ess we made very ready, for surely a
sharp revenge attack would come as soon as it was dark. So grimly we
set to work, with a return of-our old fighting feelings, and rapidly
fortified the main gate against all cavalry raids. We dug a broad moat
behind the gate, and threw up a respectable barricade with the earth
we had gained. Then we brought some timbers and built them in on top
with the aid of bricks and stones, so as to have a line of loopholes
converging on the entrance. We trained some of the many rifles we had
picked up in the same direction, and strapped them into position, just
as the Chinese commands had done all along their barricades during the
siege. In this way we made it so that in a few seconds a dozen of the
enemy could be brought to the ground without the defending force
showing a finger. That would be enough for any Cossacks....

Before midday we had added a couple of lookout posts to the roofs, and
then, secure in this new-found strength, I determined to go abroad
once more to collect supplies and food. That decision was materially
helped by an incident which showed that everyone was acting and that
it was the only way. As we cautiously opened our main gate and
prepared to sally out, a cart came by, accompanied by several men from
the Legations on horseback, who were much excited. Well might they be;
they had two of their number inside that cart, both shot and bleeding
badly from flesh wounds. They had been right to the east of the city,
they reported, where the Russians and Japanese had come in. It was
terrible there, they said. Nothing but dead people and fires and
looting. Chinese soldiers had still remained there in hiding and were
defending some of the bigger buildings belonging to Manchu princes.
Plunderers, also, were everywhere on the road. They advised caution
and told us not to trust ourselves in the alleyways. They had been
caught like that, and their servants and horse-boys had deserted in a
body four miles away immediately fire was opened on them from some
fortified house. That made me all the more determined. I would go and
be shot, too, if necessary, since it was the order of the day, but I
made up my mind that it would be no easy job to catch me sleeping.
Already I understood fully the new methods and the new requirements.

We rode away, stirrup to stirrup, I, a single white man, with a dozen
doubtful adherents, made savage at the idea of loot, as companions,
and held to me only by a