front of me were those just without a most
beautiful marble courtyard. That I knew from the rude Chinese maps of
the Forbidden City which are everywhere sold; if this boundary were
passed the Imperial Palaces, with all their treasures, would be
reached. I thought, with my mouth watering a little, although I had no
actual desire for riches, of General Montauban, created Comte de
Palikao, because in the 1860 expedition, when the famous Summer Palace
was so ruthlessly sacked, he had taken all the most splendid black
pearls he could find and had carried them back to the Empress Eugenie
as a little offering. If one could only get past this boundary and the
protocol had not stepped in!

Moved a little by such thoughts, I advanced on the central gate, and
peered through a chink near which an infantryman was standing alert,
rifle in hand. There were the marble courtyards, the beautiful yellow
decorated roofs. I could see them clearly, and then ... a rifle from
the other side was discharged almost in my ear; a bullet hissed past a
few inches from my head, too; and I had a flitting vision of a Chinese
soldier in the sky-blue tunic of the Palace Guards darting back on the
other side. There must still be numbers of soldiery waiting sullenly
beyond for the expected advance; they would only fall back in rapid
flight as our men rushed in, just as they had been doing from the
beginning. I discharged my own revolver rather aimlessly through the
chink in the hope that something would happen, but all became quiet
again. Everything was finished here.

But although the advance down this grand approach to the inner halls
and Palaces had been stayed, nothing had been said about piercing
through the great outer enclosures to the right and left; and,
catching my pony, I rode round a corner where a broad avenue led to
another set of entrances. Perhaps here would be something. All along I
found a sprinkling of American infantrymen, in their sweaty and
dust-covered khaki suits, lying down and fanning themselves with
anything that came handy, and sending rude jests at one another.
Old-fashioned Chinese jingals, gaudy Banners, and even Manchu
long-bows, were scattered on the ground in enormous confusion. The
Palace Guards belonging to the old Manchu levies had evidently been
surprised here by the advance of the main body of American troops
through the Dynastic Gate, and had fled panic-stricken, abandoning
their antiquated arms and accoutrements as