and ridden rapidly
away, saying that the women would be spared by the foreign soldiery,
but that probably every man of rank would be killed. No one had
molested them so far, because this house lay so close to the foreign
troops, but with so many armed men on the streets, and with the
pillaging and the murder that was going on, they did not know how long
they would be spared. They told me this quickly in gasps. I paused in
doubt to know what to answer; it was everyone for himself, and the
devil not even looking after the hindmost, as I have just said. But
women.... I must propose something.

They saw my hesitation, and women-like, renewed their pleading in
chorus. I noticed, also, that two or three of the older ones grouped
themselves close together, and, putting down their heads, began
rapidly discussing in loud whispers, which showed their trepidation.
Then they called a tall, splendidly built woman, and, telling her
something in an undertone, pushed her forward towards me. Unabashed,
she advanced on me with a firm step, and laying a white-skinned
hand--for the Manchus can be very white--on my arm, she begged me to
stop here myself--to make this my house for the time being--to do as I
pleased with all of them.... After all those weeks of privation, that
constant rifle-fire, that stench of earth-soiled men, this woman so
close seemed strange.... I answered, in greater confusion, that I
could not yet say whether it was possible for me to stay so far away;
that there might be trouble; that I would see and let them know before
the night was far advanced....

Not wholly satisfied and half doubting, they let me draw off with
their pleadings renewed. Then, as I thought something might happen
before I could let them know, I gave them two rifles from the store we
had collected, and telling them to bar and bolt their gate, showed
them how a shot or two would probably drive off an attack. We
clattered on and lost them in the gloom....

It was almost dark as we re-entered the ruined Legation lines and
picked our way slowly though the _debris_ which still stood stacked on
the streets. Fatigue parties of many corps were finishing their work
of attempting to restore some order and cleanliness, and clouds of
murky dust hung heavily in the air. All round these narrow streets
there was an atmosphere of exhaustion and disorder, crushed on top of
one another, which oppressed one so much after the open streets, that
an immense nostalgi