to them from the Imperial granaries. There is no end to the tales that now come in, since everybody has understood that there is no need for concealment and that there is going to be some sort of war. At two o'clock I even began to get news of what the Empress Dowager had been doing, and how the Boxer partisans had become so strong that it was absolutely impossible to hope for anything but the worst.

Once when I got some details which I thought of importance, I tried to find my chief in order to communicate it to him. But he was lost in the middle of the night, conferring unofficially with some of his colleagues; and I could but feel immensely amused when in his office I saw that he had been scribbling some frenzied notes on the back of a completed despatch, dealing with one of those petty little affairs which were so important only the other day.

Ah, where are the dear little political situations of only a few weeks ago; those safe little political situations which redounded so much to the credit of those that made them and did not contain any of the dread elements of our present very real and terrible one! Like soldiers who have degenerated from the chasing of mere vagabonds of mediocre importance, so have our Peking Ministers Plenipotentiary and Envoys Extraordinary fallen from their proud estate to mere diplomatic make-beliefs full of wind--wind-blown from much tilting at windmills, with their Governments rescuing them Sancho Panza-like at the eleventh hour....

But though for us there is still some hope, there is very little for the wretched native Christians quartered in the palace grounds of Prince Su, whom we have saved from the Boxers.

They soon heard the news, too, that the foreigner who has once saved them is going--going away because he has been ordered to. All night long there was an awful panic among these people which made one's heart sick, for they understood better than us how quickly they would be massacred once they left our care.

I shall never forget the night of the 19th of June, 1900, with all its tragedy and tragi-comedy, though I live to be a hundred. It allowed me to see something of real human nature in momentary flashes; of how mean and full of fear we really are, how small and how easily impressed. A hundred times I longed to have the time and the power to set down exactly so that everyone might understand the incidents and the sudden impulses which took place--all prompted by that master of human beings--FEAR. That is why we worship heroes, or we pretend we worship them, because it is the _culte_. For a moment these people who have been set on pedestals were not afraid. Is it only the power not to be afraid which makes one a hero?

XV

THE DEBACLE BEGINS

20th June, 1900.

* * * * *

It is notorious that in moments of tension, when the mind has been stimulated to too great an activity by unhealthy excitement, you think of the most curiously assorted things--in fact, of absurd things which are quite out of place. I have been thinking the whole time of something very stupid which is only fiction: That a Zulu, named Umslopagas, rode and ran one hundred miles in a single night and then refreshed himself sufficiently by a couple of hours' sleep to deliver battle with such vigour at the head of a marble staircase, that he saved the haggard hero. That is what I have been thinking of....

We of Peking are, unfortunately, not of the mettle of Zulus, and as far as I am personally concerned, three hours' sleep is but the appetite-giver for five hours more. And so on this fateful 20th June, with the time limit of our ultimatum expiring at four o'clock, I got up in no sort of valorous spirit, and with the feeling that tragedies outside the theatre--at least those that spin themselves out for an indefinite number of days--are quite impossible for us Moderns. But, then, probably everybody has always thought the same thing--even those who lived before the Renaissance.

At eight o'clock everyone was once more afoot, although most have hardly had a wink of sleep. All over our Legation quarter, dusty and dirty men, unwashed and unbathed, now squatted along the edge of the streets, hanging their weary heads against their rifles, with their faces very white from too much sentry-go and too little sleep. There is little distinction between sailors and Legation people, for we are all in the same dilemma. On this eventful 20th of June, instead of being resolute and alert, everybody is merely tired and weakened by a couple of weeks' watchfulness against Boxers during an unofficial semi-siege, a state of affairs which has quite unfitted us for fresh strains. Yet beyond our barricades of upturned carts and stolen building-bricks all was quiet and peaceful, and hardly a thing moves. It seemed as if we had been only dreaming.... Wandering down beyond the eastern end of Legation Street, which gives you the most view of the mysterious world around the great Ha-ta Street, which the Boxers have conquered, indeed you find everything practically deserted, the people having learned that it is best to stay indoors until this crisis is solved in some manner. Occasionally a rag-picker, or some humble person so little separated from the life hereafter that to push a trifle closer does not spell much peril, can be seen hooking up rags and whatnots from the piles of Peking offal. If you speak to him he gives an unintelligent _pu chih tao_--"I do not know"--and moves boorishly on. As my old Chinese writer said a week ago, Peking has never been in such a state of topsy-turvydom since the robber who unseated the Ming dynasty rushed in two and a half centuries ago....

