cided to go out himself and kill them all.... He told me the
story. He crept out two days ago as soon as he had seen them go in,
and, posting himself at the entrance, called on the men to come out,
else he would block them in and kill them in the most miserable way he
could think of. They came out, crawling on their hands and knees, and
as each man slipped up to the level he was bayonetted.... in the end
thirteen were killed like this. Three remained, but D----'s strength
was not equal to it, and he had to drive them in as captives. Then
they were despatched and beheaded. They say the French sailors slung
back those heads far over into the advanced Chinese barricades with
taunts and shouts. That stopped all work for a few hours. But it was
not for long enough.

Yesterday, the 13th, the Chinese had their revenge for the loss of the
hundred odd men who have been shot or bayonetted along this front
during the past week. At six in the evening, when the rifle-fire all
along the line had become stilled, a tremendous explosion shook every
quarter of our besieged area and made everyone tremble with
apprehension. Even in the most northerly part of our defences--the
Hanlin posts beyond the British Legation, which are probably three or
four thousand feet away--the men said it was like an earthquake. In
the French lines it seemed as if the end of the world had come. The
Chinese, having successfully sapped right under one of the remaining
fortified houses, had blown it up with a huge charge of black
gunpowder. D----, the French commander, R----, the Austrian _Charge
d'Affaires,_ the same indomitable volunteer D----, and a picket of
four French sailors were in the house, and were buried in the ruins.
Hardly had the echoes of the first explosion died away, when a second
one blew up another house, and out of the ruins were lifted, as if the
powers of darkness had taken pity on them all, the defenders who had
been buried alive, excepting two. Never has such a thing been heard of
before. Providence is plainly helping us. The wretched men thus
cruelly treated were all the colour of death and bleeding badly when
they were dragged out. The two missing French sailors must have been
crushed into fragments. Only a foot has been found....

That was afterwards; for the mine explosions were the signals for a
terrible bombardment and rifle-fire all along the line, from which we
have not yet recovered. The French, more than a little shaken, were