To a man accustomed during a long life to habits regulated by clockwork, the jar must have been especially sharp; yet before his neighbours had fairly begun to wonder how he would take it, he had made for himself a new routine of living, and he might have been observed each day doing the same things at the same hours—­smoking his afternoon cigarette as he leaned against a favourite pillar, or walking to and fro along a particular path—­thus setting an example of regularity in an irregular and stormy existence.

As every one expected, the Yamen soon attempted to communicate with him.  This they did several times, throwing letters over the wall during the night.  One enquired quite tenderly after the besieged; another asked him to send a message to London saying all was well with the Legations; a third calmly requested his advice about a ticklish matter of Customs business.  This latter he answered in detail—­just as if he had been in his own office—­and then threw the reply over the wall again.  It is interesting to know, by the way, that the “writer” who assisted him with these letters received L20 for his pains—­the highest pay ever earned by a literary man in China at one sitting.

But the message which the I.G. afterwards laughingly said was the most important—­as far as he personally was concerned—­went out of the Legation instead of coming into it.  Addressed to no Foreign Office and to no Commander-in-Chief, it contained neither diplomatic nor military secrets.  It was a domestic message pure and simple—­yet sent neither to relative nor intimate friend.  His tailor was, in fact, the man who received it.  “Send quickly,” the wire read, “two autumn office suits and later two winter ditto with morning and evening dress, warm cape and four pairs of boots and slippers.  I have lost everything but am well.  We have still an anxious fortnight to weather.—­HART, Peking, 5 August 1900.”

What a startling effect this message from the grave must have had upon people in England, who, having pictured the I.G. boiled in oil, found him quietly ordering clothes for a future which was still uncertain!  As it happened his forethought was providential, for the parcel of warm clothing arrived in Peking on the morning of October 26th, when the I.G. waked to find autumn changed to winter in a night, and the ground thickly powdered with snow.

The “anxious fortnight,” he spoke of was, after all, safely weathered.  On the night of August 13th, which happened to be fine and clear, the far-away guns of the relief force outside the city sounded so distinctly that all those in the Legation were aroused in a moment.  The sleepers sprang to their feet; and the sentries answered the welcome voices of the pom-poms, careless of their own long-saved ammunition.  Next day the relieving troops were in the city, and the besieged, in defiance of orders (the Chinese were still firing heavily), were out to meet them beyond the last barricade, and close by the historic water gate.  No words could adequately picture the intense excitement of that meeting; emotion touched for a moment the most unemotional, and I may say, without exaggeration, that there was not a dry eye, blue or black, nor a voice which could give a cheer without a break in it.