ion and food
supplies....

It is curious how it is done. By tunnelling through walls and houses
in neglected corners, protected ways have been made into some of the
nests of half-ruined native houses. And by spending many bags of
dollars, friendship has first been bought and then supplies.

The Japanese have been the most successful. Instead of killing the
soldier-spy, who had been selling them false news, they pardoned him
and enlisted him in this new cause. He has been very useful, and
arranged matters with the enemy....

The other night I crept out through the secret way to the Japanese
supply house to see how it was done. There were only two little
Japanese in there squatting on the ground, with several revolvers
lying ready. A shaded candle just allowed you to distinguish the torn
roof, the wrecked wooden furniture. Nobody spoke a word, and we all
listened intently.

A full hour must have passed before a very faint noise was heard, and
then I caught a discreet scratching. It was the signal. One of the
little men got up and crawled forward to the door like a dog on his
hands and knees. Then I heard a revolver click--a short pause, and the
noise of a door being opened. Then there was a tap--tap--tap, like the
Morse code being quietly played, and the revolver clicked down again.
It was the right man. He, too, crawled in like a dog; got up
painfully, as if he were very stiff, and silently began unloading.
Then I understood why he was so stiff; he was loaded from top to
bottom with cartridges.

It took a quarter of an hour for everything to be taken out and
stacked on the floor. He had carried in close on six hundred rounds of
Mauser ammunition, and for every hundred he received the same weight
in silver. This man was a military cook, who crept round and robbed
his comrades as they lay asleep, not a hundred yards from here. Of
course, he will be discovered one day and torn to pieces, but I have
just learned that by marvellous ingenuity and with the aid of a few of
his fellows thousands of eggs have been brought in by him. It is a
curious business, and adds yet another strange element to this
strangest of lives.

XXIV

DIPLOMATIC CONFIDENCES

6th August, 1900.

* * * * *

Firing has been more persistent and more general during the last two
days, although the armistice ostensibly still continues in the same
way as before. A number of our men have been wounded, and two