The roar increased in vigour, and then hundreds of torches, dancing

like will-o'-the-wisps in front of our straining eyes, appeared far

down the Wang-ta, or so-called Customs Street, which separates Sir

R---- H----'s Inspectorate from the Austrian Legation. They were less

than a thousand yards away. The Boxers, casting discretion to the

winds, appeared to be once more advancing on the Legations. But then

came a shout from the Austrian Legation, some hoarse cries in guttural

German, and the big gates of the Legation were thrown open near us.

The night was inky black, and you could see nothing. A confused

banging of feet followed, then some more orders, and with a rattling

of gun-wheels a machine-gun was run out and planted in the very centre

of the street.

"At two thousand yards," sang out the naval lieutenant unexpectedly

and jarringly as we stood watching, "slow fire."

I was surprised at such decision. _Tang, tang, tang, tang, tang_, spat

the machine-gun in the black night, now rasping out bullets at the

rate of three hundred a minute, as the gunner under the excitement of

the hour and his surroundings forgot his instructions, now steadying

to a slow second fire. This was something like a counter-excitement;

we were beginning to speak at last. We were delighted. It was not so

much the gun reports which thrilled us as the resonant echoes which,

crackling like very dry fagots in a fierce fire as the bullets sped

down the long, straight street, made us realise their destroying

power. Have you ever heard a high-velocity machine-gun firing down

deserted and gloomy thorough-fares? It crackles all over your body in

electrical shocks as powerful as those of a galvanic battery; it

stimulates the brain as nothing else can do; it is extraordinary.

The will-o'-the-wisp torches had stopped dancing forward now, but

still they remained there, quite inexplicable in their fixity. We

imagined that our five minutes' bombardment must have carried death

and destruction to everyone and everything. And yet what did this

mean? The flames, which had been licking round near the cathedral,

suddenly burst up in a great pillar of fire. That was the answer; the

cathedral was at last alight. At this we all gave a howl of rage, for

we knew what that meant. The picquets had been mysteriously reinforced

by Frenchmen, Englishmen, and men of half a dozen other nationalities,

all chattering together in all the languages of Europe. "_Que faire,

que faire_," somebody kept bawling. "Get your damned gun out of the

way," shouted other angry voices, "and let us charge the beggars." But

Captain T----, the Austrian commander, was already conferring with a

dear colleague whom he had discovered in the dark. Even in this storm

of excitement the protocol could not be forgotten. Marines, sailors,

and Legation juniors groaned; was this opportunity to be missed? At

last they arranged it; it should be a charge of volunteers.

"Volunteers to the front," shouted somebody. Everybody sprang forward

like one man. A French squad was already fixing bayonets noisily and

excusing their rattle and cursing on account of the dark; the

Austrians had deployed and were already advancing. _"Pas de charge,"_

called a French middy. Somebody started tootling a bugle, and

helter-skelter we were off down the street, with fixed bayonets and

loaded magazines, a veritable massacre for ourselves in the dark....

The charge blew itself out in less than four hundred yards, and we

pulled up panting, swearing and laughing. Somebody had stuck some one

else through the seat of the trousers, and the some one else was

making a horrid noise about this trivial detail. Some rifles had also

gone off by themselves, how, why and at whom no one would explain. A

very fine night counter-attack we were, and the rear was the safest

place. Yet that run did us good. It was like a good drink of strong

wine.

But we had now reached the first torches and understood why they

remained stationary. The Boxers, met by the Austrian machine-gun, had

stuck them in long lines along the edge of the raised driving road,

and had then sneaked back quietly in the dark. Every minute we

expected to have our progress checked by the dead bodies of those we

had slain, but not a corpse could you see. The Austrian commander was

now once again holding a council of war, and this time he urged a

prompt retreat. We had certainly lost touch with our own lines, and

for all we knew we might suddenly be greeted with a volley from our

own people coming out to reinforce us. Our commanders wobbled this

way and that for a few minutes, but then, goaded by the general

desire, we pushed forward again, with a common movement, without

orders this time. We moved more slowly, firing heavily at every shadow

along the sides of the road. Here it seemed more black than ever, for

the spluttering torches, which cast a dim light on the raised road

itself, left the neighbouring houses in an impenetrable gloom. Whole

battalions of Boxers could have lurked there unmarked by us; perhaps

they were only waiting until they could safely cut us off. It was very

uncanny.

In front of us the flames of the burning Roman Catholic Cathedral rose

higher and higher, and the shouts and roars, becoming ever fiercer and

fiercer, could be plainly heard. Just then a Frenchman stumbled with a

muttered oath, and, bending down, jumped back with a cry of alarm. At

his feet lay a native woman trussed tightly with ropes, with her body

already half-charred and reeking with kerosene, but still alive and

moaning faintly. The Boxers, inhuman brutes, had caught her, set fire

to her, and then flung her on the road to light their way. She was the

first victim of their rage we had as yet come across. That made us

feel like savages. We were now not more than three hundred yards from

the cathedral, and in the light of the flames, which were now burning

more brightly than ever, we could see hundreds of figures dancing

about busily. We had just halted to prepare for a final charge when

something moved in front of us. "Halt," we all cried, marking our

different nationalities by our different intonations of the word. A

sobbing Chinese voice called back to us: "_Wo pu shih; wo pu shih_,"

which merely means, "I am not," leaving us to infer that he was

referring to the Boxers; and then without waiting for an answer the

night wanderer, whoever he might be, scampered away hurriedly. The

immediate result was that we opened a terrible fusillade in the

direction he had fled, our men firing at least a hundred shots. Many

mocking voices then called back to us from the shadows. There was

laughter, too. It was obviously hopeless trying to do anything in this

dark; so when a bugler trotted up from our lines with stern orders

from the French commandant for his men to retire, we all stumbled back

more than willingly We had gone out of our depth.

Meanwhile the flames spread farther and farther, until half the Tartar

city seemed on fire. All Peking awoke, and from every part confused

noises and a vast barking of dogs was borne down on us. What course

should we take, if the attack was suddenly carried all round our area?

The French Minister was by this time officially informed that native

Catholics were being butchered wholesale; that there were plenty of

men who were willing to go and rescue them, but that no one seemed to

have any orders, and that everyone was swearing at the general

incompetence. Absolute confusion reigned within our lines; the

picquets broke away from their posts; the different nationalities

fraternised under the excitement of the hour and lost themselves; and

it would have been child's play to have rushed the whole Legation

area. We felt that clearly enough.

It was not until well past midnight, and after several heated

discussions, that a relief party was finally organised; but when they

got to the cathedral there was hardly anything to see, for the

butchery was nearly over and the ruin completed. Several hundred

native Roman Catholics had disappeared, only a few Boxers were seen

and shot and a few converts rescued.

How well I remember the scene when this second expedition returned,

excited and garrulous as only Frenchmen can be. The French Minister

led them in. He explained to us that the Boxers had already absolutely

demolished everything--that it was no use risking one's self so far

from one's own lines any more--that it was a terrible business, but

_que faire_.... The French Minister did not hurry away, but stood

there talking endlessly. It was at once dramatic and absurd. Sir R----

H----, in company with many others, stood listening, however, with an

awestruck expression on his face. He carried a somewhat formidable

armament--at least two large Colt revolvers strapped on to his thin

body, and possibly a third stowed away in his hip pocket. From

midnight to the small hours there was a constant stream of our most

distinguished personages coming and looking down this street and

wondering what would happen next. It was not a very valiant spectacle.

In this curious fashion the memorable night of the 12th passed away,

with sometimes one picquet firing, sometimes another, and with

everybody waiting wearily for the morning. We had almost lost interest

by that time.

