w light screams and a little scuffle of
feet which died away rapidly. Women....

We caught a disappearing vision of brilliantly coloured silks and
satins and rouged faces passing away through some doors, and then
before we had satisfied our eyes, several flabby-faced men suddenly
came out and called imperatively to us to stop and go away. We could
not go farther, they said.

The two men of the Russian army, with the instinct of discipline which
we lacked, halted as if orders were being disobeyed, and looked at
K---- for inspiration. K---- stroked his thin moustaches, and put his
head a little on one side, as if he were debating what to say. I--well
since I had nothing to lose, and it did not really matter, I went
forward without any delay, asking our interlocutors roughly what they
meant and what they were doing here, and telling them, too, that we
were going on. I knew that they were sexless eunuchs, who would
stammer as I had heard them stammer in the old days when I had seen
them trafficking things they had been donated by officials desirous of
cultivating their friendship, in the mysterious curio shops beyond the
great Ch'ien Men Gate. Nor was I wrong. Stammering, they replied by
asking how it was that orders had been broken. Stammering, they said
that all the great generals had promised that the inner Palaces were
to be kept immune; now men were for ever climbing in, and others were
coming openly as we were doing. What did we wish?

I am afraid I was rude, for questions in these times do not sit well
on such folk, and I told them more roughly than ever to go quickly
away, or else we would hurt them. Perhaps we would even hurt them
badly I insinuated, fingering my revolver, for we had a duty to do. We
were going to inspect the entire Palace and see that all was well. And
before these men had recovered from their surprise we had pushed right
into the Empress Dowager's own ante-chambers.

I saw, as I walked in, that a long avenue in the distance led directly
to a high yellow-walled enclosure. That must be the Imperial seraglio,
where the hundreds of young Manchu women provided by tradition for the
amusement of the Emperor were imprisoned for life. In the haste of the
Court's flight, the majority of them had been abandoned, and only the
most valuable taken off. Everybody had heard of that.

Gently discoursing to the disturbed eunuchs, we went through room
after room, which even on the hot autumn day seemed cool an