ement in
the air, which might mean the rattle of musketry. Sometimes we could
hear that faint suggestion of sound, sometimes we could not; it was
impossible to say what it was.

Running gives Dutch courage, so we dropped from our wall, and we, too,
began running--towards the deserters. Most foolish scouts were we
becoming. The first band of fugitives saw us and bolted to the north,
one man loosing off his rifle at us as he ran, and his bullet making
an ugly swish in the air just above our heads. It was that Chinese
hip-shot which is practised with jingal and matchlock in the native
hunting, and which these Northern Chinese can with difficulty unlearn.
As that swish reached us we pressed forward even more eagerly, and
soon had debouched once more on the long Customs Street--this time
many hundreds of yards higher up than we had ever been before.
Flattening ourselves on the ground, and barricading our heads with
bricks, we waited in silence for more of the enemy to appear. We were
now admirably and safely posted.

It was some time before any more of them were to be seen, but at last,
in twos and threes, other soldiers appeared, running hurriedly, and
looking quickly about them, as if they expected to be shot down. This
time they were men of many corps, whose uniforms we could almost make
out at this short distance, and as they ran many of them threw off
their tunics and loosened their leggings. This meant open and flagrant
desertion. Just as I was about to give the order to fire a volley, a
dense mass of men, in close formation, came out of a great building
leaning up against the pink Palace walls and started marching rapidly
towards us. Then as soon as they reached a cross-road five hundred
yards away, they bent quickly due north and disappeared in a cloud of
dust. What did this fleeing to the north of the city and this ominous
quiet mean? What in the name of all that is extraordinary was
happening to cause these strange doings?

There was little time for reflection, however, for like some theatre
of the gods new scenes began to unroll. Soon other bodies of troops
appeared and disappeared, always heading away there towards the north,
always marching rapidly with hurried looks cast around them. Now safe
in the knowledge that a general retreat was taking place from this
quarter, we started volleying savagely. Bunched together in twos and
threes, the enemy offered an easy mark, and with a callousness born of
long privat