mpleted 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.