rs that we had been _trahis_, in order to
make them swear louder. I know that it was becoming funny, because it
was so absurd when ... bang-ping, bang-ping, came three or four
scattered shots from far down the street beyond the Austrian Legation.
It was just where Tung Fu-hsiang's men had passed. That stopped us
talking, and as I took a wad of waste out of the end of my rifle I
looked at my watch--3.49 exactly, or eleven minutes too soon. I ran
forward, pushing home the top cartridge on my clip, but I was too
late. "_A quatre-cents metres_," L----, the French commander, called,
and then a volley was loosed off down that long dusty street--our
first volley of the siege.

Our barricades were full of men here, and it was no use trying to push
in. I postponed my own shooting, for after a brisk fusillade here,
urgent summons came from other quarters, and I had to rush away....
The siege had begun in earnest. I record these things just as they
seemed to happen. We are so tired, my account cannot seem very
sensible. Yet it is the truth.

PART II--THE SIEGE

I

CHAOS

21st June, 1900.

* * * * *

I passed the night in half a dozen different places, assimilating all
there was to assimilate; gazing and noting the thousand things there
were to be seen and heard, and sleeping exactly three hours. Few
people would believe the extraordinary condition to which twelve hours
of chaos can reduce a large number of civilised people who have been
forced into an unnatural life. It is indeed extraordinary. Half the
Legations are abandoned, excepting for a few sailors; others are being
evacuated, and most people have even none of the necessities of life
with them. For instance, at eight o'clock I discovered that I had had
no breakfast, and on finding that it would be impossible for me to get
any for some hours, I forthwith became so ravenously hungry that I
determined I would steal some if necessary. What a position for a
budding diplomatist!

Fortunately I thought of the Hotel de Pekin before I had done anything
startling, and soon C----, the genial and energetic Swiss, who is the
master of this wonderful hostelry, had given me coffee. He told me
then to go into his private rooms, ransack the place and take what I
liked. I found I was not alone in his private apartments. Baron
R----, the Russian commandant, had just come in before me, and had
fallen asleep from sheer fatigue as he was in the