At half-past four the pink light began chasing away the gloom; the

shadows lightened, and day at last broke. At six o'clock native

refugees from the foreign houses that had been burned came slinking

silently in with white faces and trembling hands, all quite broken

down by terrible experiences. One gate-keeper, whose case was

tragically unique, had lost everything and everybody belonging to

him, and was weeping in a curious Chinese way, without tears and

without much contortion of features, but persistently, without any

break or intermission, in a somewhat terrifying fashion. His wife, six

children, his father and mother, and a number of relations had all

been burned alive--thirteen in all. They had been driven into the

flames with spears. Moaning like a sick dog, and making us all feel

cowardly because we had not attempted a rescue, the man sought refuge

in an outhouse. Sir R---- H---- was still standing at his post,

looking terribly old and hardly less distressed than the wretched

fugitives pouring in. His old offices and residences, where forty

years before he had painfully begun a life-long work, were all stamped

out of existence, and the iron had entered into his soul. A number of

the officers commanding detachments, and people belonging to various

Legations, attempted to glean details as to the strength of the Boxer

detachments from these survivors, but nobody could give any

information worth having. I noticed that no Ministers came; they were

all in bed!

At eight o'clock, still afoot, we heard that there was a deuce of a

row going on at the Ha-ta Gate, because it was still locked and the

key was gone. It now transpired that a party of volunteers, led by the

Swiss hotel-keeper of the place and his wife, had marched down to the

gate after the Boxers had rushed in, had locked it, and taken the key

home to bed, so that no one else could pay us their attentions from

this quarter. This is the simplest and the most sensible thing which

has been yet done, and it shows how we will have to take the law into

our own hands if we are to survive.

In this fashion the Boxers were ushered in on us. Most of us kept

awake until ten or eleven in the morning for fear that by sleeping we

might miss some incidents. But even the Boxers had apparently become

tired, for there was not a sign of a disturbance after midnight. In

spite of the quiet, however, the streets remain absolutely deserted,

and we have no means of knowing what is going to happen next.

X

BARRICADES AND RELIEFS

16th June, 1900.

* * * * *

We have entered quite naturally in these unnatural times on a new

phase of existence. It is the time of barricades and punitive

expeditions; of the Legations tardily bestirring themselves in their

own defence, and realising that they must try and forget their private

politics if they are even to live, not to say one day to resume their

various rivalries and animosities. Imperceptibly we are being impelled

to take action; we must do something.

We woke up late on the 14th to the fact that loopholed barricades had

been everywhere begun on our streets, as effective bars to the inrush

of savage torch-bearing desperadoes, each Legation doing its own work;

and that the Chinese Government, with its likes and dislikes, would

have to be seriously and cynically disregarded if we wished to

preserve the breath of life. So barricades have been going up on all

sides, excepting near the British Legation, where the same

indifference and sloth, which have so greatly contributed to this

_impasse_, still remain undisturbed. Near the Austrian, French,

American, Italian and Russian Legations barricade-builders are at

work, capturing stray Peking carts, turning them over and filling them

full of bricks. So quickly has the work been pushed on, that in some

places there are already loopholed walls three feet thick stretching

across our streets, and so cleverly constructed that carts can still

pass in and out without great difficulty. We are still on speaking

terms with the Chinese Government, but who knows what the morrow may

bring?

But although you may have gathered some idea of the general aspect of

Peking from what I have written, it is more than probable that you

have no clear conception of the Legation quarter and what this

barricading means. It seems certain that we will have to fight some

one in time, so I will try and explain.

Legation Street, or the _Chiao Min hsiang_, to give it the native

appellation, runs parallel to the Tartar Wall. Beginning at the west

end of the street--that is, the end nearest the Imperial City and the

great Ch'ien Men Gate--the Legations run as follows: Dutch, American,

Russian, German, Spanish, Japanese, French, Italian. Of the eleven

Legations, therefore, eight are in the one street, some on one side,

some on the other; some adjoining one another, with their enormous

compounds actually meeting, others standing more or less alone with

nests of Chinese houses in between. Apart from the eight Legations,

there are a number of other buildings belonging to Europeans in this

street, such as banks, the club, the hotel, and a few stores and

nondescript houses. Taking the remaining three Legations, the Belgian

is hopelessly far away beyond the Ha-ta Gate line; the Austrian is two

hundred yards down a side street on which is also the Customs

Inspectorate; and, finally, the British is at the back of the other

Legations--that is, to the north of the south Tartar Wall. The extent

of this Legation and its sheltered position make it a sort of natural

sanctuary for all non-combatants, since it is masked on two sides by

the other Legations, and is only really exposed on two sides, the

north and the west. Already many missionaries and nondescripts have

been coming in and claiming protection, and in the natural course of

events it must become the central base of any defence. Everyone sees

and acknowledges that.

At the two ends of Legation Street, the western Russo-American end and

the eastern Italian end, heavy barricades have already gone up. The

Dutch Legation, lying beyond the Russian and American Legations at

this west end of the street, being without any guards and protectors,

will, therefore, have to be abandoned immediately there is a rush from

the Ch'ien Men Gate. The Belgian Legation is naturally untenable, and

will also have to be sacrificed. The Austrian Legation is likewise a

little too far away; but for the time being a triple line of

barricades have gone up, having been constructed along the road

between this Legation and the Customs inspectorate. To-day, the 16th,

carts are no more to be seen on these streets; foot traffic is

likewise almost at an end. There is a tacit understanding that

everybody must act on the defensive.

Also every Chinaman passing our barricades is forced to provide

himself with a pass, which shows clearly his reason for wandering

abroad in times like this. There has already been trouble on this

score, for our system has had no proper trial....

Since the 14th and that dreadful first Boxer night, we have begun to

take affairs a good deal into our own hands, and have attempted to

strike blows at this growing movement, which remains so unexplained,

whenever an occasion warranted it--that is, those of us who have any

spirit. Thus, on the afternoon of the 14th, Baron von K---- took a

party of his marines on top of the Tartar Wall, pointed out to them a

party of Boxer recruits openly drilling below on the sandy stretch,

and gave orders to fire without a moment's hesitation. So the German

rifles cracked off, and the sands were spotted with about twenty dead

and dying. This action of the German Minister's at once created an

immense controversy. The timid Ministers unhesitatingly condemned the

action; all those who understand that you must prick an ulcer with a

lancet instead of pegging at it with despatch-pens, as nearly all our

chiefs have been doing, approved and began to follow the example set.

This is the only way to act when the time for action comes in the

East, and the net result is that we have been unendingly busy. There

have been expeditions, raids, and native Christians pouring in and

demanding sanctuary within our lines. One story is worth telling, as

showing how we are being forced to act.

Word came to us suddenly that the Boxers had caught a lot of native

Christians, and had taken them to a temple where they were engaged in

torturing them with a refinement of cruelty. One of our leaders

collected a few marines and some volunteers, marched out and

surrounded the temple and captured everybody red-handed. The Boxers

were given short shrift--those that had their insignia on; but in the

sorting-out process it was impossible to tell everybody right at first

sight. Christians and Boxers were all of them gory with the blood

which had flown from the torturing and brutalities that had been going

on; so the Christians were told to line up against the wall of the

temple to facilitate the summary execution in progress. Then a big

fellow rushed out of a corner, yelling, "I have received the faith."

Our leader looked at the man with a critical eye, and then said to him

in his quietest tones, "Stand up against the wall." The Boxer stood up

and a revolver belched the top of his head off. With that quickness of

eye for which he is distinguished, our leader had seen a few red

threads hanging below the fellow's tunic. The man, as he fell with a

cry, disclosed his sash underneath. He was a Boxer chief. At least

thirty men were killed here.

But it was at the Western Roman Catholic Cathedral that the most

exciting times up till now have been had, for there, as at the other

cathedral, the Boxers have been at work. The first relief expedition

went out during the night--that is, last night. Headed by some one

from the French Legation, the expedition managed to bring in all the

priests and nuns attached to the cathedral mission. Old Father

d'A----, a charming Italian priest, was the most important man

rescued. After having been forty years here, he surveys the present

scenes of devastation and pillage with the remark, "_En Chine il n'y a

ni Chretiens ni civilisation. Ce ne sont la que des phrases_." That is

what he said.

