all from our own
people....

We rapidly covered the ground until we reached the extreme eastern
corner of the vast enclosing Legation wall. Very recently there had
been some one just here for a fire was still smouldering on the
ground, and in some earthenware bowls there was some cold rice. We
must see what was beyond....

The big recruit lent me his broad shoulder, and with some struggling I
caught the edge of an outhouse roof and hitched myself astride of the
main wall. Still nothing to be seen except ruined and battered houses;
again not a soul, not a dog, not a vestige of life. The others came
up, too, and we rapidly improvised a ladder to get down the other side
and back again if necessary.

We were busily at work completing these preparations when suddenly the
big recruit grabbed me unceremoniously by the shoulder and uttered a
single word in a hoarse tone of excitement. "Look," he said; "look!" I
looked, and far down the street below us towards where lay the Palace
and the Imperial city, I saw a figure rapidly moving. A pair of
binoculars were pulled out and brought to bear. It was a Chinese
soldier!

We flattened ourselves on the top of the wall like so many crawling
snails, pushed out our rifles in front of us, and at four hundred
yards we most foolishly opened on the man. By instinct and experience,
we had all learned much in two months; yet in a moment of excitement
everything was being rapidly unlearned....

It takes some shooting to get home on a flickering figure, dodging
along a street with irregular lines, at that range, and I confess we
drew no blood. But still loophole shooting must spoil open-air work,
otherwise at that range.... The man had paused irresolutely as the
stream of bullets had hissed past him, and had then run violently into
a doorway. Presently, as we intently watched, his head emerged, then
his whole body; and, finally dodging quickly in and out, he gained a
cross-road and disappeared. What did this mean?

It did not take long to learn, for just as we had finished swearing at
our ill luck, other figures began to appear in the same direction, and
as they ran we could see that they were throwing down their things. It
seemed plain now; these must be deserters slipping out of the Imperial
city and the Palace enclosures and fleeing rapidly to escape some
fate. Something must have certainly happened somewhere, although there
was still nothing to be heard, except perhaps a distant mov