e beginning. Yesterday, also, the new Mongol market defences
trembled on the brink hour after hour, and with them the fate of three
thousand heads. New Chinese troops armed with Mannlicher carbines, the
handiest weapons for barricade fighting, had been pushed up behind a
veil of light entrenchments to within twenty feet of the Mongol market
posts, and their fire was so tremendous that it drove right through
our bricks and sandbags. God willed that just as the final rush was
coming a Chinese barricade gave way; our men emptied their magazines
with the rapidity of despair into the swarms of Chinese riflemen
disclosed; dozens of them fell killed and wounded, and the rest were
driven back in disorder. Ten seconds more would have made them masters
of our positions. The closeness of this final agony was such that
squads of reserves, who had not fired a shot during the siege,
voluntarily went forward to the threatened points and lay there the
whole night. At last it has been driven home on all that our fate
hangs in the balance, and has hung in the balance for weeks. But it is
too late now. If a single link in our chain is broken there will be a
_sauve qui pent_ which no heroism can stop.

XXIX

THE NIGHT OF THE THIRTEENTH

14th August, 1900.

* * * * *

All yesterday the fire hardly diminished in violence, and more and
more of our men were hit.... The Chinese commanders, having learned of
the loss of a Chinese general and a great number of his men at the
Mongol market, have been having their revenge by giving us not a
minute's rest. Up to six o'clock yesterday evening I had been
continually on duty for forty-eight hours, with a few minutes' sleep
during the lulls. At six in the evening I stretched out. At half-past
eight the pandemonium had risen to such a pitch that sleep without
opiates was impossible. All round our lines roared and barked Mausers,
Mannlichers, jingals, and Tower muskets, every gun that could be
brought to bear on us firing as fast and as fiercely as possible in a
last wild effort. The sound was so immense, so terrifying, that many
could hardly breathe. Against the barricades, through half-blocked
loopholes, and on to the very ground, myriads of projectiles beat
their way, hissing and crashing, ricochetting and slashing, until it
seemed impossible any living thing could exist in such a storm.

It was the night of the 13th. Not a word had been heard of the relief