This morning a second relief corps, containing the most miscellaneous

elements, tramped away stolidly in the direction of the still smoking

cathedral ruins in the hopes of saving some more unfortunates, and our

expectations were soon realised. After a walk of a mile and a half, we

rounded a corner with the sound of much wailing on all sides, and ran

suddenly full tilt into at least two or three dozen Boxers, who have

been allowed to do exactly as they like for days. There was a fierce

scuffle, for we were down on them in a wild rush before they could get

away, and they showed some fight. I marked down one man and drove an

old sword at his chest. The fellow howled frightfully, and just as I

was going to despatch him, a French sailor saved me the trouble by

stretching him out with a resounding thump on the head from his Lebel

rifle. The Boxer curled over like a sick worm and expired. There was

not much time, however, to take stock of such minor incidents as the

slaying of individual men, even when one was the principal actor, for

everywhere men were running frantically in and out of houses, shouting

and screaming, and the confusion was such that no one knew what to do.

The Boxers had been calmly butchering all people who seemed to them to

be Christians--had been engaged in this work for many hours--and all

were now mixed up in such a confused crowd that it was impossible to

distinguish friends and foes. As they caught sight of us, many of the

marauders tore off their red sashes and fell howling to the ground, in

the hope that they would be passed by. Dozens of narrow lanes round

the ruined cathedral, which was still smoking, were full of Christian

families hiding in the most impossible places, and everywhere Boxers

and banditti, sometimes in groups, sometimes singly, still chased them

and cut them down. Numbers had already been massacred, and several

lanes looked like veritable shambles. The stench of human blood in the

hot June air was almost intolerable, and the sights more than we could

bear. Men, women and children lay indiscriminately heaped together,

some hacked to pieces, others with their throats cut from ear to ear,

some still moving, others quite motionless.

Gradually we collected an ever-growing mob of terror stricken people

who had escaped this massacre. Some of the girls seemed quite

paralysed with fear; others were apparently temporarily bereft and

kept on shrieking with a persistency that was maddening. A young

French sailor who did not look more than seventeen, and was splashed

all over with blood from having fallen in one of the worst places,

kept striking them two and three at a time, and cursing them in fluent

Breton, in the hope of bringing them to reason. "_Eh bien, mes belles!

Vous ne finissez pas_," he ended despairingly, and rushed off again to

see whether he could find any more.

The blood was rising to our men's heads badly by now, and I saw

several who could stand it no longer stabbing at the few dead Boxers

we had secured. We had none of us imagined we were coming to such

scenes as these; for nobody would have believed that such brutal

things were possible. When we judged we had finished rescuing every

one alive, a man in the most pitiable condition ran out from behind

the smouldering cathedral carrying a newly severed human head in

either hand. He seemed but little abashed when he saw us, but came

forward rapidly enough towards us, glancing the while over his

shoulder. Several sailors were rushing at him with their bayonets,

ready to spit him, when he fell on his knees, and, tearing open his

tunic, disclosed to our astonished eyes a bronze crucifix with a

silver Christ hung on it. "_Je suis catholique_," he cried to us

repeatedly and rapidly in fair French, and the sailors stayed their

cold steel until we had extracted an explication. Then it transpired

that he had used this horrible device to escape the notice of some

Boxers who were still at work in a street on the other side of the

cathedral. We ran round promptly on hearing this, and caught sight of

a few fellows stripped to the waist, and gory with blood as I have

never seen men before. Instead of fleeing, they met our charge with

resolution, and one tall fellow put me in considerable danger of my

life with a long spear, finally escaping before we could shoot him

down.

On this side the ruins of the cathedral were covered with corpses

burned black from the heat of the flames and exposure to the sun. One

woman, by some freak of nature, had her arms poised above her head as

she sat dead, shrivelled almost beyond human recognition. It was

probable that the Boxers had pitched many of their victims alive into

the flames and driven them back with their swords and spears whenever

they attempted to escape....

At last we got away with everybody who was still alive, as far as we

could judge. Tramping back slowly and painfully, the rescued looked

the most pitiable concourse I have ever seen. Somehow it was exactly

like that eloquent picture in "Michael Serogoff," showing the crowds

of Siberian prisoners being driven away by Feofar Khan's Tartars after

the capture of Omsk. Among our people there were the same old

granddames, wrinkled and white haired, supporting themselves with

crooked sticks and hobbling painfully on their mutilated feet; the

same mothers with their children sucking their breasts; the same

little boys and little girls laden with a few miserable rags; the same

able-bodied men carrying the food they had saved. The older people

gazed straight in front of them with the stolid despair of the

fatalist East, and did not utter a word. A woman who had given birth

to a child the very night before was being carried on a single plank

slung on ropes, with a green-white pallor of death on her features. I

have never taken part in such a remarkable procession as this.

Thus bloodstained and very weary we finally reached our Legation

quarter, and once again the energy and resolution of Dr. M----

expressed themselves. The grounds of the Su wang-fu, belonging to the

Manchu prince Su, where the first Boxer we had openly seen had sought

refuge a few days previously, were commandeered by him, and by evening

nearly a thousand Catholic refugees were crowded into its precincts.

All day people were labouring to bring in rice and food for their

people, and camp-fires were soon built at which they could cook their

meals. Several of the _chefs de mission_ were again much alarmed at

this action of ours in openly rescuing Chinese simply because they

were doubtful co-religionists. They say that this action will make us

pay dearly with our own lives; that the Legations will be attacked;

that we cannot possibly defend ourselves against the numbers which

will be brought to bear against us; that we are fools. Perhaps we are,

but still there is some comfort in discovering that this nest of

diplomacy still contains a few men.

Meanwhile there is not a word of news from S----, and there are

indications that our despatches to the Chinese Government, which are

being sent from every Legation more and more urgently, are hardly

read. The situation is becoming more and more impossible, and our

servants say it is useless bringing in any news, as there is such

confusion in the Palace that nobody knows anything reliable.

XI

SOME MEN AND THINGS

16th June, 1900.

* * * * *

No developments have taken place during the past few hours. So far

very few men have been conspicuous; and as it is these few who have

brought about the only developments, and outlined our position, and

that they are to-day all terribly tired, we have absolute monotony. I

have not heard what the German Minister has been doing, but it is

rumoured that he is engaged in trying to re-establish communication

with Tientsin and the sea by bribing the Tsung-li Yamen smaller

officials to take down packets of his despatches by pony-express. It

seems doubtful whether this will succeed. For all communication has

absolutely ceased now, and the Customs postal carriers say that it is

impossible to get through by any stratagem, as all the roads are

swarming with Boxers and banditti. The Chinese Government, in its few

despatches to some of the Legations, is clearly temporising and trying

to save itself. There is no means of knowing what is going on inside

the Palace, or of understanding what the Empress Dowager has decided.

Everybody says it is all topsy-turvydom now in the capital, and that

the most extraordinary reports are coming in from the provinces. Our

Chinese despatch writers, our Manchu servants, and the few natives who

come through our barricaded streets, all say the same thing--that it

is too soon to speak, but that the dangers are enormous. Meanwhile the

more timid of these people attached to the Legation area are sending

word that they are sick and cannot come any more. It is a polite way

of saying that they are afraid. I do not blame them, since anything

now is possible. You cannot surely ask men to sacrifice themselves

when they are only bound to you by the hire system. Such is the

external and general situation.

Within our own quarter things are much the same, developing naturally

along the line of least resistance.

Now that Prince Su's palace grounds have been openly converted into a

Roman Catholic sanctuary, hundreds of converts are pouring in on us

from everywhere, laden with their pots and pans, their beds, and their

bundles of rice; indeed, carrying every imaginable thing. The great

Northern Cathedral and Monseigneur F---- are in no danger, for the

time being at least, since the cathedral and its extensive grounds are

surrounded by powerful walls and the bishop has now got his fifty

guards and possibly a couple of thousand young native Catholics, who

can probably be armed and fight. So although it seems as if the whole

Roman Catholic population of Peking is pouring in on us, we are in

reality only getting a few hundred miserables who had no time to fly

to their chief priest when the storm caught them; we have to prepare

for the worst, as everything is developing very slowly.

