strain of weeks had not played us false.

XXX

HOW I SAW THE RELIEF

14th August, 1900.

* * * * *

Day broke, after that tremendous night, in a somewhat shambling and
odd fashion. Exhausted by so much vigilance and such a strain, we
merely posted a scattered line of picquets and threw ourselves on the
ground. It was then nearly five o'clock, and with the growing light
everything seemed unreal and untrue. There was not a sound around us;
there was going to be no relief, and we had been only dreaming horrid
dreams--that was the verdict of our eyes and looks. There was but
scant time, however, for thinking, even if one could have thought with
any sense or logic. The skies were blushing rosier and rosier; a
solitary crow, that had lived through all that storm, came from
somewhere and began calling hoarsely to its lost mates. We were dead
with sleep; we would sleep, or else....

I awoke at eleven in the morning sick as a beaten dog. The sun beating
hotly down, and a fierce ray had found its way through the branches of
my protecting tree and had been burning the back of my neck. The
Eastern sun is a brute; when it strikes you long in a tender spot, it
can make you sicker than anything I know of. Arousing ourselves, we
got up all of us gruntingly; reposted the sentries; drank some black
tea; made a faint pretence at washing; and finding all dead quiet and
not a trace of the enemy, sauntered off for news. Not a word
anywhere, not a sound, not a message. Everybody was standing about in
uneasy groups, from the French and German lines to the northern
outposts of the British Legation. Where the devil were our relieving
columns?

From the Tartar Wall we scanned the horizon with our glasses. Not a
soul afoot--nothing. Was all the world still asleep, tired from the
night's debauch, or was it merely the end of everything? As time went
on, and the silence around us was uninterrupted, we became more and
more nervous. In place of the storm of fire which had been raging for
so many hours this unbroken calm was terrible; for far worse than all
the tortures in the world is the one of a solitary silent confinement.

At one o'clock I could stand it no longer. Getting leave to take out a
skirmishing party, I called for volunteer and got six men and two
Chinese scouts. At half-past one we slid over the Eastern Su wang-fu
barricades--near where the messengers are sent from--and scurried
forward