Going on top of the great Tartar Wall and gazing down on the scene of devastation and ruin beyond the Ch'ien Men Gate, one can hardly believe one's eyes, for where there was once a mighty bustle one now sees thousands of houses with nothing but their walls standing and charred timbers strewing the grounds. The great burned tower which blazed so wondrously a few nights ago is still half standing, its mighty brickwork too powerful and too proud to succumb totally to the flames' destroying energy. Gaunt and hollow-eyed, the old Tartar tower surveys the scene somewhat contemptuously, as if saying that the pigmy men of to-day are far removed from the paladins of old and their works....

Quiet and perfectly silent it all looks--but below the tower, and, indeed, on all sides as far as the eyes can see, some search shows little ants of men are at work in the ruins--not moving much, but bobbing up and down with unending energy and regularity. They are the beggars of Peking in their hundreds and thousands salving what they can from all this immense destruction by poking deep holes into the ruins and pulling out all manner of things from under the mass of bricks and rubbish. In the conserving hands of the Chinaman nothing is ever irremediably destroyed....

Looking far to the east, even the Ha-ta Gate, where no harm has been done, does not show much movement. The carts passing in and out are very few and far between, and the dust which in ordinary times floats above the din and roar of the gates in heavy clouds is to-day seemingly absent. Even our Peking dust is awed by the approaching storm and nestles close to Mother Earth, so that it may come to no harm.

The more I looked the more observant I became. The sun lolling up in a red ball, the birds, twittering and flying about while the heat of the day is not severe, showed themselves in a new light; and thus the 20th June is ushered in so complaisantly, when all the world of men appear merely tired and watchful, that the contrast makes one wonder, and at nine o'clock once more our Ministers Plenipotentiary and our _Charges d'Affaires_ gather their eleven estimable persons together at the Legation of the _doyen_. For yesterday's Ministerial reply agreeing to the Manchu order to vacate the capital, if certain conditions were fulfilled, had begged for an urgent answer by nine o'clock regarding the little counter-demands for a time-extension, and a definite arrangement concerning the Chinese troops who are to be the safe conduct along the Tientsin road. Nine o'clock has come, but alas! with it there is no neat Chinese despatch on striped paper which would so relieve our Ministerial feelings. The Chinese Government remains grimly silent, for the Chinese Government has spoken plainly once, and never within the memory of man has it done so on two consecutive occasions. So the eleven Ministers meet once more in anything but a happy frame of mind--eleven sorely tried and wholly fearful persons, except for two or three who vainly try to instill some courage into the others. All idea of completing the packing commenced last night has vanished; even that would demand action and resolution. A proposal to visit the Tsung-li Yamen in a body is set aside with nervous protestations once more. The meeting thereupon became very stormy, and the French Minister was kind enough to report afterwards that the British Minister became thereafter very red--_il est devenu soudainement tres rouge_, for what reason is unknown. S----, who did the minutes afterwards, said that the French Minister volunteered to go with the others if they would proceed in a body, and became very pale at the idea, that he confessed himself. Here we have, then, a red Minister and a white Minister, and if we add those who were most certainly blue and green, the national flags of the entire assembly could be fitly made up. The French Minister, although simply a _citoyen_ sent by the Republic to intrigue in times of peace, and aid his Russian colleague to the best of his ability, is a man withal, although quite unfitted _de carriere_ for wars and sieges. In the French Legation he has been receiving such tearful instructions from his wife during the past three weeks that it is a wonder he has any backbone at all....

The meeting became stormier and stormier as it went on, S---- says, until old C---- argued that the only way to decide was to put everything to the vote. Every vote put was promptly lost, and after an hour's haggling they had got no farther than at the beginning!

The dramatic moment came when Baron Von K---- got up and stated shortly that as he had a previous appointment with the Tsung-li Yamen at eleven o'clock, in spite of the ultimatum and a possible state of war--in fact, in spite of everything--it was his intention to keep his appointment, cost what it might. The others urged him not to go, for they must have been feeling rather ashamed of themselves and their overvalued lives. But K---- insisted he would go; he had said so once, and did not intend to allow the Chinese Government to say he broke an appointment through fear.