Even in this matter of Chinese refugees the attitude of our foolish

Legations is rather inexplicable. Actually up to within a few days ago

some of the Ministers were still resolutely refusing to entertain the

idea that native Christians--men who have been estranged from their

own countrymen and marked as pariahs because they have listened to the

white man's gospel--could be brought within the Legation area. In

consequence of this hardly any Chinese Protestants have as yet come

in. Of course circumstance, the force of example, and a timidity in

the face of the growing irritation, have at length broken down this

weak-kneed attitude, but people have not yet finished discussing it.

For instance, there is a remarkable story about the well-known S----,

who wrote that celebrated book, "Chinese Characteristics." He turned

up at the British Legation late one evening, long before the Boxers

entered the Tartar city, and brought positive proof that unless S----

was hurried in we would all be murdered by a conspiracy headed by the

most powerful men. S---- was kept waiting for an hour, and then told

that no time could be spared to see him as everybody was busy writing

despatches! This is indeed our whole situation expressed in a trivial

incident; all the plenipotentiaries are trying to save their positions

and their careers by violent despatch-writing at the eleventh hour.

They know perfectly well that it is they alone who are responsible for

the present _impasse_, and that even if they come out alive they are

all hopelessly compromised. Young O---- told me that in their Legation

they were actually antedating their despatches so as to be on the safe

side! This shows how absolutely inexcusable has been the whole policy

for three entire weeks.

We do not know what is going on around us; we do not know of what the

Peking Court is thinking; we do not know by whom S---- has been

stopped. We know nothing now excepting that we are gradually but

surely getting so dirty that our tempers cannot but be vile. One

never realises how great a part soap and water play in one's scheme of

things until times like these. With upturned Peking carts blocking the

ingresses to our quarter; with everything disgruntled and out of

order; with native Christians crowding in on us, sensible heathen

servants bolting as hard as they can, ice running short, we, the

eleven Legations of Peking, await with some fear and trepidation and

an ever-increasing discomfort our various fates under the shadow of

the gloomy Tartar Wall. What is to be the next thing? I could possibly

imagine and write something about this were I not so tired.

XII

HELL HOUNDS

Night, 17th June 1900.

* * * * *

It is past twelve o'clock at night, but in spite of the late hour and

my fatigue--I have been dead tired for a week now--I am writing this

with the greatest ease, my pen gliding, as it were, over a surface of

ice-like slippiness, although my fingers are all blistered from manual

work. Why, you will ask? Well, simply because my imagination is afire,

and taking complete control of such minor things as the nerves and

muscles of my right arm, my eyes and my general person, it speeds me

along with astonishing celerity. Let your imagination be aflame and

you can do anything....

It began last night. No sooner had the gates which pierce the Tartar

Wall been closed by the Imperial guards, who still remain openly

faithful to their duties, than there arose such a shouting and roaring

as I have never heard before and never thought possible. It was the

Boxers. The first time the Boxers had rushed in on us, it was through

the Ha-ta Gate to the east of the Legations. Last night, after having

for three days toured the Tartar city pillaging, looting, burning and

slaying, with their progress quite unchecked except for those few

hundred rifle shots of our own, the major part of the Boxer

fraternity, to whom had joined themselves all the many rapscallions of

Peking, found themselves in the Chinese or outer city after dark, and

consequently debarred from coming near their legitimate prey. (The

gates are still always closed as before.) Somebody must have told them

that they could do as they liked with Christians and Europeans; for,

mad with rage, they began shouting and roaring in chorus two single

words, "_Sha-shao,"_ kill and burn, in an ever-increasing crescendo. I

have heard a very big mass of Russian soldiery give a roar of welcome

to the Czar some years ago, a roar which rose in a very extraordinary

manner to the empyrean; but never have I heard such a blood-curdling

volume of sound, such a vast bellowing as began then and there, and

went on persistently, hour after hour, without ever a break, in a

maddening sort of way which filled one with evil thoughts. Sometimes

for a few moments the sound sank imperceptibly lower and lower and

seemed making ready to stop. Then reinforced by fresh thousands of

throats, doubtless wetted by copious drafts of _samshu_, it grew again

suddenly, rising stronger and stronger, hoarser and hoarser, more

insane and more possessed, until the tympanums of our ears were so

tortured that they seemed fit to burst. Could walls and gates have

fallen by mere will and throat power, ours of Peking would have

clattered down Jericho-like. Our womenfolk were frozen with

horror--the very sailors and marines muttered that this was not to be

war, but an Inferno of Dante with fresh horrors. You could feel

instinctively that if these men got in they would tear us from the

scabbards of our limbs. It was pitch dark, too, and in the gloom the

towers and battlements of the Tartar Wall loomed up so menacingly that

they, too, seemed ready to fall in and crush us.

For possibly three or four hours this insane demonstration proceeded

apace. The Manchu guards listened gloomily and curiously from the

inside of the gates, but made no attempt to open them, but they

equally refused sullenly to parley with a strong body of sailors and

volunteers we sent with instructions to shoot any one attempting to

unlock the barriers. Yet it was evident that the guards had received

special instructions, and that the gates would not be handed over to

the mob.

A few minutes before midnight the sounds became more sullen, and

beneath the general uproar another note, one of those in distress,

began, as it were, like an undercurrent to this pandemonium. The cause

we had not long to seek, for presently flames began to shoot up, a

sight we were by now well accustomed to, though not in this purely

trading quarter of the city. The fire, started with savage disregard

in the very centre of the most densely populated street of the Chinese

city, spread with terrible rapidity. Soon both sides of Ch'ien Men

great street, just on the other side of the Tartar Wall, were

enveloped in raging flames, and a lurid light, growing ever brighter

and brighter, turned the dark night into an unnatural day.

Between the incendiaries and ourselves the great Tartar Wall stood

firm, but though this ancient defence against other barbarians was an

effective protection for us, it could not long remain immune itself.

The _lou_, or square pagoda-like tower facing the Chinese city side,

caught some of the thousands and tens of thousands of sparks flying

skywards, and it was not long before the vast pile was burning as

fiercely as the rest. The great rafters of Burmese teak, brought by

Mongol Khans six centuries before to Peking, were as dry as tinder

with the dryness of ages; and thus almost before we had noted that

the bottom of the tower was well alight the flames were shooting

through the roof and out through the hundreds of little square windows

which in olden days were lined by archers. Higher and higher the

flames leaped, until the top of the longest tongues of fire, pouring

out through a funnel of brick, was hundreds of feet above the ground

level. Only Vereschagin could have done justice to this holocaust; I

have never seen anything so barbarically splendid.

Meanwhile below this in the Chinese city all had become quiet, except

for the increasing and growing roar of the all-devouring flames. The

Boxers, as if appalled by their own handiwork and the mournful sight

of the capital in flames, had retreated into their haunts and had left

the unfortunate townfolk to battle with this disaster as they could.

From the top of the wall, which I hastily climbed as soon as I

obtained permission to leave my post, thousands and tens of thousands

of figures could be seen moving hurriedly about laden with

merchandise, which they were attempting to save. Busy as ants, these

wonderful Chinese traders were rescuing as much of their invested

capital from the very embrace of the flames as they could at a moment

when the Boxer patriots, menacing and killing them with sword and

spears as _san mao-tzu,_ or third-class barbarians who sold the cursed

foreigners' stuffs and products, had hardly disappeared.

Yet it seemed vain, indeed, to talk of salvage with half the city in

flames, for other fires now began mysteriously in other places, which

"lighted" the horizon. "_Tout Pekin brule_," muttered a French sailor

to me as I passed back to my post, and his careless remark made me

think that this was the Commune and Sansculottism intermixed--the

ends of two centuries tumbled together--because we foreigners had

upset the equilibrium of the Far East with our importunities and our

covetousness of the Yellow Man's possessions....

And what of S----, what of the Peking Government--what is everybody in

the outside world doing--the distant world of which we have so

suddenly lost all trace, while we are passing through such times? We

do not know; we have no idea; we have almost forgotten to think about

it. S---- was heard of twice some days ago from Langfang, a station

only forty miles from Peking, but why he does not advance, why there

is this intolerable delay, we do not know. The Peking Government is

still decreeing and counter-decreeing night and day according to the

Government Gazettes. The Ministers of our eleven Legations are meeting

one another almost hourly, and are eternally discussing, but are doing

nothing else. We have blocked our roads with barricades and provided

our servants and dependents with passes written in English, French,

German, Italian, Russian and Chinese--so that everyone can

understand. We are now sick of such a multitude of languages and wish

all the world spoken Volapuk.

