th the precious Maxim gun,
enveloped in its coat of canvas, in his arms as if it were a baby.
"They're on us this time," he called out; then came a terrific explosion
and a crash of some projectile against the outer walls and doors. The
shell had fallen about 40 feet short of the convent, on the edge of the
deserted garden. Many explanations were given to account for this shot,
none of which seemed to me to be very lucid, and I secretly determined
to clear out as soon as the doctor would permit. The very next day we
had the narrowest escape of our lives that it is possible to imagine.
There had been very little shelling, and I had taken my first outing in
the shape of a rickshaw drive during the afternoon. The sun was
setting, and our little supper-table was already laid at the end of the
corridor into which our rooms opened, close to the window beside which
we used to sit. Major Gould Adams had just dropped in, as he often did,
to pay a little visit before going off to his night duties as Commandant
of the Town Guard, and our repast was in consequence delayed--a
circumstance which certainly helped to save our lives. We were chatting
peacefully, when suddenly I recollect hearing the big gun's well-known
report, and was just going to remark, "How near that sounds!" when a
terrifying din immediately above our heads stopped all power of
conversation, or even of thought, and the next instant I was aware that
masses of falling brick and masonry were pushing me out of my chair, and
that heavy substances were falling on my head; then all was darkness and
suffocating dust. I remember distinctly putting my hands clasped above
my head to shelter it, and then my feeling of relief when, in another
instant or two, the bricks ceased to fall. The intense stillness of my
companions next dawned upon me, and a sickening dread supervened, that
one of them must surely be killed. Major Gould Adams was the first to
call out that he was all right; the other had been so suffocated by
gravel and brickdust that it was several moments before he could speak.
In a few minutes dusty forms and terrified faces appeared through the
gloom, as dense as the thickest London yellow fog, expecting to find
three mutilated corpses. Imagine their amazement at seeing three human
beings, in colour more like Red Indians than any other species, emerge
from the ruins and try to shake themselves free from the all-pervading
dust. The great thing was to get out of the pl