d me; the bamboo was dropped, the arm disappeared. I
had drawn blood.

Nothing now occurred for a quarter of an hour, and I heard not a
sound. Then suddenly half a dozen arms clasping bamboos appeared at
different points, and as soon as I had fired six heads swooped out and
directed this bamboo fishing. In a trice they had harpooned the flag,
and before I could fire again it was back in their camp. I had been
beaten! Then, as a revenge, I was steadily pelted with lead for more
than half an hour and had to lie very low. They searched for me with
their missiles with devilish ingenuity. This firing became so
persistent that one of our patrols at last appeared and crept forward
to me from the line of main works behind. Only by ingenious lying did
I escape from being reported....

Probably incidents like this account for the outpost duels which are
hourly proceeding, in spite of all the Tsung-li Yamen despatches and
the unending mutual assurances. Many of our men shoot immediately they
see a Chinese rifle or a Chinese head in the hopes of adding another
scalp to their tale. In any case, this does no harm. It seems to me
that only the resolution of the outposts, acting independently, and
sometimes even in defiance to orders from headquarters, has kept the
enemy so long at bay. The rifle distrusts diplomacy.

This diplomatic correspondence with the Yamen is rapidly accumulating.
Many documents are now coming through from European Foreign Offices in
the form of cipher telegrams, that are copied out by the native
telegraphists in the usual way. No one is being told what is in these
documents; we can only guess. The Yamen covers each message with a
formal despatch in Chinese, generally begging the Ministers to commit
themselves to the care of the government. They now even propose that
everyone should be escorted to Tientsin--at once. And yet we have
learned from copies of the _Peking Gazette_ that two members of the
Yamen were executed exactly seven days ago for recommending a mild
policy and making an immediate end of the Boxer _regime_. It is thus
impossible to see how it will end. Our fate must ultimately be decided
by a number of factors, concerning which we know nothing.

This breathing space is giving time, however, which is not being
entirely wasted on our part. At several points we have managed to
enter into secret relations with some of the Chinese commands, and to
induce traitors to begin a secret traffic in ammunit