Thus with our rescued native Christians, our few butchered Boxers, our

score and more of fires lighting the whole of the horizon, here in the

middle of the night of the 16th of June we are no further forward in

our political situation than we were two and a half weeks ago, when

our Legation Guards arrived, and we esteemed ourselves so secure. Two

and a half weeks ago! It seems at least two and a half months; but

that is merely the direct fault of having to live nearly twice the

proper number of hours in twenty-four.

XIII

A FEW CRUMBS

18th June, 1900.

* * * * *

It has just transpired that Hsu Tung, an infamous Manchu high

official, who has been the Emperor's tutor, and whose house is

actually on Legation Street some fifty yards inside the lines of the

Italian Legation, has been allowed to pass out of our barricaded

quarter, going quite openly in his blue and red official chair. This

is a terrible mistake which we may pay for dearly.

Hsu Tung is a scoundrel who is at least thorough in his convictions as

far as we are concerned. It is he who has long been boasting--and all

Peking has been repeating his boast--that in the near future he is

going to line his sedan chair with the hides of foreign devils and

fill his harem with their women; and it is he, above all other men,

who should have been seized by us, held as hostage, and shot out of

hand the very moment the Chinese Government gives its open official

sanction to this insane Boxer policy. Had we acted in this way and

taken charge of a number of other high officials who live just around

us, we might have shown the trembling government that a day of

retribution is certain to come. And yet listen what happened. Either

on the 15th or 16th Hsu Tung sent the majordomo of his household

cringing to the French Legation for a _passepartout_. He had already

tried once to escape by way of the Italian barricades, but had been

sternly ordered back, and his house placed under watch. Somehow,

through the foolishness of an interpreter of the French Legation, he

got his safe-conduct pass, and started out bold as brass in the

morning, seated in his official chair and accompanied by his official

outriders. He passed a first French barricade and reached an outer

second barrier manned by volunteers, who challenged him roughly and

then refused to let him pass.

The outriders then tried to ride our men down, and it needed a

rifle-shot to bring them to their senses. Fortunately nobody was hurt,

and presently the youthful volunteers had Hsu Tung himself out of the

chair, and kept him seated on the ground while they debated whether

they should respect the French pass or strap the great man up and send

him to their own quarters as a prisoner of war.

In the end, however, one of the secretaries came up and inquired what

it all meant, and then, of course, weak counsels prevailed, and Hsu

Tung was allowed to sneak off unmolested down a side lane.

This incident is typical as showing the stamp of men who have

commanding voices in our beleagued quarter.

God help us if any considerable force is sent against us, for we can

never help ourselves. Every proper-minded young man is a natural

soldier methinks, even in Anno Domini 1900, but every elderly person

in the same year of grace is quite valueless--that is what we have

already discovered.

And yet even to-day all the senior people in our Legation area--those

who are our guides and mentors--though they be secretly much alarmed,

are comforting themselves with a great deal of garrulous talk because

a letter has arrived from Tientsin--in fact, several letters have

arrived. This is the first reliable news we have had for many days,

and everybody seems now to imagine that we are safe. The chief item in

these fateful missives seems to be that the Roman Catholic Cathedral

at Tientsin has also been burned; that this was accompanied by

massacres of native converts; and that the riverine port is swarming

with Boxers. And there is no news of S----, no news of anything good.

What has become of him we cannot imagine. Yet Ministers, secretaries,

and elderly nondescripts are somewhat relieved, and go about nervously

smiling in a very ridiculous way. No one can quite make out why they

are relieved, excepting perhaps, that they are delighted to find that

the visible world still exists elsewhere, and goes on revolving on its

own axis in spite of our dilemma. Why should the obvious be so often

discovered?

Our poor Legation Guards and their commanding officers, with whom we

were so pleased a fortnight ago, are quite as crushed as everyone

else now--perhaps even more. You see the rank and file are merely a

crowd of uneducated sailors, who have not yet made head or tail of

what all this Peking _bouleversement_ means. They were suddenly

entrained and rushed up to Peking many days ago; they arrived in the

dark; they were crammed into their respective Legations as quickly as

possible; they have done a little patrol and picquet work on the

streets, and have stood expectantly behind barricades which they were

told to erect; but otherwise they are as completely at sea again as if

they were back to their ships.... In all the clouds of dust and smoke

around them, how can they understand? It is true I have rather a

grudge against some persons of the Legation defenders as yet unknown,

and think of them perhaps a little angrily, for, like all soldiery,

they loot. They have already taken my field-glasses, an excellent

revolver, and several other things during the confusion of the nights.

Of course this is the fortune of war, as all old campaigners will tell

you, but a more decent interval should have been allowed to elapse

before beginning the inevitable stripping process....

As for the detachment officers, some of them are very good fellows and

some of them are not; but already they have each of them instinctively

adopted the old attitude of the Legations towards one another. They

are mutually suspicious. The detachment officers are also considerably

tired and in very bad tempers, for the night has been turned into day

with a regularity which cannot leave anybody very happy. Then dirt is

accumulating, too, sad truth; and in the East you cannot feel dirty in

the summer and be happy. That is quite impossible....

Thus we are all in a very grunting frame of mind. The British Legation

appears to be at length hopelessly crowded with perspiring

missionaries of all denominations and creeds, who have suddenly come

in from beyond the barricades. Life must be quite impossible there.

The novelty of this experience has been worn off, and I for one would

welcome any change, either for better or worse. So long as it is only

a change....

XIV

THE ULTIMATUM

19th June, 1900.

* * * * *

How foolish we can be! Only last night I was bewailing the dulness and

the dirt of it all, and the general absurdity and discomfort, and now

without one qualm I confess I would willingly exchange yesterday's

uncertainty for to-day's certainty--that we are all going to be made

into mincemeat. But I do not even feel serious or desperate now; it

has got beyond that.

I do not know at what hour the ultimatum came to-day; it may have been

eleven in the morning or one in the afternoon; but one thing I do know

is, that here, at four in the afternoon, the great majority of one

thousand Europeans are shaking, absolutely distraught. It is evident

therefrom that there is something impressive and demoralising to most

people in the idea of finality, and that on the threshold of the

twentieth century, courage, since it is seldom dealt in, is hardly a

great living force. It makes one realise, too, that with all their

faults, the aristocrats of France, who, a hundred years ago, were

condemned to the shameful death of the guillotine and went in their

tumbrils through streets filled with cursing crowds of sansculottes,

with scorn and contempt written on their features, were rather

exceptional people. Things have changed since then, and the so-called

Americanisation of the world has not conduced to gallantry. Fortunate

are we that there is no white man's audience to watch us impassively,

and to witness the effects of this bombshell of an ultimatum which has

come to-day. There is nothing so humiliating as abject fear. Curiously

enough, the women bear it much better than the elder men, who are

openly distraught; and when I say women, I mean all the women, both

those belonging to the Legations and the dozens of missionary women

who have crowded in. Nearly everyone of them is better than the

elderly men; at least, they try and say nothing so as not to add to

the terrible confusion....

But the ultimatum--what is it, and against whom is it so summarily

directed? Briefly the ultimatum is a neat-looking document written on

striped Chinese despatch-paper, and comes from the Tsung-li Yamen, or

office charged with the overseeing of "the outside nations'

affairs"--which are the affairs of Europe. After very briefly

referring to a demand made by the allied admirals for a surrender of

the Taku forts off the muddy bar of the Tientsin River--about which we

know nothing--it goes on to say that as China can no longer protect

the Legations, the Legations will have to protect themselves by

leaving Peking within twenty-four hours, dating from to-day at four

o'clock. That is all. Not another word. Yet in other words this

document means this: that the demand of the admirals must have been

refused; that they would not have made it unless something disastrous

had happened to S---- and to Tientsin; that acts of war have already

been committed, and that it will be no longer a Boxer affair, but a

government affair. This makes our position desperate enough in all

truth. There is to be war.... The ultimatum was conveyed to the

eleven Legations and the Inspectorate-General of Foreign Customs in

twelve neat red envelopes by trembling _t'ing ch'ai_ of the Chinese

Government, and in spite of some attempt at first to hide its contents

was soon known by everyone. The twelve copies, indeed, were exactly

alike, twelve bombshells, which, bursting in twelve different parts of

our barricaded quarter, finally united their fumes until we were all

fairly suffocated. For we have either got to flee now or be butchered.

