But it would only be needlessly harrowing to dwell on the sights of horror we encountered at every turn.  We pressed on, rapidly yet cautiously, our feet dabbling in blood wherever we trod.  As we proceeded down a street about ten feet broad, we heard in front sounds as of voices shouting and singing.  The avenue we were in took a turn about fifteen yards in advance of us, and as we hesitated and finally stopped, there appeared round it a body of men in whom we at once recognized the Japanese soldiers.  There was a low but wide doorway on our right, and into it we at once slipped with no trifling celerity.  It was intensely dark and offered a good concealment.  We could not afford to extinguish our lantern, and I placed it behind an angle of the inner wall where it was impossible that its glimmer could be seen from the street.  Crouching in the deep shadow, we anxiously awaited the passing of the soldiers, whose voices we heard momentarily approaching, shouting at their full pitch a discordant song, accompanied by a loud ringing sound which at first I mistook for that of some instrument.  They were soon abreast of us, some twenty or thirty in number.  I scarcely breathed as the ferocious band went trooping past.  Their appearance was ghastly and terrible beyond conception.  They were literally reeking from the shambles of inhuman butchery; their clothes and weapons were smeared and clotted with blood; some held human heads aloft on their bayonets; the lanterns which most of them carried, and swung to and fro as they marched, threw on their repulsive figures and savage Oriental faces, their white teeth, oblique eyes, and sallow countenances, a weird, wavering light, appropriate to their infernal aspect; they looked more like demons than like men.  The foremost, who appeared to be dismounted dragoons, were clashing their sabres together in a kind of accompaniment to the yelling chant in which they all joined.  On they went, trampling the dead with whom their bestial ferocity had strewn the devoted town, the sound of their high shrill voices and the ring of the clashing steel being audible for some time after they had passed out of sight.  At length it died away and all was still again, so silent that I seemed to hear the quick and heavy throbbing of my heart.

After waiting two or three minutes I told Chung to take the lantern so that we might set out again.  He did so, but as he was about to step from the doorway he tripped over some object concealed by the darkness and fell:  it was a dead body.  I examined it by the lantern-light.  There were several deep bayonet wounds and a terrific sabre-slash across the face which had completely destroyed the left eye.  The abdomen was abominably mutilated.  A knife was clenched in the right hand of the victim, showing that he had not died without an effort to defend himself.  I swung the lantern about the recess, and perceived further back three or four steps, ascending to a door slightly open.  These steps were covered with