man and told him to go away, I could not drive him from
me. He wanted to talk and he had found some one who had to listen.
Indeed, he clung to me all the way home, as if he had been at length
frightened by his own stories and by his imagination. Steadily he
became more and more curious. He watched me eat, he watched me drink,
but he would take nothing himself. He wanted to go out again. He must
have movement, he said, and he insisted on riding to Monseigneur
F----'s Pei-t'ang Cathedral. He had not been there yet, and a
curiosity suddenly seized him to see the place where others had
suffered in the same way as ourselves. That reminded me, too, that
everybody had almost forgotten about this Roman Catholic cathedral,
forgotten completely because they were now at their ease. It had been
two whole days before troops were even sent there to see that all was
well, and even these only went because a priest had been killed half
way between the Legations and the Cathedral. I decided to go, too. It
was almost a duty to make this pilgrimage. So we quickly left again.

For a few minutes after leaving the occupied area we threaded streets
with men from the relief columns in full view, but soon enough we
found ourselves in treacherous roadways, all littered with the ruins
and the inexpressible confusion which come of desultory
street-fighting spread over long weeks. To me this was a new
quarter--one which I had not been near since the month of May, and
soon it was equally clear that it was still a very evil place. Only
yesterday men who had broken away from the French corps were found
here, some dead and some horribly mutilated. Yet in spite of this the
same signs of mock friendliness greeted our eyes on every side--those
fluttering little flags of all nations, so rudely made from whatever
cloth had been handy. Every building displayed some flag--every single
one; but there now were other signs, too--signs which showed that all
this quarter had been picked so clean that it was of no more value to
marauders. Little notices, some in French, some in English, and a few
in other tongues, were scratched on the walls or written on dirty
scraps of paper and nailed up. Half in jest and half in earnest, these
curious notices said all manner of things. For the wretched people who
had been plundered or otherwise ill used had already fallen into the
habit of asking from the soldiery for some scrap of writing which
would prove that they had contrib