who has not been a prisoner in a siege can ever experience. In the
morning sweet-throated cavalry trumpets sounded a reveille, which
floated over hill and dale so chastely and calmly that one wished they
might never stop. How those notes floated and trembled in the air, as
grey daylight was gently stealing up, and how good the brown earth
smelt! I almost forget the other kind of trumpet--that cruel Chinese
trumpet which only shrieks and roars.

Each day we rode farther and farther away, and higher and higher,
beating the ground and examining the villages, from which whole
populations had fled, to see that no enemy was secretly lurking.
Travelling in this wise, and presently climbing ever higher and
higher, we came at last to little mountain burgs, with great thick
outer walls and tall watch-towers, where in olden days the marauders
from the Mongolian plains were held in check until help could be
summoned from the country below. It was a wonderful experience to
travel along unaccustomed paths and to come on endless ruined bastions
and ivy-clad gates, which closed every ingress from Mongolia. Once
these defences must have been of enormous strength.

One night, after journeying for a long time, we camped in one of these
little mountain burgs, taking full possession, so that there should be
no treachery while it was dark. The night passed quietly, for even
fifty miles beyond Peking the terror lies heavy on the land, and in
the morning we wandered to the massive iron-clad gates and the tall
watch-towers which stood sentinel on either side to see if there was
anything to be had. How old these were, how very old! For, mounting
the staircase leading to the towers, we found that, although the rude
rooms beneath showed signs of having been recently occupied, the stone
steps which led to the roof-chambers were covered with enormous
cobwebs and great layers of dust, showing that nothing had been
disturbed for very many years. That was as it should be. At the very
top of one tower we discovered a locked door, and beating it in amid
showers of dust, we penetrated a room such as a witch of mediaeval
Europe would dearly have loved. Nothing but cobwebs, dust, flapping,
grey-yellow paper and decay. It was immensely old.

And yet we found something. For there were some chests hidden away,
and prizing these open, we discovered great books of yellow parchment,
so old and so sodden that they fell to pieces as soon as one touched
them. The