Mechanically all eyes were turned at once to the chiefs of the eleven

missions to China, who have brought things to such a pass, and

everybody demanded frantically that something should be done. People

lost control themselves and behaved insanely. It was not long before

the whole diplomatic body met--in a terrible gloom--at the Legation of

the Spanish Minister, who is the _doyen_ of the Corps, and soon a

tremendous discussion was raging. There were mutual recriminations,

and proposal after proposal was taken up and rejected as being too

dangerous. Nobody had for a moment dreamed that such a menace would

come so swiftly. Expectant crowds soon gathered round the gates of the

Spanish Legation, and attempted to find out what was being decided,

but the only thing I could learn was that brave Von K---- proposed at

once that the Ministers should go in a body to the Yamen and force the

Chinese Government to agree to an armistice. This was vetoed by all,

of course, and one gentleman openly wept at the idea. In the end, at

seven o'clock, when it was nearly dark, a joint Note was prepared,

saying that the Ministers could only accept the demand made on them

and prepare to leave Peking at once, but that twenty-four hours was

too short a notice in which to pack their trunks, and that, besides,

they must have some guarantees as to the ninety miles road to

Tientsin, which were so swarming with bandits that communication had

been completely interrupted. That is to say, the Ministers were

prepared to accept....

No sooner had this weak reply been despatched than a fresh wave of

consternation passed over the whole Legation quarter, for we now

number nearly a thousand white people in all, and we could never march

that distance to Tientsin unbroken. But beneath that wave of

consternation a fiercer note steadily rose--the note of revolt against

the decrees of eleven men. I cannot describe to you what an intensity

of passion was suddenly revealed. Muttering first, this revolt became

quite open and almost unanimous. All of us would have a fair fight

behind barricades and entrenchments, but no massacre of a long,

unending convoy. For picture to yourself what this convoy would be

crawling out of giant Peking in carts, on ponies and afoot, if it were

forced to go; we would be a thousand white people with a vast trail of

native Christians following us, and calling on us not to abandon them

and their children. Do you think we could run ahead, while a cowardly

massacre by Boxers and savage soldiery was hourly thinning out the

stragglers and defenceless people in the rear? Never!

Hardly anybody thought of eating all that long evening. Most of us

were trying to find out whether some sensible understanding could not

be arrived at; whether we could not prepare before it was too late.

But it was quite in vain to plan anything or attempt to think of

anything. Everything was so topsy-turvy, everybody so panic-stricken.

But as the night grew later and later, some people began busying

themselves packing boxes, still deluding themselves that they were

going to leave comfortably on the morrow as if nothing had happened.

Yet the world is really upside down as far as we are concerned, and it

is quite absolutely impossible that the situation should end so

normally as to find us quietly retreating down the Tientsin road.

Others kept sending out servants to discover at what price carts would

undertake to drive the whole way down to the sea, or at least to

Tientsin. Forty, fifty, and even one hundred taels were demanded for

three days' work; and then, although the carters said they would come

if the government sends proper escorts of soldiers as has been

promised, Heaven only knows if they will ever dare to move near our

stricken quarter. Still in some Legations they ordered fifty carts at

any price, with the most lavish promises of reward for those that

could manage to secure them. All the official servants soon came back

trembling, saying that they had found a few carts, but that it was _pu

yi t'ing_--not at all sure whether the carters would dare to move when

daylight came. For the whole city is already in a fresh uproar; people

are flying in every direction in the night. Stories come in of

officials who have been pulled out of their chairs and forced to

_K'et'ou_ to Boxers to show their respect to the new power. Prince

Tuan has been appointed President of the Tsung-li Yamen, high Manchus

have been placed in charge of the Boxer commands, and rice is being

issued to them from the Imperial granaries. There is no end to the

tales that now come in, since everybody has understood that there is

no need for concealment and that there is going to be some sort of

war. At two o'clock I even began to get news of what the Empress

Dowager had been doing, and how the Boxer partisans had become so

strong that it was absolutely impossible to hope for anything but the

worst.

Once when I got some details which I thought of importance, I tried to

find my chief in order to communicate it to him. But he was lost in

the middle of the night, conferring unofficially with some of his

colleagues; and I could but feel immensely amused when in his office I

saw that he had been scribbling some frenzied notes on the back of a

completed despatch, dealing with one of those petty little affairs

which were so important only the other day.

Ah, where are the dear little political situations of only a few weeks

ago; those safe little political situations which redounded so much to

the credit of those that made them and did not contain any of the

dread elements of our present very real and terrible one! Like

soldiers who have degenerated from the chasing of mere vagabonds of

mediocre importance, so have our Peking Ministers Plenipotentiary and

Envoys Extraordinary fallen from their proud estate to mere diplomatic

make-beliefs full of wind--wind-blown from much tilting at windmills,

with their Governments rescuing them Sancho Panza-like at the eleventh

hour....

But though for us there is still some hope, there is very little for

the wretched native Christians quartered in the palace grounds of

Prince Su, whom we have saved from the Boxers.

They soon heard the news, too, that the foreigner who has once saved

them is going--going away because he has been ordered to. All night

long there was an awful panic among these people which made one's

heart sick, for they understood better than us how quickly they would

be massacred once they left our care.

I shall never forget the night of the 19th of June, 1900, with all its

tragedy and tragi-comedy, though I live to be a hundred. It allowed me

to see something of real human nature in momentary flashes; of how

mean and full of fear we really are, how small and how easily

impressed. A hundred times I longed to have the time and the power to

set down exactly so that everyone might understand the incidents and

the sudden impulses which took place--all prompted by that master of

human beings--FEAR. That is why we worship heroes, or we pretend we

worship them, because it is the _culte_. For a moment these people who

have been set on pedestals were not afraid. Is it only the power not

to be afraid which makes one a hero?

XV

THE DEBACLE BEGINS

20th June, 1900.

* * * * *

It is notorious that in moments of tension, when the mind has been

stimulated to too great an activity by unhealthy excitement, you think

of the most curiously assorted things--in fact, of absurd things which

are quite out of place. I have been thinking the whole time of

something very stupid which is only fiction: That a Zulu, named

Umslopagas, rode and ran one hundred miles in a single night and then

refreshed himself sufficiently by a couple of hours' sleep to deliver

battle with such vigour at the head of a marble staircase, that he

saved the haggard hero. That is what I have been thinking of....

We of Peking are, unfortunately, not of the mettle of Zulus, and as

far as I am personally concerned, three hours' sleep is but the

appetite-giver for five hours more. And so on this fateful 20th June,

with the time limit of our ultimatum expiring at four o'clock, I got

up in no sort of valorous spirit, and with the feeling that tragedies

outside the theatre--at least those that spin themselves out for an

indefinite number of days--are quite impossible for us Moderns. But,

then, probably everybody has always thought the same thing--even those

who lived before the Renaissance.

At eight o'clock everyone was once more afoot, although most have

hardly had a wink of sleep. All over our Legation quarter, dusty and

dirty men, unwashed and unbathed, now squatted along the edge of the

streets, hanging their weary heads against their rifles, with their

faces very white from too much sentry-go and too little sleep. There

is little distinction between sailors and Legation people, for we are

all in the same dilemma. On this eventful 20th of June, instead of

being resolute and alert, everybody is merely tired and weakened by a

couple of weeks' watchfulness against Boxers during an unofficial

semi-siege, a state of affairs which has quite unfitted us for fresh

strains. Yet beyond our barricades of upturned carts and stolen

building-bricks all was quiet and peaceful, and hardly a thing moves.

