into the contested territory beyond. Working cautiously in a
long line, we beat the ground thoroughly; approached the enemy's
flanking barricades; peered over in some trepidation, and found the
Chinese riflemen gone. Every soul had fled. Something had most
certainly happened somewhere. This quiet was becoming more and more
eloquent....

We abandoned our cover, and boldly taking to the brick-littered
street, climbed over fortifications which had shut us in for so long.
Not a sound or a living thing. On the ground, however, there were many
grim evidences of the struggle which had been so long proceeding.
Skulls picked clean by crows and dogs and the dead bodies of the
scavenger-dogs themselves dotted the ground; in other places were
pathetic wisps of pigtails half covered with rubbish, broken rifles,
rusted swords, heaps of brass cartridges--all proclaiming the
bitterness with which the warfare had been waged in this small corner
alone. Eagerly gazing about us, we slowly pushed on, drinking in all
these details with eager eyes. How sweet it is to be an escaped
prisoner even for a few short minutes!

In a quarter of an hour we had cleared the ground intervening between
our defences and the long-abandoned Customs Street--perhaps a couple
of hundred yards; and peering about us, we at last jumped over the
French barricade, where our first man had been shot dead two months
ago. Two months--it might have been two years! Still there was not a
sound. Nothing but acres of ruins. Forward.

Splitting into two sections, we began working down Customs Street
towards the Austrian Legation, tightly hugging the walls and expecting
a surprise every moment. Suddenly, as we were going along in this
cautious manner, a tall, gaunt Chinaman started up only twenty feet
from us, where he had been lying buried in the ruins. Our rifles went
up with a leap, and "Master," cried the man, running towards me with
outstretched arms, "master, save me; I am a carter of the foreign
Legations, and have only just escaped." He pulled up his blue tunic,
this strange apparition, and showed me underneath his scapula. He was
of Roman Catholic family; there was no time to investigate; he was all
right. Telling him to join us, we marched on. We progressed another
fifty yards, and then there was a scuffle. I looked round, and our
Catholic had disappeared. Were we trapped? Just as I was calling out,
he reappeared; this time he was bearing a rifle and a bandolier. T