s
it was evidently the only thing to be done; they were going to set
fire! Before there was time to protest, the Cossacks had piled their
fuel against an angle of the gate-house, just where they could not be
shot at, and with a puff the whole thing was soon ablaze. The
scattered groups of native rapscallions on the street, when they saw
what had been done, gave a subdued howl of despair, and cried aloud
that the whole block of buildings would catch fire, and that
everything in them would be destroyed. These confident looters had
already imagined that the pawn-shop was theirs to dispose of--after
the honourable foreign soldiery had had their fill!

The Cossacks, however, were men of many ideas, and paid not the
slightest attention to all this tumult beyond striking two or three of
the nearest men. They watched the blaze with cunning little eyes, and
as the short flames shot across the gate, driven by the wind, and
raised blinding clouds of smoke, one of them said it was all right and
that we would be soon inside. On the roofs the French soldiers and
their companions lay silently watching in amazement the antics of the
two dismounted horsemen, and from the shouts and curses which now came
from the pawn-shop compound itself, it was plain that this method of
attack would be productive of some result. It was becoming more and
more interesting.

My attention was distracted for an instant by seeing one of the
Cossacks climb up beside two French soldiers and explain to them
gravely, with a violent pantomime of his hands, what they should do in
a moment or two. When I turned, it was to find that the second had
driven with boot-kicks and some swinging blows from his loaded carbine
a number of the street people towards some of those long poles which
can always be found stacked on the Peking main streets. My own men,
understanding now what was to be done, ran forward, too, to help, and
in the twinkling of an eye two long poles had been borne forward and
laid in position across the highway. In spite of all modern progress,
much the same ways of attack have still to be adopted in siege work.
Then, with some further pantomine explaining how it would be
impossible to see or hurt them under cover of that smoke, the Cossacks
induced the crowd to raise the poles again. This time everybody's
blood was up, and, urging one another on with short staccato shouts,
dozens of willing men, stripped to the waist, jumped forward, and the
timbers