his
was disconcerting. "I saw the man," he began calmly, "and with my
hands I killed him by pulling on the throat--thus." He made a horrid
pantomime with his hands. Behind a wall we found the red and black
tunic of a Chinese soldier, the sash and the boots, but of a corpse
there was no sign. I was glad I understood. "What do you mean by
deceiving me?" I sternly asked the carter. "These are yours, and it
was you who were fighting against us." The man fell on his knees, and
confessed then and there without subterfuge. He had been captured, he
said and imprisoned weeks ago by a Chinese commander, who had
threatened to break the bones of his legs unless he enlisted against
us. So he had joined and had been fighting for a month. Last night, as
soon as the big guns had been heard, he deserted, and had lain where
we found him for fifteen hours, waiting for our advances, and may his
legs be broken if he lied. I paused in doubt for a minute; then I made
up my mind--we let him follow! The odds were in any case against him.

As we moved stealthily forward we came on more and more
fortifications. A formidable blockhouse had been constructed by
dragging out big steel safes, looted from the various European offices
in this abandoned area, and building them into a thick half-moon of
stone and brick, making a shell-proof defence. On the ground brass
cartridge-cases and broken straps and weapons were littered more and
more thickly, but of any sign of life there was absolutely none.
Absolute stillness reigned around us. We might have been in a city
abandoned for dozens of years....

Past this blockhouse we crept more and more cautiously, beating the
ground thoroughly, and wasting many minutes to make sure that no
riflemen lurked in the ruins which covered the ground. Our new recruit
had shown us how easily we could be trapped. Loopholes squinted at us
from countless low-lying barricades roughly made by heaping bricks and
charred timbers together. They had feared our sorties evidently as
much as we had their rushes, had these Chinese soldiers. Their
fortified lines were hundreds of feet deep.

We were now down near the abandoned Austrian Legation, and, rapidly
trotting forward in Indian file under cover of the high encircling
wall, we at last reached the main entrance. This was debatable ground.
I looked round the corner with one cautious eye, and even as I did so,
a shadow rushed along the ground.... Instantly I snapped off my rifle