S----, who told me the whole story a few hours afterwards, said that he added that as soon as his own personal business was finished, he would attend to the general question of the Legations' departure from Peking, if the diplomatic corps would give him authority. As time was pressing they gave it to him promptly enough. I remember everything that happened afterwards with a very extraordinary accuracy of detail, because I had just walked past the Spanish Legation when the Ministerial meeting broke up, and I had determined to follow any move in person so as to know what our fate was to be.

The German Minister turned into his Legation, and after a time he reappeared in his green and red official chair, with C----, the dragonman, in a similar conveyance. There were only two Chinese outriders with them, as Von K---- had refused to take any of his guards. I remember Von K---- was smoking and leaning his arms on the front bar of his sedan, for all the world as if he were going on a picnic. The little _cortege_ soon turned a corner and was swallowed up. I walked out some distance beyond our barricades with Baron R----, of the Russian Legation, and we wondered how long he would take to come back. We soon knew! How terrible that was! For not more than fifteen minutes passed before, crashing their Manchu riding-sticks terror-stricken on to their ponies' hides, the two outriders appeared alone in a mad gallop and nearly rode us down. Through the barricades they passed, yelling desperately. It was impossible to understand what they were saying, but disaster was written in the air.

At this we started running after these two men, but when we reached the corner of the French Legation the people there had already understood, and said the German Minister had been shot down and was stone-dead. Everybody was paralysed.

Meanwhile the outriders had reached the German Legation and had flung themselves, disordered, from their sweating ponies. The men of the Legation Guard were swarming round them and questioning them roughly when I came up, but there was nothing further to be learned about Von K----. A shot had passed through his chair and he had never moved again, while other shots struck all round. C----, the dragonman, dripping with blood, had run round a corner closely pursued by Chinese riflemen. What happened to him they cannot say, for they, too, would have been shot had they not fled. The tragedy was so simple, but so crushing, that we all stood dazed. Our one man of character and decision was dead--lost beyond recall!

A quarter of an hour after this half the German detachment was marching rapidly down Customs Street, with fixed bayonets and an air of desperation on their harsh Teutonic faces. They were determined to try and at least save the body. I thought of going with them, too, but a moment's thought told me there were other things which were now more pressing. I went and gave some attention to the contents of despatch-boxes which no one else had a right to see....

The detachment reached the scene of the murder led by a trembling outrider. Drops of blood were found on the ground; the Peking dust was scraped this way and that, as if it had only been made an accomplice unwillingly and with a violent struggle too; but the sedan-chairs, the bearers, the murderous soldiers, and every other trace had vanished completely. To question people was impossible, since everyone was keeping closely indoors and barred entrances everywhere met the eye. The Peking streets have become so lonely and deserted that not even a dog allows himself to be entrapped in the open. Later I heard that C---- had escaped, although terribly wounded.

The detachment tramped back stolidly, and would not answer a word when spoken to, for German despair is very gloomy. The remaining Plenipotentiaries at last understood the nature of the game that was being played, and realised that we were down to the naked and crude facts of life and death. Their confounded vacillation has alone brought us to this pass. They do realise it now, and they are made to realise it more and more by the savage looks everyone has been giving them....

The departure for Tientsin half-acquiesced in but fifteen short hours ago is no longer thought of, for what the Ministers propose to do now interests no one. After impotently attempting to deal with questions for which they were in no wise fitted they have resigned themselves to the inevitable, and have become mere pawns like the rest of us. Fortunately the men who are men begin to work with frenzied energy, rushing about collecting food and materials. S----, the first Secretary of the American Legation, began it, and soon stood out with some insistence. He guesses with no one contradicting him that rice is useful, that flour is still more useful, and that every pound we can find in the native shops should be taken. The obvious is often somewhat obscure in times like these, and the men who act are very laudable. There is no denying it that on this 20th the Americans showed more energy than anybody else, and pushed everybody to sending out their carts and bringing in tons upon tons of food. Every shop containing grain was raided, payment being made in some cases and in others postponed to a more propitious moment. The American missionaries concentrated in a fortified missionary compound a couple of miles from us, and the last people to remain outside were hastily sent for, given twenty minutes in which to pack their things, and marched in as quickly as possible by a guard of American marines. There were seventy white men, women and children, and countless herds of native schoolgirls and converts. Their reports were the last we got. Vast crowds of silent people had watched them pass through the eastern Tartar city to our Legation lines without comment or without hostility. Gloomily the Peking crowd must have watched this strange convoy curling its way to a safer place, the missionaries armed in a droll fashion with Remingtons and revolvers, and some of the converts carrying pikes and carving-knives in their hands, for the Peking crowd and Peking itself has been, and is being, terrorised by the Boxers and the Manchu extremists, and is not really allied to them--of that we all are now convinced. But C----, who was so nearly massacred, came in too with the American missionaries. He managed somehow, after he was shot in a deadly place, to half-run and half-crawl until he was picked up and carried into the American missionary compound. From what I heard, he knows nothing more about the death of the German Minister. It was only a few hours ago, and yet it already seems days!