It seemed as if we had been only dreaming.... Wandering down beyond

the eastern end of Legation Street, which gives you the most view of

the mysterious world around the great Ha-ta Street, which the Boxers

have conquered, indeed you find everything practically deserted, the

people having learned that it is best to stay indoors until this

crisis is solved in some manner. Occasionally a rag-picker, or some

humble person so little separated from the life hereafter that to push

a trifle closer does not spell much peril, can be seen hooking up rags

and whatnots from the piles of Peking offal. If you speak to him he

gives an unintelligent _pu chih tao_--"I do not know"--and moves

boorishly on. As my old Chinese writer said a week ago, Peking has

never been in such a state of topsy-turvydom since the robber who

unseated the Ming dynasty rushed in two and a half centuries ago....

Going on top of the great Tartar Wall and gazing down on the scene of

devastation and ruin beyond the Ch'ien Men Gate, one can hardly

believe one's eyes, for where there was once a mighty bustle one now

sees thousands of houses with nothing but their walls standing and

charred timbers strewing the grounds. The great burned tower which

blazed so wondrously a few nights ago is still half standing, its

mighty brickwork too powerful and too proud to succumb totally to the

flames' destroying energy. Gaunt and hollow-eyed, the old Tartar tower

surveys the scene somewhat contemptuously, as if saying that the pigmy

men of to-day are far removed from the paladins of old and their

works....

Quiet and perfectly silent it all looks--but below the tower, and,

indeed, on all sides as far as the eyes can see, some search shows

little ants of men are at work in the ruins--not moving much, but

bobbing up and down with unending energy and regularity. They are the

beggars of Peking in their hundreds and thousands salving what they

can from all this immense destruction by poking deep holes into the

ruins and pulling out all manner of things from under the mass of

bricks and rubbish. In the conserving hands of the Chinaman nothing is

ever irremediably destroyed....

Looking far to the east, even the Ha-ta Gate, where no harm has been

done, does not show much movement. The carts passing in and out are

very few and far between, and the dust which in ordinary times floats

above the din and roar of the gates in heavy clouds is to-day

seemingly absent. Even our Peking dust is awed by the approaching

storm and nestles close to Mother Earth, so that it may come to no

harm.

The more I looked the more observant I became. The sun lolling up in a

red ball, the birds, twittering and flying about while the heat of the

day is not severe, showed themselves in a new light; and thus the 20th

June is ushered in so complaisantly, when all the world of men appear

merely tired and watchful, that the contrast makes one wonder, and at

nine o'clock once more our Ministers Plenipotentiary and our _Charges

d'Affaires_ gather their eleven estimable persons together at the

Legation of the _doyen_. For yesterday's Ministerial reply agreeing to

the Manchu order to vacate the capital, if certain conditions were

fulfilled, had begged for an urgent answer by nine o'clock regarding

the little counter-demands for a time-extension, and a definite

arrangement concerning the Chinese troops who are to be the safe

conduct along the Tientsin road. Nine o'clock has come, but alas! with

it there is no neat Chinese despatch on striped paper which would so

relieve our Ministerial feelings. The Chinese Government remains

grimly silent, for the Chinese Government has spoken plainly once, and

never within the memory of man has it done so on two consecutive

occasions. So the eleven Ministers meet once more in anything but a

happy frame of mind--eleven sorely tried and wholly fearful persons,

except for two or three who vainly try to instill some courage into

the others. All idea of completing the packing commenced last night

has vanished; even that would demand action and resolution. A proposal

to visit the Tsung-li Yamen in a body is set aside with nervous

protestations once more. The meeting thereupon became very stormy, and

the French Minister was kind enough to report afterwards that the

British Minister became thereafter very red--_il est devenu

soudainement tres rouge_, for what reason is unknown. S----, who did

the minutes afterwards, said that the French Minister volunteered to

go with the others if they would proceed in a body, and became very

pale at the idea, that he confessed himself. Here we have, then, a

red Minister and a white Minister, and if we add those who were most

certainly blue and green, the national flags of the entire assembly

could be fitly made up. The French Minister, although simply a

_citoyen_ sent by the Republic to intrigue in times of peace, and aid

his Russian colleague to the best of his ability, is a man withal,

although quite unfitted _de carriere_ for wars and sieges. In the

French Legation he has been receiving such tearful instructions from

his wife during the past three weeks that it is a wonder he has any

backbone at all....

The meeting became stormier and stormier as it went on, S---- says,

until old C---- argued that the only way to decide was to put

everything to the vote. Every vote put was promptly lost, and after an

hour's haggling they had got no farther than at the beginning!

The dramatic moment came when Baron Von K---- got up and stated shortly

that as he had a previous appointment with the Tsung-li Yamen at

eleven o'clock, in spite of the ultimatum and a possible state of

war--in fact, in spite of everything--it was his intention to keep his

appointment, cost what it might. The others urged him not to go, for

they must have been feeling rather ashamed of themselves and their

overvalued lives. But K---- insisted he would go; he had said so once,

and did not intend to allow the Chinese Government to say he broke an

appointment through fear.

S----, who told me the whole story a few hours afterwards, said that

he added that as soon as his own personal business was finished, he

would attend to the general question of the Legations' departure from

Peking, if the diplomatic corps would give him authority. As time was

pressing they gave it to him promptly enough. I remember everything

that happened afterwards with a very extraordinary accuracy of detail,

because I had just walked past the Spanish Legation when the

Ministerial meeting broke up, and I had determined to follow any move

in person so as to know what our fate was to be.

The German Minister turned into his Legation, and after a time he

reappeared in his green and red official chair, with C----, the

dragonman, in a similar conveyance. There were only two Chinese

outriders with them, as Von K---- had refused to take any of his

guards. I remember Von K---- was smoking and leaning his arms on the

front bar of his sedan, for all the world as if he were going on a

picnic. The little _cortege_ soon turned a corner and was swallowed

up. I walked out some distance beyond our barricades with Baron R----,

of the Russian Legation, and we wondered how long he would take to

come back. We soon knew! How terrible that was! For not more than

fifteen minutes passed before, crashing their Manchu riding-sticks

terror-stricken on to their ponies' hides, the two outriders appeared

alone in a mad gallop and nearly rode us down. Through the barricades

they passed, yelling desperately. It was impossible to understand what

they were saying, but disaster was written in the air.

At this we started running after these two men, but when we reached

the corner of the French Legation the people there had already

understood, and said the German Minister had been shot down and was

stone-dead. Everybody was paralysed.

Meanwhile the outriders had reached the German Legation and had flung

themselves, disordered, from their sweating ponies. The men of the

Legation Guard were swarming round them and questioning them roughly

when I came up, but there was nothing further to be learned about Von

K----. A shot had passed through his chair and he had never moved

again, while other shots struck all round. C----, the dragonman,

dripping with blood, had run round a corner closely pursued by Chinese

riflemen. What happened to him they cannot say, for they, too, would

have been shot had they not fled. The tragedy was so simple, but so

crushing, that we all stood dazed. Our one man of character and

decision was dead--lost beyond recall!

A quarter of an hour after this half the German detachment was

marching rapidly down Customs Street, with fixed bayonets and an air

of desperation on their harsh Teutonic faces. They were determined to

try and at least save the body. I thought of going with them, too, but

a moment's thought told me there were other things which were now more

pressing. I went and gave some attention to the contents of

despatch-boxes which no one else had a right to see....

The detachment reached the scene of the murder led by a trembling

outrider. Drops of blood were found on the ground; the Peking dust was

scraped this way and that, as if it had only been made an accomplice

unwillingly and with a violent struggle too; but the sedan-chairs, the

bearers, the murderous soldiers, and every other trace had vanished

completely. To question people was impossible, since everyone was

keeping closely indoors and barred entrances everywhere met the eye.

The Peking streets have become so lonely and deserted that not even a

dog allows himself to be entrapped in the open. Later I heard that

C---- had escaped, although terribly wounded.

The detachment tramped back stolidly, and would not answer a word when

spoken to, for German despair is very gloomy. The remaining

Plenipotentiaries at last understood the nature of the game that was

being played, and realised that we were down to the naked and crude

facts of life and death. Their confounded vacillation has alone

brought us to this pass. They do realise it now, and they are made to

realise it more and more by the savage looks everyone has been giving

them....

