"We had been a number of days on the road,--our lives imperceptibly
growing into a closer and more intimate companionship as the days
ambled slowly away with the bleak snow-clad mountains that we left
behind.... Descending down the slopes into a fertile valley, the
hillsides terraced with a series of rice yards, and our paths softly
shaded with the mulberry tree.... Behind us was the white-fringed
mountain of the Lama, before us loomed the SACRED PINNACLE OF OMAY and
off to the south spread an ancient walled city with steeples pointing
heavenward surmounted by the CROSS.... Where the pagoda stood a
thousand years ago now rise the hospital and the Christian missionary
school.... Here the people walk on well-paved and broad sweeping
streets and the tourists spend their afternoons promenading along the
smooth and high and broad city wall.... As we approached this city
a stream of 'rickshas came dashing in our direction commanded by
the TALL slim 'lama' I had supposed we left behind!... The coolies
appeared to understand their parts.... Quickly making a circle around
us they pulled the women from their camels and tried to rope and bind
my 'prisoner' and myself.
"Of course we were in full view of the consular flags of a dozen
different nations; but that did not seem to bother the ringleader of
this tatterdemalion mob.... My 'prisoner' fought like a demon.... He
well remembered the lessons he received from Heath in the manly art of
self-defense.... Right and left he boxed like a well-trained
athlete delivering his dynamic punches well.... But finally the gang
overpowered him and turned their undivided attention to me.... I was
vainly attempting to reach the side of Maria and her sisters, whom
the tall bully was forcing into a waiting 'ricksha manned by two
barelegged men,--a dozen coolies pounced upon me, tore my clothing
into fragments, furrowed my face with their infernal nails and
actually attempted to bite me on the ears!..."
"I have no notion how well or hard I fought, but as I knocked one down
another took his place as I fought my way to the side of the now bound
and helpless girls.... Their hair was streaming down their backs,
their faces flushed, their eyes filled with tears ... that sight
maddened me!... I have been in many fights before, I have lain beside
the dead in Flanders and among the Balkan highlands, I have seen blood
flowing by me like a river,--and the thought of all these seemed to
electrify my soul and fill my veins with steel.... I tore madly right
and left.... I never struck such herculean blows before or since.
"I literally grabbed the tall man by the heels and whirled him round
like a flail and tore into that gang of snarling hellhounds with
cyclonic fury.... I literally mowed them down.... But finally a dull
thud sounded in my ears.... A wave of light blinded both my eyes.... I
knew nothing more until this morning when I awoke in a tent. Beside me
was a loaf of bread and a canteen of cool water.... NOT ANOTHER SIGN
OF A LIVING CREATURE IS IN SIGHT.... I am in a deep mountain gorge,
leading to the south along a narrow roadway that has apparently
witnessed the procession of unnumbered ages."