All the non-combatants were now rushed into the British Legation, and to the women and children join themselves dozens of men, whose place should be in the fighting-line, but who have no idea of being there. Lines of carts conveying stores, clothing, trunks and miscellaneous belongings were soon pouring towards the British Legation, and long before nightfall the spacious compounds were so crowded with impedimenta and masses of human beings that one could hardly move there. It was a memorable and an extraordinary sight.

The few Chinese shops that had been until now carrying on business in our Legation quarter in spite of the semi-siege and the barricades in a furtive way, were soon quietly putting up their shutters--not entirely, but what they call three-quarters shut after the custom on their New Year holidays, when they are not supposed to trade, but do trade all the same. The shop-boys, slipping their arms into their long coats and dusting off their trousers and shoes after the Peking manner with their long sleeves, made one feel in a rather laughable sort of way that finality had been reached! They had that curious half-laugh on their faces which signifies an intense nervousness being politely concealed. Up to three o'clock these complaisant shopmen were still selling things at a purely nominal price, which was not entered in the books, but quietly pocketed by them for their own benefit. Having completed my own arrangements, I began idly watching their actions, they were so curious. At three o'clock sharp the last shutters went up, the last shopman pasted a diamond-shaped Fu, or Happiness, of red paper over the wooden bars, and vanished silently and mysteriously. It was for all the world once again exactly like the telegraph-operator in "Michael Strogoff," when the Tartars smash in the front doors of his office and seize the person of the hero, while the clerk coolly takes up his hat and disappears through a back door. These Chinese had done business in the very same way, until the very last moment--the very last.

And not only are the few shopmen slipping away, but also numbers of others within our lines who had been half-imprisoned during the past week by our barricades and incessant patrolling. Men, women, and children, each with a single blue-cloth bundle tied across their backs containing a few belongings, slip away; gliding, as it were, rapidly across the open spaces where a shot could reach them, and scuttling down mysterious back alleys and holes in the walls, the existence of which has been unknown to most of us. This time the rats are leaving the sinking ship quietly and silently, for a quiet word passed round had informed everyone of what is coming, and no one wishes to be caught. This is the sort of silent play I love to watch.

Just before this, however, down beyond the Austrian Legation came a flourish of hoarse-throated trumpets--those wonderful Chinese trumpets. Blare, blare, in a half-chorus they first hang on a high note; then suddenly tumbling an octave, they roar a bassoon-like challenge in unison like a lot of enraged bulls. Nearer and nearer, as if challenging us with these hoarse sounds, came a large body of soldiery; we could distinctly see the bright cluster of banners round the squadron commander. Pushing through the clouds of dust which floated high above them, the horses and their riders appeared and skirted the edge of our square. We noted the colour of their tunics and the blackness of the turbans. Two horsemen who dismounted for some reason, swung themselves rapidly into their saddles, carbine in hand, and galloped madly to rejoin their comrades in a very significant way. For a moment they half turned and waved their Mannlichers at us, showing their breast-circle of characters. They were the soldiers of savage Tung Fu-hsiang, and were going west--that is, into the Imperial city. The manner in which they so coolly rode past fifty yards away must have frightened some one, for when I passed here an hour later the Austrian Legation and its street defences had been suddenly abandoned by our men. We had surrendered, without striking a blow, a quarter of our ground! I remember that I was only mildly interested at this; everything was so _bouleverse_ and curious that a little more could not matter. It was like in a dream. Tramping back, the Austrian sailors crowded into the French Legation and all round their lines and threw themselves down. One man was so drunk from lack of sleep that he tumbled on the ground and could not be made to move again. Everybody kicked him, but he was dead-finished and could be counted out. This was beginning our warfare cheerfully.