When I got back Jack was, of course, asleep; but he had been busy in my absence.  I found a note on my pin-cushion saying he had sent a wire to meet Billy’s steamer on its arrival at Yokohama and that I ’m to start alone for Japan in a day or two—­as soon as it seems safe to travel.

Next day.

Honey, there is a thrill a minute.  I may not live to see the finish, for the soldiers have mutinied and joined the mob, maddened with lust for blood and loot.  I must tell you about it while I can; for it is not every day one has the chance of seeing a fresh and daring young Republic sally up to an all-powerful dynasty, centuries old with tyranny and treasure, and say, “Now, you vamoose the Golden Throne.  It matters not where you go, but hustle; and I don’t want any back talk while you are doing it.”

If I was n’t so excited I might be nervous.  But, Mate, when you see a cruelly oppressed people winning their freedom with almost nothing to back them hut plain grit, you want to sing, dance, pray and shout all at the same time, and there is no mistake about young China having a mortgage on all the surplus nerve of the country.  Of course, the mob, awful as it is, is simply an unavoidable attachment of war.

All day there has been terrible fighting, and I am told the streets are blocked with headless bodies and plunder that could not be carried off.

The way the mob and the soldier-bandits got into the city is a story that makes any tale of the Arabian Nights fade away into dull myth.

Some years ago a Manchu official, high in command, espied a beautiful flower-girl on the street and forthwith attached her as his private property.  So great was her fascination, the tables were turned and he became the slave—­till he grew tired.  He not only scorned her, but he deserted her.  Though a Manchu maid, the Revolution played into her tapering fingers the opportunity for the sweetest revenge that ever tempted an almond-eyed beauty.  It had been the proud boast of her officer master that he could resist any attacking party and hold the City Royal for the Manchus.  Alas! he reckoned without a woman.  She knew a man outside the city walls—­a leader of an organization—­half soldiery, half bandits—­who thirsted for the chance to pay off countless scores against officers and private citizens inside.  After a vain effort to win back her lover, the flower-girl communicated with the captain of the rebel band, who had only been deterred from entering the city by a high wall twenty feet thick.  She told him to be ready to come in on a certain night—­the gates would be open.  The night came.  She slipped from doorway to doorway through the guarded streets till she reached the appointed place.  Even the sentries unconsciously lent a hand to her plan, in leaving their posts and seeking a tea-house fire by which to warm their half-frozen bodies.  The one-time jewel of the harem, who had seldom lifted her own teacup, tugged at the mighty gates with her small hands till the bars were raised and in rushed the mob.  She raced to her home, decked herself in all the splendid jewels he had given her, stuck red roses in her black hair, and stood on a high roof and jeered her lover as he fled for his life through the narrow streets.