The departure for Tientsin half-acquiesced in but fifteen short hours

ago is no longer thought of, for what the Ministers propose to do now

interests no one. After impotently attempting to deal with questions

for which they were in no wise fitted they have resigned themselves to

the inevitable, and have become mere pawns like the rest of us.

Fortunately the men who are men begin to work with frenzied energy,

rushing about collecting food and materials. S----, the first

Secretary of the American Legation, began it, and soon stood out with

some insistence. He guesses with no one contradicting him that rice is

useful, that flour is still more useful, and that every pound we can

find in the native shops should be taken. The obvious is often

somewhat obscure in times like these, and the men who act are very

laudable. There is no denying it that on this 20th the Americans

showed more energy than anybody else, and pushed everybody to sending

out their carts and bringing in tons upon tons of food. Every shop

containing grain was raided, payment being made in some cases and in

others postponed to a more propitious moment. The American

missionaries concentrated in a fortified missionary compound a couple

of miles from us, and the last people to remain outside were hastily

sent for, given twenty minutes in which to pack their things, and

marched in as quickly as possible by a guard of American marines.

There were seventy white men, women and children, and countless herds

of native schoolgirls and converts. Their reports were the last we

got. Vast crowds of silent people had watched them pass through the

eastern Tartar city to our Legation lines without comment or without

hostility. Gloomily the Peking crowd must have watched this strange

convoy curling its way to a safer place, the missionaries armed in a

droll fashion with Remingtons and revolvers, and some of the converts

carrying pikes and carving-knives in their hands, for the Peking crowd

and Peking itself has been, and is being, terrorised by the Boxers and

the Manchu extremists, and is not really allied to them--of that we

all are now convinced. But C----, who was so nearly massacred, came in

too with the American missionaries. He managed somehow, after he was

shot in a deadly place, to half-run and half-crawl until he was picked

up and carried into the American missionary compound. From what I

heard, he knows nothing more about the death of the German Minister.

It was only a few hours ago, and yet it already seems days!

All the non-combatants were now rushed into the British Legation, and

to the women and children join themselves dozens of men, whose place

should be in the fighting-line, but who have no idea of being there.

Lines of carts conveying stores, clothing, trunks and miscellaneous

belongings were soon pouring towards the British Legation, and long

before nightfall the spacious compounds were so crowded with

impedimenta and masses of human beings that one could hardly move

there. It was a memorable and an extraordinary sight.

The few Chinese shops that had been until now carrying on business in

our Legation quarter in spite of the semi-siege and the barricades in

a furtive way, were soon quietly putting up their shutters--not

entirely, but what they call three-quarters shut after the custom on

their New Year holidays, when they are not supposed to trade, but do

trade all the same. The shop-boys, slipping their arms into their long

coats and dusting off their trousers and shoes after the Peking manner

with their long sleeves, made one feel in a rather laughable sort of

way that finality had been reached! They had that curious half-laugh

on their faces which signifies an intense nervousness being politely

concealed. Up to three o'clock these complaisant shopmen were still

selling things at a purely nominal price, which was not entered in the

books, but quietly pocketed by them for their own benefit. Having

completed my own arrangements, I began idly watching their actions,

they were so curious. At three o'clock sharp the last shutters went

up, the last shopman pasted a diamond-shaped Fu, or Happiness, of red

paper over the wooden bars, and vanished silently and mysteriously. It

was for all the world once again exactly like the telegraph-operator

in "Michael Strogoff," when the Tartars smash in the front doors of

his office and seize the person of the hero, while the clerk coolly

takes up his hat and disappears through a back door. These Chinese had

done business in the very same way, until the very last moment--the

very last.

And not only are the few shopmen slipping away, but also numbers of

others within our lines who had been half-imprisoned during the past

week by our barricades and incessant patrolling. Men, women, and

children, each with a single blue-cloth bundle tied across their

backs containing a few belongings, slip away; gliding, as it were,

rapidly across the open spaces where a shot could reach them, and

scuttling down mysterious back alleys and holes in the walls, the

existence of which has been unknown to most of us. This time the rats

are leaving the sinking ship quietly and silently, for a quiet word

passed round had informed everyone of what is coming, and no one

wishes to be caught. This is the sort of silent play I love to watch.

Just before this, however, down beyond the Austrian Legation came a

flourish of hoarse-throated trumpets--those wonderful Chinese

trumpets. Blare, blare, in a half-chorus they first hang on a high

note; then suddenly tumbling an octave, they roar a bassoon-like

challenge in unison like a lot of enraged bulls. Nearer and nearer, as

if challenging us with these hoarse sounds, came a large body of

soldiery; we could distinctly see the bright cluster of banners round

the squadron commander. Pushing through the clouds of dust which

floated high above them, the horses and their riders appeared and

skirted the edge of our square. We noted the colour of their tunics

and the blackness of the turbans. Two horsemen who dismounted for some

reason, swung themselves rapidly into their saddles, carbine in hand,

and galloped madly to rejoin their comrades in a very significant way.

For a moment they half turned and waved their Mannlichers at us,

showing their breast-circle of characters. They were the soldiers of

savage Tung Fu-hsiang, and were going west--that is, into the Imperial

city. The manner in which they so coolly rode past fifty yards away

must have frightened some one, for when I passed here an hour later

the Austrian Legation and its street defences had been suddenly

abandoned by our men. We had surrendered, without striking a blow, a

quarter of our ground! I remember that I was only mildly interested at

this; everything was so _bouleverse_ and curious that a little more

could not matter. It was like in a dream. Tramping back, the Austrian

sailors crowded into the French Legation and all round their lines and

threw themselves down. One man was so drunk from lack of sleep that he

tumbled on the ground and could not be made to move again. Everybody

kicked him, but he was dead-finished and could be counted out. This

was beginning our warfare cheerfully.

On top of the Austrians a lot of volunteers came in at a double, very

angry, and cursing the Austrians for a retreat which was only

discovered by them by chance. Like so many units in war-time, these

volunteers had been forgotten along a line of positions which could

have been held for days. Nobody could give any explanation excepting

that Captain T----, the Austrian commander, said that he was not going

to sacrifice his men and risk being cut off, when there was nobody in

command over the whole area. T---- was very excited, and did not seem

to realise one thing of immense importance--that half our northeastern

defences have been surrendered without a shot being fired.

At the big French barricades facing north an angry altercation soon

began between the French and Austrian commanders. The French line of

barricades was but the third line of defence here, and only the

streets had been fortified, not the houses; but by the Austrian

retreat it had become the first, and the worn-out French sailors would

have hastily to do more weary fatigue-work carting more materials to

strengthen this contact point. I remember I began to get interested in

the discussion, when I found that there was an unfortified alley

leading right into the rear of this. It would be easy at night-time to

rush the whole line.

Meanwhile nobody knew what was going to happen. All the Ministers,

their wives and belongings, and the secretaries and nondescripts had

disappeared into the British Legation, and the sailors and the

volunteers became more and more bitter with rage. A number of young

Englishmen belonging to the Customs volunteers began telling the

French and Austrian sailors that we had been _trahis_, in order to

make them swear louder. I know that it was becoming funny, because it

was so absurd when ... bang-ping, bang-ping, came three or four

scattered shots from far down the street beyond the Austrian Legation.

It was just where Tung Fu-hsiang's men had passed. That stopped us

talking, and as I took a wad of waste out of the end of my rifle I

looked at my watch--3.49 exactly, or eleven minutes too soon. I ran

forward, pushing home the top cartridge on my clip, but I was too

late. "_A quatre-cents metres_," L----, the French commander, called,

and then a volley was loosed off down that long dusty street--our

first volley of the siege.

Our barricades were full of men here, and it was no use trying to push

in. I postponed my own shooting, for after a brisk fusillade here,

urgent summons came from other quarters, and I had to rush away....

The siege had begun in earnest. I record these things just as they

seemed to happen. We are so tired, my account cannot seem very

sensible. Yet it is the truth.