on the ground, to intimate to me
that in such a manner I must pass the night. Another offered me a pipe
of opium, which I knew it would be a great discourtesy, according to
their ideas, to decline, although I was quite unaccustomed to the
drug. I therefore took it and affected to smoke, and as I lay down,
they left the little room in which they had placed me, and I heard
them barricade the door outside.

I immediately fell into a profound slumber. The few whiffs of opium
which, despite of myself, I had inhaled, had their effect, and
produced a series of those magical dreams with which the drug tempts
and deceives the novice. Through all of them the idea of flight and
pursuit ran bewilderingly. I will give one as a specimen. I dreamt
that I was on the shore of the sea; the waters suddenly began to rise,
and threatened to overwhelm me. I turned and ran, but nearer and
nearer the flood came after. Then there yawned across my path a
precipice of which I could not see the bottom. Down I plunged. I
seemed to fly like a bird, and once more stood on firm ground. The
precipice seemed to reach to the sky behind me. I resumed my flight,
and looking back, beheld the flood leaping down the gulf in a mighty
volume, with the sun rising above it, and bathing the illimitable
cataract with golden light. It would be impossible to describe or
imagine the gorgeousness of the spectacle. With such visions as these
does the treacherous narcotic lure its victims. I believe its use is
forbidden by the Chinese military authorities, but the undisciplined
soldiers seemed to use it extensively when they could get it, like
tobacco.

CHAPTER V

I slept till the middle of the following day, and would in all
probability have slept longer but that I was awakened by my hosts, if
so I may term them. My clothes were quite dry; I got into them, and
was escorted outside at once. The first thing I saw was a detachment
of cavalry, mounted on little shaggy Tartar ponies. One of these I was
invited to bestride, and a moment afterwards, without the possibility
of explanations being either asked or given, we were _en route_.

I may as well say at once that the spot where I had come ashore was
the land below the West Port, and I was being conveyed to the
Man-tse-ying fort, one of the principal seaward fortifications. It has
an elevation of 266 feet above the sea level, and the latter part of
the ascent had to be made on foot. I was at once taken before