olours of the rainbow, and worth anything on the European
markets--what did that mean to them!

The convoy at last bumped away, leaving merely a long trail of dust
behind it and those fragments on the ground, and C---- became silent
and then left me suddenly. Perhaps the idea had finally entered his
respectable British head that we had become grotesque and out of
date, and that we should retreat and make room for other men. Nobody
cares for anybody else. Only a few hours before a reliable story had
been going the rounds that some Indian infantry had opened fire on a
Russian detachment in the country just beyond the Chinese city,
pleading that it was a mistake. How could it have been? There is only
one really sensible thing to do, and now it is too late to do that; to
set fire to the whole city and then retreat, as Napoleon did from
Moscow. The road to the sea is too short and the winter too far off
for any harm to come.

The first cables have at length come through in batches from Europe,
by way of the field telegraphs, which are now working smoothly and
well. Everybody of importance is being transferred, but it is
impossible to find out where they are all going. All the Ministers now
pretend that they had asked for transfers before the siege actually
began, and that they will be heartily glad to go away and forget that
such a horrible place as Peking exists. Yet from the nervousness of
those who have been told to report for orders in Europe, it cannot be
all joy.

VI

THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT

August, 1900.

* * * * *

Fortunately my friend K----, of the Russian Legation, rescued me at a
moment when I was prepared only to moralise on this infernal
situation, and to see nothing but evil in everything both around me
and in myself. I like to put it all down to the strange stupor and
lack of energy which have settled down on everything like a blight,
but I believe, also, that there must be a little bit of remorse at the
bottom of my feelings. K---- came in gaily enough, pretending that he
was looking for a breakfast and had learned of my retreat by mere
chance as he rode by. He had heard, I believe, as a matter of fact,
that there were a number of women on the premises, and that I was
living _en prince_. Perhaps, he had a number of reasons for coming.
From what he told me, however, it soon appeared that he had known
L----, the commander of the Russian columns, for many years, and